UP Journals (Univ. of Pretoria)
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Prompting change: Reflections on third-year archaeology students use of generative AI at a distance university
No full textGenerative AI (GenAI) has undeniably become part of a continuum of everyday use with apps, chatbots and curated content to optimise online experiences. In higher education, AI is reshaping teaching pedagogies and holds the potential to augment learning and provide personalised learning experiences. However, an ongoing challenge is getting students to make the connection that GenAI is a tool to support learning, rather than a crutch to replace thinking processes. This paper draws on Kolb’s experiential learning theory to assess personal experiences of teaching undergraduate archaeology to students in the era of GenAI. Using reflection as a method with Driscoll’s three-step reflection cycle, this reflection provides insight into the pedagogical implications of over-reliance on GenAI tools. Reflection further serves as an (introspective) didactic tool for assessing teaching strategies for scaffolding responsible use of GenAI. Based on the nuanced insights, the reflection suggests that a prompt, copy and paste approach characterises student use of these tools. The pedagogical challenges for fostering the suite of critical thinking skills pertinent in archaeology and history education are also highlighted
Following Digital Footprints: Researching South African Digital Poetry
No full textContemporary scholarship increasingly recognises the need to document the growing corpus of African literature being produced and distributed via social media and other online platforms. In African literature and the future, Ogundipe (2015) declared that: In the search for a viable path for the future of African literature, a well-crafted vision of the future and effective strategies to engender transformation are imperative. This raises the practical application of the digital space, the internet and related innovative technology as new paradigms of knowledge to African literary engagement. But the absence of a critical standard remains a bane of this development. To address this critical imperative and further explore the prevalence of such works, I collected a dataset to find examples of literary trends and key recent examples of significant works, informed by Moretti\u27s scholarship on distant reading. The dataset focuses on poetry written by younger South African authors from the Born Free Generation, in line with my broader research. The main purpose of this paper is to present my findings and the theoretical and methodological framework that informed them. The paper concludes by briefly proposing some possible means of expanding this research and proposing a large-scale online archival project.
An exploration of the computational identification of English loan words in Sesotho
No full textSouth Africa, with its twelve official languages, is an inherently multilingual country. As such, speakers of many of the languages have been in direct contact. This has led to a cross-over of words and phrases between languages. In this article, we provide a methodology to identify words that are (potentially) borrowed from another language. We test our approach by trying to identify words that moved from English into Sesotho (or potentially the other way around). To do this, we start with a bilingual Sesotho-English dictionary (Bukantswe). We then develop a lexicographic comparison method that takes a pair of lexical items (English and Sesotho) and computes a range of distance metrics. These distance metrics are applied to the raw words (i.e., comparing orthography), but using the Soundex algorithm, an approximate phonological comparison can be made as well. Unfortunately, Bukantswe does not contain complete annotation of loan words, so a quantitative evaluation is not currently possible. We provide a qualitative analysis of the results, which shows that many loan words can be found, but in some cases lexical items that have a high similarity are not loan words. We discuss different situations related to the influence of orthography, phonology, syllable structure, and morphology. The approach itself is language independent, so it can also be applied to other language pairs, e.g., Afrikaans and Sesotho, or more related languages, suchas isiXhosa and isiZulu
Preface to the Proceedings of RAIL 2025
No full textThe sixth workshop on Resources for African Indigenous Languages (RAIL) was held on 10 November 2025 at the CSIR International Convention Centre in Pretoria, South Africa. It was co-located with the Digital Humanities Association of Southern Africa (DHASA) 2025 conference, which took place from 11 to 14 November 202
Impact of climate change on the rights to health and life of persons with albinism: What are South Africa\u27s obligations?
No full textClimate change significantly threatens the health and lives of people with albinism, affecting both their physical and mental well-being. Elevated ultraviolet radiation increases visual impairments and susceptibility to skin cancer, while climate-related disasters further limit access to healthcare. Despite these multifaceted challenges, states in their capacity as duty-bearers are obligated under human rights and climate change frameworks to not only uphold their climate change mitigation and adaptation duties but also their duty to respect, protect, promote, and fulfil the individual’s rights. These obligations as the article submits are related – with the climate change obligations influencing the human rights ones. Heeding the clarion call that ‘no one is left behind’, South Africa has established legal mechanisms to mitigate the impacts of climate change on the rights of persons with albinism, ensuring that they adapt to climate change by undertaking practical measures, such as the provision of protection packages. However, the state’s efforts fall short of achieving full disability inclusivity for persons with albinism in climate related decision-making processes, leading to their marginalisation.
The SANDF after 30 years : Walking the tightrope between external and internal operations on a shoestring budget
Get PDFSince 1994 the South African government’s commitment to peace and security in Africa inexorably drew the South African National Defence Force (SANDF) into extensive involvement in multinational peacekeeping operations. These external operations clearlyaligned the South African government with its articulated objectives concerning the pursuit of peace on the African continent and its (moral) intention and responsibility to act in a leading role on the continent. However, a dwindling defence budget and the burden of a high-tech force design increasingly impacted negatively on the SANDF to maintain and develop a sustainable capability geared for regional external operations. Yet, in the domestic context the government also increasingly expected the SANDF to render support to the SAPS as murder and death rates are comparable and, in some instances, even higher than death rates in high-intensity war zones in the international community. This simply means that the SANDF has the almost impossible task of balancing its demanding regional deployments with ongoing appeals by politicians and elements of the public for the SANDF to be of assistance in hotspots of high levels of criminality where the SAPS is unable to protect South Africans in accordance with the requirements of the Constitution. In the final analysis, the article concludes that there is a mismatch between what has been expected of the SANDF in the past three decades from its political masters on the one side, and its budget and related capabilities on the other
Theories of War and the African context: Whither strategic theory?
Get PDFThis article explores the state of strategic theory in relation to the African context. It argues that the dichotomy between war in the Global South and the Global North, combined with the shift towards critical security studies, has hobbled the development of robust strategic thinking relevant to war on the African continent. It combines a literature review of theories of war, that have sought to either explain the occurrence of war or how to fight and end it, with a scoping review of African strategic thinking to highlight this gap. It concludes with a call for greater African strategic thinking and propositions for what African strategy should entail