Search results for ""Wits University Press""
Wits University Press Bones and Bodies: How South African Scientists Studied Race
Bones and Bodies is a highly accessible account of the establishment of the scientific discipline of biological anthropology. Alan G Morris takes us back over the past century of anthropological discovery in South Africa and uncovers the stories of individual scientists and researchers who played a significant role in shaping perceptions of how peoples of southern Africa, both ancient and modern, came to be viewed and categorised both in the public imagination and the scientific literature.Morris reveals how much of the earlier anthropological studies were tainted with the tarred brush of race science, evaluating the works of famous anthropologists and archaeologists such as Raymond Dart, Thomas Dreyer, Matthew Drennan and Robert Broom. Morris also considers how modern anthropology tried to rid itself of the stigma of these early racist accounts. In the 1960s and 1970s, Ronald Singer and Phillip Tobias introduced modern methods into the discipline that disputed much of what the public wished to believe about race and human evolution. Bones and Bodies shows the battle facing modern anthropology to acknowledge its racial past but also how its study of human variation remains an important field of enquiry at institutions of higher learning.
£35.86
Wits University Press Bats of Southern and Central Africa: A biogeographic and taxonomic synthesis, second edition
This revised edition of Bats of Southern and Central Africa builds on the solid foundation of the first edition and supplements the original account of bat species then known to be found in Southern and Central Africa with an additional eight newly described species, bringing the total to 124.The chapters on evolution, biogeography, ecology and echolocation have been updated, citing dozens of recently published papers. The book covers the latest systematic and taxonomic studies, ensuring that the names and relationships of bats in this new edition reflect current scientific knowledge.The species accounts provide descriptions, measurements and diagnostic characters as well as detailed information about the distribution, habitat, roosting habits, foraging ecology and reproduction of each species. The updated species distribution maps are based on 6 100 recorded localities.A special feature of the 2010 publication was the mode of identification of families, genera and species by way of character matrices rather than the more generally used dichotomous keys. Since then these matrices have been tested in the field and, where necessary, slightly altered for this edition. New photographs fill in gaps and updated sonograms aid with bat identification in acoustic surveys.The bibliography, which now contains more than 700 entries, will be an invaluable aid to students and scientists wishing to consult original research.
£56.29
Wits University Press Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences: Case Studies from South Africa
Social science researchers in the global South, and in South Africa particularly, utilise research methods in innovative ways in order to respond to contexts characterised by diversity, racial and political tensions, socioeconomic disparities and gender inequalities. These methods often remain undocumented – a gap that this book starts to address. Written by experts from various methodological fields, Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences is a comprehensive collation of original essays and cutting-edge research that demonstrates the variety of novel techniques and research methods available to researchers responding to these context-bound issues. It is particularly relevant for study and research in the fields of applied psychology, sociology, ethnography, biography and anthropology. In addition to their unique combination of conceptual and application issues, the chapters also include discussions on ethical considerations relevant to the method in similar global South contexts. Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences has much to offer to researchers, professionals and others involved in social science research both locally and internationally.
£29.54
Wits University Press Forgotten World: The Stone-Walled Settlements of the Mpumalanga Escarpment
If you drive through Mpumalanga with an eye on the landscape flashing by, you may see, near the sides of the road and further away on the hills above and in the valleys below, fragments of building in stone as well as sections of stone-walling breaking the grass cover. Endless stone circles, set in bewildering mazes and linked by long stone passages, cover the landscape stretching from Ohrigstad to Carolina, connecting over 10 000 square kilometres of the escarpment into a complex web of stone-walled homesteads, terraced fields and linking roads. Oral traditions recorded in the early twentieth century named the area Bokoni – the country of the Koni people. Few South Africans or visitors to the country know much about these settlements, and why today they are deserted and largely ignored. A long tradition of archaeological work which might provide some of the answers remains cloistered in universities and the knowledge vacuum has been filled by a variety of exotic explanations – invoking ancient settlers from India or even visitors from outer space – that share a common assumption that Africans were too primitive to have created such elaborate stone structures. Forgotten World defies the usual stereotypes about backward African farming methods and shows that these settlements were at their peak between 1500 and 1820, that they housed a substantial population, organised vast amounts of labour for infrastructural development, and displayed extraordinary levels of agricultural innovation and productivity. The Koni were part of a trading system linked to the coast of Mozambique and the wider world of Indian Ocean trade beyond. Forgotten World tells the story of Bokoni through rigorous historical and archaeological research, and lavishly illustrates it with stunning photographic images.
£23.04
Wits University Press Stranger at Home: The Praise Poet in Apartheid South Africa
The praise poet (imbongi) is a familiar cultural icon in contemporary South Africa. Under apartheid, many praise poets either ceased to perform or abandoned the imbongi's duty to diagnose and criticize political and social ills. There was, however, one brilliant Xhosa imbongi called David Manisi, a poet widely acclaimed in his youth as the successor to the great SEK Mqhayi, who refused to capitulate to the ease of silence or complicity. As documented by Jeff Opland in The Dassie and the Hunter (UKZN Press), Manisi worked tirelessly and in embattled contexts to address his audiences with demands, criticisms and aspirations they frequently misunderstood. This title is about the poetry, vision and deeply inhospitable context of one of South Africa's most talented praise poets. The author of five volumes of Xhosa poetry and performer of inspired and elegantly crafted izibongo (praise poems), Manisi saw himself as a man of multiple places, allegiances and identities at a time when these markers of self were rigidly policed. Manisi's entrance on the local Transkeian poetry scene was legendary. He was for a time the most famous poet in Kaiser Mathanzima's court. He also wrote the first published poem about Nelson Mandela in1954, hailing him prophetically as "Gleaming Road". Despite these early accomplishments, Manisi ended his career as a lonely performer in American and South African universities. He never met Mandela, his hero of old. Ashlee Neser examines Manisi as an inventive negotiator of rural and urban spaces, modernity and tradition, performance and publication, the local and the foreign. She treats him as a representative of a complex of beliefs and identities that was neither accommodated by apartheid politics nor adequately recognized and theorized by the extensive literature on South African identity and culture. As a title about an important and neglected literary figure, Stranger at Home will appeal to scholars in literary studies, especially in the areas of orality and folklore. The title's broad historical and political focus makes it useful to Africanists and cultural historians, while anthropologists and ethnographers will be interested in its concern with cultural translation and the interweaving of the urban and the rural, of tradition and modernity.
£35.79
Wits University Press San Elders Speak: Ancestral knowledge of the Kalahari San
San material culture has been a subject of study for many researchers and archaeologists but rarely has the documented material been seen through the eyes of the people themselves. San Elders Speak: Ancestral Knowledge of the Kalahari San is the first attempt to document indigenous knowledge through the voices of four San elders from the Kalahari. Over a period of seven days, the authors presented the four San elders, leaders in their community and custodians of ancient knowledge, with of the largest collection of KhoiSan ethnographica collected by Dr Louis Fourie at the beginning of the 19th century. The San elders rediscovered objects last seen in their childhood and shared stories inspired by their handling of the objects. They provide the correct traditional names and explain how items were made, from what material, who used them, why and when. In a number of instances the elders changed the identification given by Louis Fourie. The knowledge they shared over those several days at Museum Africa in Johannesburg provide an enriching account that links the past and present in San life in illuminating ways. The text is accompanied by a rich visual record of the artefacts and how the San elders portray their use. Aimed at scholars and students of archaeology, human evolution, anthropology, material culture studies, conservation, museology, and African studies, San Elders Speak is a captivating record into all aspects of this ancient and vanishing world of indigenous knowlegde, and represents a unique heritage for the people of descendant San communities.
£88.00
Wits University Press Tin bucket drum:: A play
On a ""cold and starless night"" a young pregnant widow, Nandi, arrives in Tin Town, a bleak, drought-stricken place ruled by silence and fear. Little do the inhabitants know that Nandi is carrying the baby who will, in time, change all that. Taken in by Umkhulu (grandfather), whose father established the tin bucket factory that gave the town its name, Nandi gives birth to Nomvula, the Little Drummer Girl. Umkhulu remembers a past when 'people were free to sing and dance', when the rain came and the townsfolk held up their tin buckets to catch the precious, life-giving drops. And then came the Silent Sir and his spokesman, the Censor, and the town went silent. As the singing and dancing and drumming dried up, so did the rain. The tin bucket factory closed, taking with it the life and purpose of Tin Town's inhabitants. Only the Little Drummer Girl can bring back that life, but at enormous personal cost. In Tin Bucket Drum, Neil Coppen achieves a small miracle. Through his lyrical script and the creative use of lighting and sound, one woman, the Narrator, succeeds in evoking a host of characters as this allegorical tale of oppression and liberation plays itself out. It is a story that offers a host of lessons for many places and many times.
£23.56
Wits University Press From Tools to Symbols: From Early Hominids to Modern Humans
A number of researchers have tried to characterise the anatomy and behavioural systems of early hominid and early modern human populations in an attempt to understand how we became what we are. Can archaeology, palaeo-anthropology and genetics tell us how and when human cultures developed the traits that make our societies different from those of our closest living relatives? In which cases are these differences substantial, and when do they simply reflect our definitions of culture, species, the image we have of their evolution or of ourselves? From Tools to Symbols, a collection of twenty-seven selected papers from a South African-French conference organised in honour of the well-known palaeo-anthropologist Phillip Tobias, provides a multidisciplinary overview of this field of study. It is based on collaborative research conducted in sub-Saharan Africa by South African, French, American and German scholars in the last twenty years, and represents an excellent synthesis of the palaeontological and archaeological evidence of the last five million years of human evolution.
£47.06
Wits University Press Good Jew, Bad Jew: Racism, Anti-Semitism and the Assault on Meaning
£72.49
Wits University Press Governing Complex City-Regions in the Twenty-First Century: Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa
The scale, complexity and pace of urban change in the recent past has been disorienting. As individual cities evolve into complex urban agglomerations, sometimes called city-regions, urban scholars battle to find adequate vocabularies for contemporary urban processes while practitioners continually search for meaningful governance responses. Governing Complex City-Regions in the Twenty-First Century explores the ongoing evolution of regional and metropolitan governance as diverse urban agents grapple with the dilemmas of collective action across multi-layered and fragmented institutions, in contexts where there are manifold centres of influence and decision-making. The author draws on the experiences of the BRICS countries (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa), situating his analysis against the particular historical and political cycles of each. This expands the geography of knowledge in the study of city-region governance, revealing meanings, processes and outcomes of city-region governance that are not apparent in the more settled urban contexts of Western Europe and North America on which much of the existing literature is founded. Intended for students, academics, and professionals, the book provides a critique of the ‘best practice’ approach, showing that governance approaches are rarely designed but emerge, rather, from the disparate intentions, actions and practices of multiple collaborating and competing actors working within diverse contexts of political settlement and political culture. While it does not offer packaged solutions or easy answers to the challenges of urban governance, it does show the value of comparative study in inspiring new thought and perspectives, which could lead to improved governance practice within South African contexts.
£39.63
Wits University Press State Capture in South Africa: How and why it happened
The metaphor of ‘state capture’ has dominated South Africa’s political discourse in the post-Zuma presidency era. What is state capture and how does it manifest? Is it just another example of a newly independent, failed African state? And is it unique to South Africa? The contributors in this collection try to explain the phenomenon from a variety of viewpoints and disciplines. All hold fast to the belief that the democracy that promised the country so much when apartheid ended has been significantly eroded, resulting in most citizens expressing a loss of hope for the future. Read together, the essays cumulatively show not only how state capture was enabled and who benefitted, but also how and by whom it was scrutinised and exposed in order to hold those in power accountable. The book aims to present a scholarly and empirical understanding of how things went awry, even with various regulating bodies in place, and how to prevent state capture from happening again in the future.
£35.86
Wits University Press Labour Disrupted: Reflections on the future of work in South Africa
Published in the 50th anniversary year of the 1973 Durban strikes, Labour Disrupted honours this milestone by reflecting on the past and the future of labour, primarily in South Africa but also globally. It focuses on how South Africa’s lockdown during the Covid-19 pandemic further exposed key contradictions and challenges that labour movements face. The contributions include a diverse range of topics by those actively engaged in the labour movement, who tackle a number of thorny issues: from redefining democracy in South Africa, to experiences of inclusiveness (or lack thereof) in workplace environments by women, young people, migrant workers, LGBTI people and people living with disabilities. They address contemporary issues related to the use of technology and the impact of the fourth industrial revolution on the youth and the working class, and the challenge of skills development and restructuring in the workplace. Labour Disrupted debates new forms of organising and labour movement alliances required to address issues of social justice in education, health and community solidarity, and exposes the precariousness of union organisation under the brutal forces of globalisation.
£40.78
Wits University Press In The Balance
As jobs disappear and wages flat-line, paid work is an increasingly fragile and unattainable basis for dignified life. This predicament, deepened by the COVID-19 pandemic, is sparking urgent debates about alternatives such as a universal basic income (UBI). Highly topical and distinctive in its approach, In the Balance is the most rounded and up-to-date examination yet of the need and prospects for a UBI in a global South setting such as South Africa.Hein Marais casts the debate about a UBI in the wider context of the dispossessing pressures of capitalism and the onrushing turmoil of global warming, pandemics and social upheaval. Marais surveys the meaning, history and appeal of a UBI before even-handedly weighing the case for and against such an intervention. The book explores the vexing questions a UBI raises about the relationship of paid work to social rights, about prevailing notions of entitlement and dependency, and the role of the state in contemporary capitalism.Along with cost estimates for different versions of a basic income in South Africa, it discusses financing options and lays out the social, economic and political implications. This incisive new book advances both our theoretical and practical understanding of the prospects for a UBI.
£34.96
Wits University Press Psychological Assessment in South Africa: Research and applications
This book provides an overview of the research related to psychological assessment across South Africa. The thirty-six chapters provide a combination of psychometric theory and practical assessment applications in order to combine the currently disparate research that has been conducted locally in this field. Existing South African texts on psychological assessment are predominantly academic textbooks that explain psychometric theory and provide brief descriptions of a few testing instruments.Psychological Assessment in South Africa provides in-depth coverage of a range of areas within the broad field of psychological assessment, including research conducted with various psychological instruments. The chapters critically interrogate the current Eurocentric and Western cultural hegemonic practices that dominate the field of psychological assessment.The book therefore has the potential to function both as an academic text for graduate students, as well as a specialist resource for professionals, including psychologists, psychometrists, remedial teachers and human resource practitioners.
£47.19
Wits University Press Missing: A play
Missing is the story of robert Khalipa, an AnC cadre living in exile, who is very senior in the movement but is left out of the negotiations and almost forgotten in sweden. robert has a wealthy swedish wife, Anna, and a daughter who is a practising doctor in a hospital in stockholm. there is also robert’s protégé Peter tshabalala, junior to robert yet Peter gets the call to return to south African to join the democratic government. What follows is a story of conspiracies, lies, back stabbing and disappointments. robert and his family are faced with the challenges of a south Africa that has changed radically from the one he remembers from more than thirty years ago. the government, in his opinion, does not uphold the principles enshrined in the Freedom Charter. there is also confl ict within his own family. their love is tested to breaking point and diffi cult decisions have to be made by every individual. As with Kani’s very successful previous play, Nothing but the Truth, Missing explores the ambiguities of freedom and of personal commitment.
£25.09
Wits University Press Dunga Manzi/Stirring Waters: The Art and Culture of the Tsonga and Shangaan
This full-colour book showcases some of South Africa's most treasured heritage, aiming to make readers aware of the high degree of artistic skill that exists in South Africa.""Dungamanzi/Stirring Waters"" features Tsonga and Shangaan art, culture and heritage, and accompanies an exhibition of the same name at the Johannesburg Art Gallery. It tracks the history of these cultural groups through essays and a wealth of images of material culture and art.Originating largely in Mozambique, and consolidating themselves in response to the mining industry and to the homeland policy of the apartheid government, Tsonga and Shangaan people mobilised in difficult political, economic and social circumstances to form a distinct identity and artistic style.Tsonga and Shangaan headrests, staffs, figures, puppets, medicine gourds, healers' attire and snuff containers are some of the finest heritage objects this country has to offer. They are the material record of a complex and dynamic period in South Africa's past.Divided into four sections, the catalogue first highlights the histories of the Tsonga and Shangaan, including a personal narrative of the Makhubele family. The second explores the magnificent beading tradition and the third, the complex legacy of woodcarving from the late nineteenth century to contemporary times. The historical trajectory, as well as the spectacular attire and equipment of sangomas, also known as traditional healers and diviners, form the subject of the fourth and last section.
£84.13
Wits University Press Dress as Social Relations: An interpretation of Bushman dress
To dress is a uniquely human experience, but practices and meanings of dress vary greatly among people. In a Western cultural tradition, the practice of dressing ‘properly’ has for centuries distinguished ‘civilised’ people from ‘savages’. Through travel literature and historical ethnographic descriptions of the Bushmen of southern Africa, such perceptions and prejudices have made their mark also on the modern research tradition. Because Bushmen were widely considered to be ‘nearly naked’ the study of dress has played a limited part in academic writings on Bushman culture. In Dress as Social Relations Vibeke Maria Viestad challenges this myth of the nearly naked Bushman and provides an interdisciplinary study of Bushman dress, as it is represented in the archives and material culture of historical Bushman communities. Maintaining a critical perspective, Viestad provides an interpretation of the significance of dress for historical Bushman people. Dress, she argues, formed an embodied practice of social relations between humans, animals and other powerful beings of the Bushman world; moreover, this complex and meaningful practice was intimately related to subsistence strategies and social identity. The historical collections under scrutiny present a wide variety of research material representing different aspects of the bodily practice of dress. Whereas the Bleek & Lloyd archive of oral myths and narratives has become renowned for its great research potential, the artefact collections of Dorothea Bleek and Louis Fourie are much less known and have not earlier been published in a richly illustrated and comprehensive way. Dress as Social Relations is aimed at scholars and students of archaeology, anthropology, material culture studies, dress studies, ethnographic studies, museology, culture historical studies and African studies, but will also be of interest to people of descendant communities.
£84.13
Wits University Press Motswasele II
Mo Motswasele II, terama ya ntlha e e kwadilweng ke Motswana e e ikaegileng ka ditiragalo tsa hisetori, L.D. Raditladi o sekaseka bogosi ka baanelwa ba babedi ba banna ba ba maatla, Moruakgomo le Motswasele. Go ya ka hisetori ya Bakwena, bobedi joo e ne e le dira ka ba ne ba lwela bogosi. Raditladi o kgala mokgwa wa puso wa ga Motswasele, yo o busang ka letsogo la tshipi, a itseela metlhape ya batho ba gagwe mme lefoko la gagwe e le la bofelo. O itikagantse le batho ba ba sa tshepagaleng e bile ba sa itse sepe ka boeteledipele kgotsa sepe se se tsamaelanang le bogosi. Moruakgomo, ka fa go je lengwe, o tlhagelela e le moetapele yo o pelo, wa segatlhamelamasisi, yo o botlhale, yo o ponelopele e bile a kgona go reetsa fa a gakololwa. Mo terameng, Raditladi o lemosa kgosi go se kgopise batho ba e tlaa tsogang e ba tlhoka kamoso, le go se letle dikoma tse a di iteelwang go mo ya tlhogong le go mo tlatsa maikgogomoso. Motswasele II e fatlhosa babuisi ka ga botlhokwa jwa setheo sa bogosi, le botlhokwa jwa kgosi go busa ka botlhale le go rarabolola dikgotlang fa di runya.
£25.70
Wits University Press Land, Chiefs, Mining: South Africa's North West Province since 1840
Land, Chiefs, Mining explores aspects of the experience of the Batswana in the thornveld and bushveld regions of the North-West Province, shedding light on defi ning issues, moments and individuals in this lesser known region of South Africa. Some of the focuses are: an important Tswana kgosi (chief ), Moiloa II of the Bahurutshe; responses to and participation in the South African War and its aftermath, 1899-1907; land acquisition; economic and political conditions in the reserves; resistance to Mangope’s Bophuthatswana; the impact of game parks and the Sun City resort; rural resistance and the liberation struggle; and African reaction to the platinum mining revolution.Written in a direct and accessible style, and illustrated with photographs and maps, the book provides an understanding, for a general reader ship, of the region and its recent history. At the same time it opens up avenues for further research.
£39.39
Wits University Press In the Shadow of Policy: Everyday Practices in South Africa's Land and Agrarian Reform
Notions of land and agrarian reform are now well entrenched in post-apartheid South Africa. But what this reform actually means for everyday life is not clearly understood, nor the way it will impact on the political economy. In the Shadow of Policy explores the interface between the policy of land and agrarian reform and its implementation; and between the decisions of policy ‘experts’ and actual livelihood experiences in the fields and homesteads of land reform projects. Starting with an overview of the socio-historical context in which land and agrarian reform policy has evolved in South Africa, the volume presents empirical case studies of land reform projects in the Northern, Western and Eastern Cape provinces. These draw on multiple voices from various sectors and provide a rich source of material and critical reflections to inform future policy and research agendas. In the Shadow of Policy will be a key reference tool for those working in the area of development studies and land policy, and for civil society groups and NGOs involved in land restitution.
£42.53
Wits University Press The People’s Paper: A centenary history and anthology of Abantu-Batho
This much-awaited volume uncovers the long-lost pages of the major African multi-lingual newspaper, Abantu-Batho. Founded in 1912 by African National Congress convener Pixley Seme, with assistance from the Swazi Queen, it was published until 1931, attracting the cream of African politicians, journalists, and poets S.E.K Mqhayi, Nontsizi Mgqwetho and Robert Grendon. In its pages burning issues of the day were articulated alongside cultural by-ways. Comprising both essays on and texts from the paper, it explores the complex movements and individuals that emerged. The essays contribute rich, new material to provide clearer insights into South African politics and intellectual life. The Anthology unveils a judicious selection of never-before-published columns from the paper spanning every year of its life, drawn from repositories on three continents. Abantu-Batho also had a regional and international focus, and by examining all these dynamics across boundaries and disciplines the book transcends established historiographical frontiers to fill a lacuna that scholars have long lamented.Distinguished historians and literary scholars, together with exciting young scholars, plumb the lives and ideas of editors, writers, readers and allied movements. Sharing the considerable interest in the ANC centenary, this unique book will have a strong appeal and secure audience among all interested in history, politics, culture, literature, gender, biography and journalism studies, from academics and students to a general public interested in knowing about this early ANC newspaper, its people and the stories that once captivated South Africans.
£47.06
Wits University Press Orlando West, Soweto: An illustrated history
Until the end of the First World War, urban growth in Johannesburg proceeded unevenly and haphazardly, but under the impact of a wave of militant struggles by black workers and in the context of the devastating impact of the 1918 influenza epidemic, the state became determined to better manage the movement of Africans into the urban areas and to place them in properly controlled locations. The promulgation of the Native (Urban) Areas Act of 1923 was intended to meet these objectives. The Act was a hybrid piece of legislation. On the one hand, it espoused the principles enunciated by the Stallard Commission of 1922, which had infamously declared that an African 'should only be allowed into the urban areas, which are essentially the white man's creation, when he is willing to enter and minister to the needs of the white man, and should depart therefrom when he ceases so to minister'. On the other hand, when it empowered local authorities to set aside land for black residential purposes, it recognised the need to create conditions for the settlement of an urban African population in order to provide a reliable supply of labour to secondary industry. The growing demand for housing led the government to establish Orlando (named after the chairman of the Native Affairs Committee, Edwin Orlando Leake) in 1931, when thousands of African families were evicted from urban slums in and around the city centre and moved there. The authorities described this as a 'model native township' that was supposedly planned along the lines of a garden city. The new location, it promised, would be characterised by tree-lined streets, business opportunities and recreation facilities. Reflecting the views of a somewhat conservative section of the African urban elite, the popular African newspaper Bantu World predicted on 14 May 1932 that the new township 'will undoubtedly be somewhat of a paradise [that] will enhance the status of the Bantu within the ambit of progress and civilisation.' Orlando West, Soweto illuminates the genesis of Orlando township and its well-known subsequent history, which is inextricably linked with the lives of prominent South Africans such as Nelson Mandela and Desmond Tutu, amongst many others. A beautiful photographic essay complements the testimony from residents, who describe the way things were, and the way they are now, in the heart of Soweto, South Africa's most iconic African township.
£40.78
Wits University Press New South African Review 1: 2010: Development or decline?
Reviving the tradition of critical, analytical scholarship developed by the 1970s and 1980s editions of the South African review, this first volume of the New South African review offers a collection of original surveys of key issues and problems confronting post-apartheid South Africa. Written by a team of engaged social scientists and based often on new research, the volume ranges widely across the implications of the international crisis for the economy, the threats to our fragile ecology of present economic strategies, through to the state of the ANC and the public service, issues around service delivery, migration, HIV/AIDS, land reform, crime, the sexual behavior of our youth, and much more. Posing the provocative question of whether South Africa is embarking upon a long-term decline, the volume simultaneously argues the potential for a society premised upon social equality, social coherence and sustainability. This collection will appeal to a wide audience, national and international, interested in engaging with the multiple dilemmas and challenges facing contemporary South Africa.
£46.34
Wits University Press Molecular Medicine for Clinicians
Molecular Medicine for Clinicians covers the basic principles and techniques of molecular biology and addresses topics such as cloning, studies of human origins and applications of DNA analysis in forensic investigations. The pathology section deals with the principles and diagnostic applications of molecular technology, and the final section is concerned predominantly with molecular therapeutics. A section is devoted to the burgeoning field of bio-informatics. There is a special focus on the application of molecular medicine in Africa and in developing countries.Aimed at medical students, the book is also suitable for science and engineering students. It serves as an introductory text for medical registrars, and parts of it will be of value to the General Practitioner.
£60.36
Wits University Press Transnational Families in Africa: Migrants and the Role of Information Communication Technologies
£72.49
Wits University Press Emancipatory Feminism in the Time of Covid-19: Transformative resistance and social reproduction
The Covid-19 pandemic threw into stark relief the multi-dimensional threats created by neoliberal capitalism. Government measures to alleviate the crisis were largely inadequate, leaving women – in particular working-class women – to carry the increased burden of care work while at the same time placing themselves in direct risk as frontline workers. Emancipatory Feminism in the Time of Covid-19, the seventh volume in the Democratic Marxism series, explores how many subaltern women – working class, peasant and indigenous – responded to challenges of increased labour precarity and additional care-work. The book critiques neoliberal feminism, which has overshadowed the experiences of feminist grassroots resistance. Instead, the academics and activists in this volume call to action a new wave feminism that is responsive to socio-ecological and economic exploitation, and the oppression of both women and the environment within the patriarchal capitalist system. Offering a diverse range of approaches to this topic, contributions range from women leading the defence of Rojava – the Kurdish region of Syria, anti-capitalist ecology and building food secure pathways in communities across Africa, championing climate justice in mining-affected communities and transforming gender divisions in mining labour practices in South Africa, to contesting macro-economic policies affecting the working conditions of nurses. These practices demonstrate a feminist understanding of the current systemic crises of capitalism and patriarchal oppression. What is offered here is a focus on subaltern women’s grassroots resistance that advances and enables solidarity-based political projects, deepens democracy, and builds capacities and alliances to advance new feminist alternatives.
£35.86
Wits University Press Uncovering Memory
I am walking through a destitute, poverty-stricken, rotten building. Although people are living here, my aim is not to interact with the current tenants but rather to try and uncover the memories that are hidden in the façade, the plaster and the bricks of this building. I use my mobile phone to record what I see, but in my head, it is February 1945. I hear the sounds of war "Travelling along a timeline of memory, Tanja Sakota takes us on a journey through South Africa, Germany, Poland and Bosnia/Herzegovina. Using a camera and short film format, Sakota hosts several workshops in different countries focused on interacting and engaging with remembering through different memory sites. The author sits at the core but the book is an interdisciplinary work shaped around films made by different workshop participants using film to access personal interpretations of space and place. Questions that underpin the uncovering of memories are: How does one use a camera to make the invisible visible? How does one remember events that one hasn’t necessarily experienced? How does one use film to interrogate the past from the future present? As the journey evolves, workshop participants and readers alike enter into a conversation around practice-based research, autoethnography and film.
£45.68
Wits University Press The Intrapreneur’s Journey: Empowering Employees to Drive Growth
The Intrapreneur’s Journey: Empowering Employees to Drive Growth is a must-read for any entrepreneur, innovator, manager or senior executive who wants to successfully compete in today’s fast-changing world. Based on the observation that the most under-utilised assets in most organisations are the ideas in their employees’ heads, the authors offer first-hand experience and in-depth analysis on how intrapreneurship powers some of the world’s leading innovative businesses and other types of organisations. The proposition is simple: established organisations see continuous delivery of innovative products, services and processes when they enable teams of entrepreneurial employees to think and behave like start-ups. First published in 2018 for the American market, this new edition builds on the success of the first by including up-to-date discussions and references on the theory and practice of intrapreneurship and innovation, making this an ideal book for students, researchers and professionals in the field. It includes informative examples and case studies ranging from large multinational corporations to small and medium-size enterprises in a primarily pan-African, but globally relevant context. Written in an accessible, easy to read style, this book is entertaining and educational. A key feature is a series of assessments and tools to help implement the book’s Intrapreneurship Empowerment Model in any organisation. These six core components describe what an effective and sustainable internal innovation programme looks like and how to roll it out. Written by practitioners and academics in innovation and intrapreneurship, this book will be a leading practical guide in the market on how to establish a culture of innovation by: • tapping into employees’ passion to drive growth • testing the varied effectiveness of innovation programmes using the Intrapreneurship Empowerment Model • using the key resources to build a sustainable and successful innovation programme in any organisation.
£34.99
Wits University Press African Ark: Mammals, landscape and the ecology of a continent
Africa is home to an amazing array of animals, including the world’s most diverse assortment of large mammals. These include the world’s largest terrestrial mammal, the African elephant, alongside a host of hooved mammals such as hippopotamuses, giraffes, rhinoceroses, and zebras. African Ark: Mammals, Landscape and the Ecology of a Continent tells the story of where these mammals have come from and how they have interacted to create the richly varied landscape that makes up Africa as we know it today. It also highlights small mammals, such as rodents and bats, which are often overlooked by both naturalists and zoologists in favour of their larger cousins. African Ark explains the processes through which species and population groups are formed and how these fluctuate over time. It explores the impact of megafauna on the environment and the important roles they play in shaping the landscape. In this way, mammals such as elephants and rhinoceros support countless plant communities and the habitats of many smaller animals. The book brings in a human perspective as well as a conservation angle in its assessment of the interaction of African mammals with the people who live alongside them. African Ark is at once scientifically rigorous and an engaging read for anyone dedicated to the understanding of Africa and its wildlife.
£26.29
Wits University Press Wits University at 100: From Excavation to Innovation
The University of the Witwatersrand occupies a special place in the hearts and minds of South Africans. It is a leading university renowned for its commitment to academic and research excellence, social justice and advancement of the public good. The history of the university is inextricably linked to the development of Johannesburg, to mining, and to deeply rooted political and social activism. Wits University at 100: From Excavation to Innovation captures moments of Wits’ story over 100 years through exploring its origins, its place in society, its transformation and its challenges as it prepares for the next century. This centennial publication presents a narrative of Wits as a living and dynamic institution, celebrating its existence through its people, many of whom, in one way or another, have shifted the world. Driven by the voices of its people, Wits University at 100 tells the story of Wits from its humble beginnings as a mining college in Johannesburg to its current position as a flourishing university stimulating innovation from the global South.The experiences, achievements and insights of past and present ‘Witsies’ showcased in this full-colour, illustrated book map the university’s current and future vision as it marks its centenary in 2022.
£44.81
Wits University Press Archives of Times Past: Conversations about South Africa's Deep History
Archives of Times Past explores particular sources of evidence on southern Africa’s time before the colonial era. It gathers recent ideas about archives and archiving from scholars in southern Africa and elsewhere, focusing on the question: ‘How do we know, or think we know, what happened in the times before European colonialism?’The essays by well-known historians, archaeologists and researchers engage these questions from a range of perspectives and in illuminating ways. Written from personal experience, they capture how these experts encountered their archives of knowledge beyond the textbook.The essays are written at a time when public discussion about the history of southern Africa before the colonial era is taking place more openly than at any other time in the last hundred years They will appeal to students, academics, educationists, teachers, archivists, and heritage, museum practitioners and the general public.
£40.78
James Currey Limpopo's Legacy: Student Politics & Democracy in South Africa
Argues that the historical primacy of youth politics in Limpopo, South Africa has influenced the production of generations of nationally prominent youth and student activists - among them Julius Malema, Onkgopotse Tiro, Cyril Ramaphosa, Frank Chikane, and Peter Mokaba. In 2015 and 2016 waves of student protest swept South African campuses under the banner of FeesMustFall. This book brings an historical perspective to the recent risings by analysing regional influences on the ideologies that haveunderpinned South African student politics from the 1960s to the present. The author considers the history of student organization in the Northern Transvaal (today Limpopo Province) and the ways in which students and youth in this relatively isolated area in the north of South Africa have influenced political change on a national scale, over generations. Organized around the stories of several key political actors, the book introduces the reader to critical spaces of political mobilization in the region. Among the most prominent is the University of the North at Turfloop, which played an integral role in building the South African Students' Organisation (SASO) in the late 1960s and propagating Black Consciousness in the 1970s. It became an ideological battleground where Black Consciousness advocates and ANC-affiliates competed for influence in the 1980s. Turfloop has remained politically significant in thepost-apartheid era: it was here in 2007 that Julius Malema stumped for Jacob Zuma's ascension to the presidency during the ANC's pivotal party conference that resulted in the ousting of Thabo Mbeki. The final two chapters address Malema's political ascension in regional branches of the Congress of South African Students (COSAS) and the ANC Youth League. Anne Heffernan is Assistant Professor in the History of Southern Africa at Durham University and a Research Associate of the History Workshop, University of the Witwatersrand. She is Co-editor of Students Must Rise: Youth Struggle in South Africa Before and Beyond Soweto '76 (Wits University Press, 2016). Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland): Wits University Press
£75.04
James Currey African Local Knowledge & Livestock Health: Diseases & Treatments in South Africa
A much needed examination of contemporary approaches to animal healing in South Africa, and the role of local knowledge. Understanding local knowledge has become a central academic project among those interested in Africa and developing countries. In South Africa, land reform is gathering pace and African people hold an increasing proportion of thelivestock in the country. Animal health has become a central issue for rural development. Yet African veterinary medical knowledge remains largely unrecorded. This book seeks to fill that gap. It captures for the first time the diversity, as well as the limits, of a major sphere of local knowledge. Beinart and Brown argue that African approaches to animal health rest largely in environmental and nutritional explanations. They explore the widespread use of plants as well as biomedicines for healing. While rural populations remain concerned about supernatural threats, and many men think that women can harm their cattle, the authors challenge current ideas on the modernisation of witchcraft. They examine more ambient forms of supernatural danger expressed in little-known concepts such as mohato and umkhondo. They take the reader into the homesteads and kraals of rural black South Africans and engage with a key rural concern - vividly reporting the ideas of livestock owners. This is groundbreaking research which will have important implications for analyses of local knowledge more generally as well as effectivestate interventions and animal treatments in South Africa. William Beinart is Rhodes Professor of Race Relations, African Studies Centre, University of Oxford; Karen Brown is an ESRC Research Fellow at the Wellcome Unit for the History of Medicine, University of Oxford. Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland): Wits University Press
£48.25
James Currey Township Violence and the End of Apartheid: War on the Reef
A powerful re-reading of modern South African history following apartheid that examines the violent transformation during the transition era and how this was enacted in the African townships of the Witwatersrand. In 1993 South Africa state president F.W. de Klerk and African National Congress (ANC) leader Nelson Mandela were awarded the Nobel Peace Prize "for their work for the peaceful termination of the apartheid regime". Yet, while bothdeserved the plaudits they received for entering the negotiations that led to the end of apartheid, the four years of negotiations preceding the April 1994 elections, known as the transition era, were not "peaceful": they were the bloodiest of the entire apartheid era, with an estimated 14,000 deaths attributed to politically related violence. This book studies, for the first time, the conflicts between the ANC and the Inkatha Freedom Party that took place in South Africa's industrial heartland surrounding Johannesburg. Exploring these events through the perceptions and memories of combatants and non-combatants from war-torn areas, along with security force members, politicians and violence monitors, offers new possibilities for understanding South Africa's turbulent transition. Challenging the prevailing narrative which attributes the bulk of the violence to a joint state security force and IFP assault against ANC supporters, the author argues for a more expansive approach that incorporates the aggression of ANC militants, the intersection between criminal and political violence, and especially clashes between groups alignedwith the ANC. Gary Kynoch is Associate Professor of History at Dalhousie University. He has written one previous book, We are Fighting the World: A History of the Marashea Gangs in South Africa, 1947-1999 (OhioUniversity Press, 2005). Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland): Wits University Press
£75.04
James Currey Written under the Skin: Blood and Intergenerational Memory in South Africa
Winner of the 2021 ALA Book of the Year Award - Scholarship The author uses the image of blood under the skin as a way of understanding cultural and literary forms in contemporary South Africa. Chapters deal with the bloodied histories of apartheid and blood as trope for talking about change. In this book the author argues that a younger generation of South Africans is developing important and innovative ways of understanding South African pasts, and that challenge the narratives that have over the last decades been informed by notions of forgiveness and reconciliation. The author uses the image of history-rich blood to explore these approaches to intergenerational memory. Blood under the skin is a carrier of embodied and gendered histories andusing this image, the chapters revisit older archives, as well as analyse contemporary South African cultural and literary forms. The emphasis on blood challenges the privileged status skin has had as explanatory category inthinking about identity, and instead emphasises intergenerational transfer and continuity. The argument is that a younger generation is disputing and debating the terms through which to understand contemporary South Africa, as well as for interpreting the legacies of the past that remain under the visible layer of skin. The chapters each concern blood: Mandela's prison cell as laboratory for producing bloodless freedom; the kinship relations created and resisted in accounts of Eugene de Kock in prison; Ruth First's concern with information leaks in her accounts of her time in prison; the first human-to-human heart transplant and its relation to racialised attempts to salvage whiteidentity; the #Fallist moment; Abantu book festival; and activist scholarship and creative art works that use blood as trope for thinking about change and continuity. Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland): Wits University Press
£21.45
James Currey Written under the Skin: Blood and Intergenerational Memory in South Africa
Winner of the 2021 ALA Book of the Year Award - Scholarship The author uses the image of blood under the skin as a way of understanding cultural and literary forms in contemporary South Africa. Chapters deal with the bloodied histories of apartheid and blood as trope for talking about change. In this book the author argues that a younger generation of South Africans is developing important and innovative ways of understanding South African pasts, and that challenge the narratives that have over the last decades been informed by notions of forgiveness and reconciliation. The author uses the image of history-rich blood to explore these approaches to intergenerational memory. Blood under the skin is a carrier of embodied and gendered histories andusing this image, the chapters revisit older archives, as well as analyse contemporary South African cultural and literary forms. The emphasis on blood challenges the privileged status skin has had as explanatory category inthinking about identity, and instead emphasises intergenerational transfer and continuity. The argument is that a younger generation is disputing and debating the terms through which to understand contemporary South Africa, as well as for interpreting the legacies of the past that remain under the visible layer of skin. The chapters each concern blood: Mandela's prison cell as laboratory for producing bloodless freedom; the kinship relations created and resisted in accounts of Eugene de Kock in prison; Ruth First's concern with information leaks in her accounts of her time in prison; the first human-to-human heart transplant and its relation to racialised attempts to salvage whiteidentity; the #Fallist moment; Abantu book festival; and activist scholarship and creative art works that use blood as trope for thinking about change and continuity. Southern Africa (South Africa, Namibia, Lesotho, Zimbabwe and Swaziland): Wits University Press
£61.64
Wits University Press Climate Change: Briefings from Southern Africa
How do greenhouse gases regulate the Earth’s temperature? How hot will it get? Will South Africa run out of water? Isn’t climate change just part of a long-term natural cycle? Do cow-farts really cause global warming? Is sea-level rise something to worry about? Will marine fisheries collapse? Can solar and wind power meet our energy needs? How can I reduce my carbon footprint? Is there any chance of runaway global warming? These and many other questions are answered in this full-colour illustrated book.Climate change affects us all, but it can be a confusing business. Three leading South African scientists who have worked on the issue for over two decades help you to make sense of this topic. Climate Change: Briefings from Southern Africa takes the form of 55 ‘frequently-asked questions’, each with a brief, clear scientifically up-to-date reply. The authors’ introduction provides an overview of current national and international policies aimed at regulating climate change. The four main sections take you through the science of how the climate system works, the projected impacts in Southern Africa during the 21st century, what this means for South African society, and what can be done to avoid harm.The profuse illustrations and local examples help to explain complex issues in simple terms. The book is aimed at interested but non-scientist readers, including business people, decision-makers and students, and is very timely in relating to impending international treaties and national efforts to avoid the worst consequences of a changing climate.The year 2015 is regarded as a watershed for global climate change action if a global average temperature rise of more than two degrees above the pre-Industrial level is to be avoided. This book provides compelling evidence that the impact on agriculture, fisheries, water resources, human health, plants and animals as well as sea levels will be dangerous. However, the book ends on a positive note by offering advice on how the world can avoid such bleak outcomes, while allowing a good life for all.
£26.29
Wits University Press A Long Way Home: Migrant worker worlds 1800–2014
In no other society in the world have urbanisation and industrialisation been as comprehensively based on migrant labour as in South Africa. Rather than focusing on the well-documented narrative of displacement and oppression, A Long Way Home captures the humanity, agency and creative modes of self-expression of the millions of workers who helped to build and shape modern South Africa.The book spans a three-hundred-year history beginning with the exportation of slave labour from Mozambique in the eighteenth century and ending with the strikes and tensions on the platinum belt in recent years. It shows not only the age-old mobility of African migrants across the continent but also, with the growing demand for labour in the mining industry, the importation of Chinese slaves. The essays and visual materials traverse homesteads, chiefdoms and mining hostels in their portrayal of migrant workers’ and their families’ attempts to maintain contact across large distances and uphold their rural customs, traditions and rituals in new spaces and locations. Together, they provide multiple perspectives on the lived experience of migrant labourers and celebrate their extraordinary journeys. A Long Way Home was conceived during the planning of an art exhibition entitled ‘Ngezinyawo: Migrant Journeys’ at the Wits Art Museum. The interdisciplinary nature of the contributions and the extraordinary collection of images selected to complement and expand on the text make this a unique collection.
£26.29
Wits University Press The Colour of Our Future: Does race matter in post-apartheid South Africa?
This book explores how political democracy, economic mobility (and lack thereof), cultural and demographic shifts have affected the making of racial identities in South Africa over the past two decades of freedom. To what extent do South Africans hold on to inherited racial identities; are they embracing newer identities; do they move back and forth without making clear-cut choices about one racial identity or the other? The binary division between colour consciousness and colour blindness does not capture the contradictions of multiple belonging and association that a freer society brings about. The contributors in this volume discuss how identity shifts or lack thereof play themselves out in institutions of government, the economy, civil society; and the extent to which public policy has facilitated or impeded the emergence of a more integrated, equitable society.
£26.29
Wits University Press Structure, Meaning and Ritual in the Narratives of the Southern San
Structure, Meaning and Ritual in the Narratives of the Southern San analyses texts drawn from the Bleek and Lloyd Archive - arguably one of the most important collections for the understanding of South African cultural heritage and in particular the traditions of the /Xam, South Africa's 'first people'. Initially appearing in a now rare 1986 edition and here re-issued for the first time, the doctoral thesis on which the book is based became the catalyst for much scholarly research.The book offers an analysis of the entire corpus of /Xam narratives found in the Bleek and Lloyd collection, focusing particularly on the cycle of narratives concerning the trickster /Kaggen (Mantis). These are examined on three levels from the 'deep structures' with resonances in other areas of /Xam culture and supernatural belief, through the recurring patterns of narrative composition apparent across the cycle, and finally touching on the observable differences in the performances by the various /Xam collaborators. The exposition of the connections between these levels is cogently argued and richly supported by detailed reference to the ethnographic record specific to the /Xam. The work also contains two supporting ethnographic appendixes relating to beliefs and practices concerning shamans and girls' puberty observances.Hewitt's text remains the only comprehensive and detailed study of /Xam narrative, and it has become itself the object of study by researchers and Ph.D candidates in South Africa, the UK, Canada and elsewhere. This new edition at last makes Hewitt's important work more widely available. It will be a welcome addition to the recently burgeoning literature on the place of the /Xam hunter-gatherers in the complex history of South African culture and society.
£23.04
Wits University Press We Write What We Like: Celebrating Steve Biko
Steve Biko, father of the black consciousness philosophy, was killed in prison on 12 September 1977. Biko was only 30 years old, but his ideas and political activities changed the course of South African history and helped hasten the end of apartheid. This year, 2007, saw the 30th anniversary of Biko's death. To mark the occasion, the Minister of Science and Technology and President of Azapo, Dr. Mosibudi Mangena, commissioned Chris van Wyk to compile an anthology of essays as a tribute to the great South African son. Among the contributors are Minister Mangena himself, President Thabo Mbeki, writer Darryl Accone, journalists Lizeka Mda and Bokwe Mafuna, academics Jonathan Jansen, Achille Mbembe, Mandla Seleoane and Saths Cooper, a friend of Biko's and former president of Azapo. The essays cover a wide range of key moments in a significant time in South African history, both personal and public - being on trial with Biko, talking with him about his philosophy and his vision, listening to him speak from a podium. Some of the contributors never met Biko face to face but their accounts are nevertheless interesting as they describe the moment when Biko's philosophy captured their imaginations, as it swept through a generation hungry and eager for a new and dynamic way to fight oppression. We write what we like proudly echoes the title of Biko's seminal I write what I like. It is a gift to a new generation which enjoys freedom, from one that was there when this freedom was being fought for. And it celebrates the man whose legacy is the freedom to think and say and write what we like.
£26.29
Wits University Press A Search for Origins: Science, History and South Africa's Cradle of Humankind
The 'Cradle of Humankind' (COH), bordering Gauteng and the North-West Province in South Africa, was declared a World Heritage Site for the wealth of the human and animal fossils found there. Research based on fossils found in the area as well as signs of early human habitation have shed new light on the evolution of humankind and on the significant role that southern Africa played in the development of modern humans.""A Search for Origins"" aims to provide an overview of the history of the COH, and of the important discoveries that have been made there, for a non-specialist audience. A number of general accounts have been written which have concentrated on the palaeontological discoveries made there. No systematic account written by specialists in their disciplines has, however, been published about the wider history of the COH and surrounding areas.In particular, no overview spanning the evolution of early plant and animal life, human development, and recent and colonial history as reflected in discoveries linked to the COH, has been attempted.This edited volume frames the scientific advances that have been made in the COH against the intellectual and political background out of which they emerged. It places the COH within a recognisable South African context, which renders it a great deal more meaningful for both South African visitors and international tourists.The multi-disciplinary approach - from a wide range of specialists based in South Africa and the United Kingdom - is innovative and ground-breaking.
£26.29
Wits University Press Nothing but the Truth: A play
Nothing but the Truth is a story of two brothers, of sibling rivalry, of exile, of memory and reconciliation, of perplexities of freedom.
£16.56
Wits University Press Young Warriors: Youth politics, identity and violence in South Africa
Much has been written about South Africa‘s ‘lost generation’ – the generation of politicised youth who dedicated their lives to the liberation of a nation, and who ‘lost’ everything in the process. Young Warriors is about this generation, but it is also a critique of the very concept of ‘lost generation’. While focussing on the lives of the men and women who lived in Diepkloof, a black township in South Africa, it is a narrative of many young black South Africans who ‘grew up’ in the organisations of the ANC-led liberation movement. It is also the story of activists who became leaders, provincial premiers and national ministers in our democratic society. Through extensive interviews and time spent in Diepkloof, Monique Marks documents the tales of a group of Charterist youth during the mid-eighties to early nineties. During this period participating in the Charterist youth movement fundamentally shaped these individuals’ lives and the future of their society. Marks revisits their lives at the beginning of the third millennium in a new democratic South Africa characterised by a radical decline in this social movement. Marks explores, from the point of view of the youths themselves, how and why township youth joined mass-based political organisations and how, through their involvement in these organisations, their lives and identities were shaped in significant ways. She examines in fascinating detail how youth planned and executed acts of political violence, who participated in these acts, and what justifications they offered for their involvement in collective violence. The involvement of politicised youth in acts of collective violence has led to speculation as to whether or not former activist youth are responsible for the increase in violent crime in contemporary South Africa. Young Warriors provides some tentative answers to questions about youth and crime.
£23.04
Wits University Press You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock / Wathint’ Abafazi, Wathint’ Imbokotho
You Strike a Woman, You Strike a Rock / Wathint’Abafazi, Wathint’Imbokodo is a bristling example of protest theatre making during the height of apartheid. Created in ensemble fashion in 1986 by director Phyllis Klotz in collaboration with performers Thobeka Maqhutyana, Nomvula Qosha and Poppy Tsira, this play stands as a contemporary South African classic.The play focuses on three central characters: Sdudla, Mambhele and Mampompo living and working in a Cape Town township trying to eke out a living in a racially, socially and economically unequal world. There are few work opportunities and there is a great deal of red tape to be self-sufficient. Men are glaringly absent from this world – working as cheap migrant labour in urban areas. Women have to undertake great risk to see their husbands and to try keep a semblance of family cohesiveness. Helicopters fly above and state security police surveil the area. The play shows how these women work miracles to ensure the survival and wellbeing of their families at all cost.Following the famous 1956 slogan of the South African woman’s march against apartheid laws, this latest publication in 2021 is a testament to the contemporariness of this play. Its themes around gender activism and the need for gender parity remains as true today as it did fifty years ago. Fresh and full of life, this is an important historical document and will be a landmark play for high schools and students of theatre.
£16.56
Wits University Press Seeking Sanctuary: Stories of Sexuality, Faith and Migration
Seeking Sanctuary brings together poignant life stories from fourteen lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) migrants, refugees and asylum seekers living in Johannesburg. The stories, diverse in scope, chronicle each narrator’s arduous journey to South Africa, and their corresponding movement towards self-love and self-acceptance. The narrators reveal their personal battles to reconcile their faith with their sexuality and gender identity, often in the face of violent persecution, and how they have carved out spaces of hope and belonging in their new home country. In these intimate testimonies, the narrators’ resilience in the midst of uncertain futures reveal the myriad ways in which LGBT Africans push back against unjust and unequal systems. Seeking Sanctuary makes a critical intervention by showing the complex interplay between homophobia and xenophobia in South Africa, and of the state of sexual orientation and gender identity (SOGI) rights in Africa. By shedding light on the fraught connections between sexuality, faith and migration, this ground-breaking project also provides a model for religious communities who are working towards justice, diversity and inclusion.
£23.04
Wits University Press Prisoners of The Past
South Africa's democracy is often seen as a story of bright beginnings gone astray, a pattern said to be common to Africa. The negotiated settlement of 1994, it is claimed, ended racial domination and created the foundation for a prosperous democracy - but greedy politicians betrayed the promise of a new society.In Prisoners of the Past Steven Friedman astutely argues that this misreads the nature of contemporary South Africa. Building on the work of the economic historian Douglass North and the political thinker Mahmood Mamdani, Friedman shows that South African democracy's difficulties are legacies of the pre-1994 past. The settlement which ushered in majority rule left intact core features of the apartheid economy and society. The economy continues to exclude millions from its benefits, while racial hierarchies have proved stubborn: apartheid is discredited, but the values of the pre-1948 colonial era, the period of British colonisation, still dominate. Thus South Africa's democracy supports free elections, civil liberties and the rule of law, but also continues past patterns of exclusion and domination. Friedman reasons that this 'path dependence' is not, as is often claimed, the result of constitutional compromises in 1994 that left domination untouched. This bargain was flawed because it brought not too much compromise, but too little. Compromises extended political citizenship to all but there were no similar bargains on economic and cultural change. Using the work of the radical sociologist Harold Wolpe, Friedman shows that only negotiations on a new economy and society can free South Africans from the prison of the past.
£23.04
Wits University Press Surfacing: On being black and feminist in South Africa
What do African feminist traditions that exist outside the canon look and feel like? What complex cultural logics are at work outside the centres of power? How do spirituality and feminism influence each other? What are the histories and experiences of queer Africans? What imaginative forms can feminist activism take?Surfacing: On Being Black and Feminist in South Africa is the first collection of essays dedicated to contemporary Black South African feminist perspectives. Leading feminist theorist, Desiree Lewis, and poet and feminist scholar, Gabeba Baderoon, have curated contributions by some of the finest writers and thought leaders. Radical polemic sits side by side with personal essays, and critical theory coexists with rich and stirring life histories. By including writings by Patricia McFadden, Panashe Chigumadzi, Sisonke Msimang, Zukiswa Wanner, Yewande Omotoso, Zoë Wicomb and Pumla Dineo Gqola alongside emerging thinkers, activists and creative practitioners, the collection demonstrates a dazzling range of feminist voices. The writers in these pages use creative expression, photography and poetry in eclectic, interdisciplinary ways to unearth and interrogate representations of Blackness, sexuality, girlhood, history, divinity, and other themes. Surfacing is indispensable to anyone interested in feminism from Africa which, the contributors show, is in vivid and challenging conversations with the rest of the world.
£26.29
