Henry Trotter
I'm a higher education researcher at the University of Cape Town and an African History PhD candidate at Yale looking at South African "port culture" - the social history of sailors, dockers and prostitutes in Cape Town since World War II.
I have been engaging with African history, literature, culture and politics for two decades. My relationship to the continent began in 1994 when I studied for a year at the University of Zimbabwe. Then I taught for six months at a boys' high school in Harare, after which I backpacked around eastern and southern Africa and the Indian Ocean islands for two-and-a-half years. During those 4 years, I traveled extensively in 17 African countries, an experience that inspired me to pursue a career in African history.
I completed my BA in English at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, then went to Yale to do an MA in African Studies. In the middle of the program, I spent a year in Cape Town researching the impact of the Group Areas forced removals on the coloured community, resulting in my thesis, "Removals and Remembrance: Commemorating Community in Coloured Cape Town."
I then completed my MPhil in History at Yale, but not before sailing on two cargo ships from Los Angeles to Cape Town (via 14 ports) and spending another year in the Mother City, getting a better grasp of contemporary maritime culture.
In 2005, I moved to Cape Town to work on my dissertation and have been living here ever since. But I have enjoyed many detours along the way, including working as a researcher in South Africa's parliament and at the University of Cape Town with the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) and the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) programme. I wrote and published a book based on my SCAP work called "Seeking Impact & Visibility: Scholarly Communication in Southern Africa".
Through my dissertation research, I have published a number of journal articles (available here for download) and a book called "Sugar Girls & Seamen: A Journey into the World of Dockside Prostitution in South Africa." (http://www.sugargirlsandseamen.com) Based on 15 months of ethnographic research, the book dives into the murky waters of dockside sex.
Once I am finished with the dissertation, I plan to become a professor of African history. I am very keen for conversations and connections with anyone in the field.
Supervisors: Robert Harms, Michael R. Mahoney, and James C. Scott
Address: Cape Town
South Africa
I have been engaging with African history, literature, culture and politics for two decades. My relationship to the continent began in 1994 when I studied for a year at the University of Zimbabwe. Then I taught for six months at a boys' high school in Harare, after which I backpacked around eastern and southern Africa and the Indian Ocean islands for two-and-a-half years. During those 4 years, I traveled extensively in 17 African countries, an experience that inspired me to pursue a career in African history.
I completed my BA in English at Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, then went to Yale to do an MA in African Studies. In the middle of the program, I spent a year in Cape Town researching the impact of the Group Areas forced removals on the coloured community, resulting in my thesis, "Removals and Remembrance: Commemorating Community in Coloured Cape Town."
I then completed my MPhil in History at Yale, but not before sailing on two cargo ships from Los Angeles to Cape Town (via 14 ports) and spending another year in the Mother City, getting a better grasp of contemporary maritime culture.
In 2005, I moved to Cape Town to work on my dissertation and have been living here ever since. But I have enjoyed many detours along the way, including working as a researcher in South Africa's parliament and at the University of Cape Town with the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) and the Research on Open Educational Resources for Development (ROER4D) programme. I wrote and published a book based on my SCAP work called "Seeking Impact & Visibility: Scholarly Communication in Southern Africa".
Through my dissertation research, I have published a number of journal articles (available here for download) and a book called "Sugar Girls & Seamen: A Journey into the World of Dockside Prostitution in South Africa." (http://www.sugargirlsandseamen.com) Based on 15 months of ethnographic research, the book dives into the murky waters of dockside sex.
Once I am finished with the dissertation, I plan to become a professor of African history. I am very keen for conversations and connections with anyone in the field.
Supervisors: Robert Harms, Michael R. Mahoney, and James C. Scott
Address: Cape Town
South Africa
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To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.
SCAP found that scholars:
• carry heavy teaching and administrative loads which hinder their research productivity
• remain unconvinced by open access dissemination
• find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa
• rarely communicate their research with government
• engage in small, locally-based research projects that are either unfunded or funded by their universities
• produce outputs that are often interpretive, derivative or applied due, in part, to institutional rewards structures and funding challenges
• do not utilize social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities.
All of these factors impact Africa’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical, legal, social and ethical changes.
“Seeking Impact and Visibility” shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts. It not only analyses these four universities’ scholarly communication ecosystems, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of their scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of African research.
This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education, academically linked civil society organizations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers.
The question this article poses is: to what extent was this bound to the revolutionary era? Did the cauldron of maritime labour continue to imbue seafarers with a radical political sensibility beyond the age of sail?
To answer this question, I focus on the fortunes of “mixed race” coloured South African seamen who sailed on South African ships during apartheid (1948-1994). I chose this group of Cape Town men because they share structural similarities with their Atlantic ancestors: they were politically oppressed, their land was expropriated by the government and they were physically exploited. By assessing their experiences at home, at sea and abroad, we can better understand how modern seafaring has affected their political consciousness.
The paper focuses on two distinct temporal regimes that define sailors' experiences: the rapid turnaround cycle of Durban's container ship sector and the slower turnaround cycle of Cape Town's deep sea trawling sector.
It makes three sequentially related arguments: that sailors' temporal constraints dictate which solicitation techniques local prostitutes use; that solicitation techniques determine how culture is transmitted between the two ethnically alterior parties; and that the style of cultural transmission impacts how the sailors' cultures are ultimately received by the prostitutes and their communities.
Based on over one hundred life history interviews with coloured and African forced removees, this article examines the impact of Group Areas evictions on contemporary coloured identity. It suggests that, in the wake of mass social trauma, coloured removees coped with their pain by reminiscing with each other about the "good old days" in the destroyed communities. Their removal to racially defined townships ensured that they mainly shared their memories with other coloured people, and much less with African or Indian removees.
Apartheid social engineering to a large extent thus determined the spatial limits within which coloured memories circulated, creating a reflexive, mutually reinforcing pattern of narrative traffic. Over the past four decades, the constant circulation of these nostalgic stories has developed a "narrative community" amongst coloured people in the townships. This experience of popular sharing and support in the context of loss today gives coloured identity in Cape Town a dimension that would be lacking if it were only mobilized for political or economic purposes.
Social historians provide passing glimpses of dockside prostitution in their consideration of larger historical themes—Company rule, slavery, British colonial governance, the Mineral Revolution, the Anglo-Boer War, and apartheid—but they have yet to treat it as a distinct analytical category through which to view the past. Yet popular intellectual trends suggest that research into the dockside sex trade would add new dimensions to the histories of cosmopolitanism, gender, globalization, maritime recreation, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
This article provides a quick and accessible introduction to the historiography of dockside prostitution in South Africa.
This article, "Navigating Risk," focuses on the dockside prostitution sector in Cape Town and Durban, showing how its structural features enhance the women's power vis-à-vis their clients and the police. It discusses 5 key variables that influence the likelihood of violence within each prostitution sector:
* the social and legal status of the client
* the location of the negotiation
* the location of the sexual act
* the level of discretion in the solicitation process
* and the role of third-party involvement
Detailed policy recommendations conclude the argument."
The article concludes with the idea that dockside women are relatively empowered compared to their streetwalking & brothel-working counterparts. Since most hail from upcountry locales, they successfully live "double lives" that protect them from family and communal reprisal. Since their clients are foreign transients, the men pose no threat to their identities (they have no social power outside the dockside world). Since the women solicit from a safe nightclub, they retain the right of refusal. And because they're the knowledgeable locals, they choose the location of sex, which enhances their power to insist on condom-use.
Ironically, these upcountry women are perhaps the most cosmopolitan citizens of Durban as they entertain dozens of nationalities every evening."
The paper is based on sailors' accounts. Between 1649 and 1690 at least eighty-eight reports of the Cape of Good Hope were written by sailors, many of them quoted by later academics and imperial strategists. This paper focuses on the most popular and representative of these writings. It first looks at how Khoikhoi were represented as "strategic shepherds", as herders who were seen as important assets in the Dutch colonial establishment at the Cape. It then investigates how travellers tapped into and enhanced the trope of the godless savage, extending this rather popular stereotype to Khoikhoi as part of European understanding of the "other". Finally it examines how local Cape peoples were valued as ethnographic specimens."
Method: This paper draws on in-depth interviews with 23 staff members of the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) who revealed not only the logistical, technical, and administrative challenges faced during the ERT rollout period but the efforts they made to ensure that their efforts promoted equity (for students), agility (for the university), and psychological sustainability (for themselves).
Findings: Using cultural historical activity theory as a lens to assess CILT staff activities, findings indicate that a number of contradictions and tensions emerged during this period—concerning exacerbated inequities, pedagogical compromises, cultural anxieties, and psychological pressures—that could not be fully resolved but only managed.
Implications for Research: CILT staff are interested not only in providing logistical, technical, and practical support to a university but also in dealing effectively with the ethical, cultural, and emotional concerns that arise in times of crisis and transition, such as the current one. Understanding what happened during COVID-19 may offer insights into how other centers for teaching and learning can adjust to what will likely remain an unstable future in higher education.
Conclusion: The pandemic ruptured the previously organic change and growth that characterized CILT development, transforming it as the staff responded to this South African university’s need to provide support to academics and students engaging with ERT.
the higher education sector in South Africa, with key issues being raised
regarding student exclusion based on financial, epistemological and cultural
grounds. In this highly politicised and contested environment, some universities
decided to use blended and online delivery as a strategy to enable the
academic year to be completed and all curriculum to be covered, despite the
disruptions. This was a controversial decision politically and a challenging one
practically. From the perspective of the academics at the University of Cape
Town (UCT), this paper draws on interviews with educators in three broad
disciplinary areas to explore their views, practices, and experiences regarding the
use of online materials in these unique circumstances. Activity Theory provides a
framework to consider the issues systemically and to identify the tensions and
contradictions in the system.
The findings of each of the sub-projects are discussed in the various chapters comprising this volume, and a meta-synthesis of these findings is presented in Chapter 2. Using a social realist lens, the meta-synthesis provides a comparative analysis of OER use, adaptation and creation across the research sites, and identifies the structural, cultural and agential factors that enable and constrain these Open Educational Practices (OEP). It points out disjunctures in adoption processes in the countries and institutions studied, and draws insights regarding the extent to which OER adoption can expand access to educational materials, enhance the quality of educational resources and educators’ pedagogical perspectives and practices, and improve the affordability and sustainability of education in the Global South.
This concluding chapter explores the implications of the main research findings presented in the meta-synthesis for the attainment of social inclusion, which lies at the heart of the Open Education movement. The Paris OER Declaration of 2012 explicitly calls upon states to “[p]romote and use OER to … contribut[e] to social inclusion, gender equity and special needs education [and i]mprove both cost-efficiency and quality of teaching and learning outcomes” (emphasis added). The Ljubljana OER Action Plan of 2017 likewise recognises that, “[t]oward the realization of inclusive Knowledge Societies ... [OER] support quality education that is equitable, inclusive, open and participatory”. Understanding how OER, OEP and Open Education more generally, can help to achieve social inclusion is particularly critical in the Global South where increased demand, lack of resources and high costs limit the capacity of education systems to provide accessible, relevant, highquality and affordable education. This chapter aims to contribute to this understanding the potential of OER and their accompanying OEP through a critical exploration of the ROER4D findings in terms of whether and how OER adoption promotes equitable access, participatory education and empowerment of teachers and students, and thus helps to achieve social inclusion. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the relationship between OER and social inclusion, details the implications of ROER4D’s findings as they pertain to social inclusion, and concludes with recommendations for advocacy, policy, practice and further research in OER and OEP in the Global South.
To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.
SCAP found that scholars:
• carry heavy teaching and administrative loads which hinder their research productivity
• remain unconvinced by open access dissemination
• find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa
• rarely communicate their research with government
• engage in small, locally-based research projects that are either unfunded or funded by their universities
• produce outputs that are often interpretive, derivative or applied due, in part, to institutional rewards structures and funding challenges
• do not utilize social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities.
All of these factors impact Africa’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical, legal, social and ethical changes.
“Seeking Impact and Visibility” shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts. It not only analyses these four universities’ scholarly communication ecosystems, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of their scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of African research.
This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education, academically linked civil society organizations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers.
The question this article poses is: to what extent was this bound to the revolutionary era? Did the cauldron of maritime labour continue to imbue seafarers with a radical political sensibility beyond the age of sail?
To answer this question, I focus on the fortunes of “mixed race” coloured South African seamen who sailed on South African ships during apartheid (1948-1994). I chose this group of Cape Town men because they share structural similarities with their Atlantic ancestors: they were politically oppressed, their land was expropriated by the government and they were physically exploited. By assessing their experiences at home, at sea and abroad, we can better understand how modern seafaring has affected their political consciousness.
The paper focuses on two distinct temporal regimes that define sailors' experiences: the rapid turnaround cycle of Durban's container ship sector and the slower turnaround cycle of Cape Town's deep sea trawling sector.
It makes three sequentially related arguments: that sailors' temporal constraints dictate which solicitation techniques local prostitutes use; that solicitation techniques determine how culture is transmitted between the two ethnically alterior parties; and that the style of cultural transmission impacts how the sailors' cultures are ultimately received by the prostitutes and their communities.
Based on over one hundred life history interviews with coloured and African forced removees, this article examines the impact of Group Areas evictions on contemporary coloured identity. It suggests that, in the wake of mass social trauma, coloured removees coped with their pain by reminiscing with each other about the "good old days" in the destroyed communities. Their removal to racially defined townships ensured that they mainly shared their memories with other coloured people, and much less with African or Indian removees.
Apartheid social engineering to a large extent thus determined the spatial limits within which coloured memories circulated, creating a reflexive, mutually reinforcing pattern of narrative traffic. Over the past four decades, the constant circulation of these nostalgic stories has developed a "narrative community" amongst coloured people in the townships. This experience of popular sharing and support in the context of loss today gives coloured identity in Cape Town a dimension that would be lacking if it were only mobilized for political or economic purposes.
Social historians provide passing glimpses of dockside prostitution in their consideration of larger historical themes—Company rule, slavery, British colonial governance, the Mineral Revolution, the Anglo-Boer War, and apartheid—but they have yet to treat it as a distinct analytical category through which to view the past. Yet popular intellectual trends suggest that research into the dockside sex trade would add new dimensions to the histories of cosmopolitanism, gender, globalization, maritime recreation, and the Atlantic and Indian Oceans.
This article provides a quick and accessible introduction to the historiography of dockside prostitution in South Africa.
This article, "Navigating Risk," focuses on the dockside prostitution sector in Cape Town and Durban, showing how its structural features enhance the women's power vis-à-vis their clients and the police. It discusses 5 key variables that influence the likelihood of violence within each prostitution sector:
* the social and legal status of the client
* the location of the negotiation
* the location of the sexual act
* the level of discretion in the solicitation process
* and the role of third-party involvement
Detailed policy recommendations conclude the argument."
The article concludes with the idea that dockside women are relatively empowered compared to their streetwalking & brothel-working counterparts. Since most hail from upcountry locales, they successfully live "double lives" that protect them from family and communal reprisal. Since their clients are foreign transients, the men pose no threat to their identities (they have no social power outside the dockside world). Since the women solicit from a safe nightclub, they retain the right of refusal. And because they're the knowledgeable locals, they choose the location of sex, which enhances their power to insist on condom-use.
Ironically, these upcountry women are perhaps the most cosmopolitan citizens of Durban as they entertain dozens of nationalities every evening."
The paper is based on sailors' accounts. Between 1649 and 1690 at least eighty-eight reports of the Cape of Good Hope were written by sailors, many of them quoted by later academics and imperial strategists. This paper focuses on the most popular and representative of these writings. It first looks at how Khoikhoi were represented as "strategic shepherds", as herders who were seen as important assets in the Dutch colonial establishment at the Cape. It then investigates how travellers tapped into and enhanced the trope of the godless savage, extending this rather popular stereotype to Khoikhoi as part of European understanding of the "other". Finally it examines how local Cape peoples were valued as ethnographic specimens."
Method: This paper draws on in-depth interviews with 23 staff members of the Centre for Innovation in Learning and Teaching (CILT) who revealed not only the logistical, technical, and administrative challenges faced during the ERT rollout period but the efforts they made to ensure that their efforts promoted equity (for students), agility (for the university), and psychological sustainability (for themselves).
Findings: Using cultural historical activity theory as a lens to assess CILT staff activities, findings indicate that a number of contradictions and tensions emerged during this period—concerning exacerbated inequities, pedagogical compromises, cultural anxieties, and psychological pressures—that could not be fully resolved but only managed.
Implications for Research: CILT staff are interested not only in providing logistical, technical, and practical support to a university but also in dealing effectively with the ethical, cultural, and emotional concerns that arise in times of crisis and transition, such as the current one. Understanding what happened during COVID-19 may offer insights into how other centers for teaching and learning can adjust to what will likely remain an unstable future in higher education.
Conclusion: The pandemic ruptured the previously organic change and growth that characterized CILT development, transforming it as the staff responded to this South African university’s need to provide support to academics and students engaging with ERT.
the higher education sector in South Africa, with key issues being raised
regarding student exclusion based on financial, epistemological and cultural
grounds. In this highly politicised and contested environment, some universities
decided to use blended and online delivery as a strategy to enable the
academic year to be completed and all curriculum to be covered, despite the
disruptions. This was a controversial decision politically and a challenging one
practically. From the perspective of the academics at the University of Cape
Town (UCT), this paper draws on interviews with educators in three broad
disciplinary areas to explore their views, practices, and experiences regarding the
use of online materials in these unique circumstances. Activity Theory provides a
framework to consider the issues systemically and to identify the tensions and
contradictions in the system.
The findings of each of the sub-projects are discussed in the various chapters comprising this volume, and a meta-synthesis of these findings is presented in Chapter 2. Using a social realist lens, the meta-synthesis provides a comparative analysis of OER use, adaptation and creation across the research sites, and identifies the structural, cultural and agential factors that enable and constrain these Open Educational Practices (OEP). It points out disjunctures in adoption processes in the countries and institutions studied, and draws insights regarding the extent to which OER adoption can expand access to educational materials, enhance the quality of educational resources and educators’ pedagogical perspectives and practices, and improve the affordability and sustainability of education in the Global South.
This concluding chapter explores the implications of the main research findings presented in the meta-synthesis for the attainment of social inclusion, which lies at the heart of the Open Education movement. The Paris OER Declaration of 2012 explicitly calls upon states to “[p]romote and use OER to … contribut[e] to social inclusion, gender equity and special needs education [and i]mprove both cost-efficiency and quality of teaching and learning outcomes” (emphasis added). The Ljubljana OER Action Plan of 2017 likewise recognises that, “[t]oward the realization of inclusive Knowledge Societies ... [OER] support quality education that is equitable, inclusive, open and participatory”. Understanding how OER, OEP and Open Education more generally, can help to achieve social inclusion is particularly critical in the Global South where increased demand, lack of resources and high costs limit the capacity of education systems to provide accessible, relevant, highquality and affordable education. This chapter aims to contribute to this understanding the potential of OER and their accompanying OEP through a critical exploration of the ROER4D findings in terms of whether and how OER adoption promotes equitable access, participatory education and empowerment of teachers and students, and thus helps to achieve social inclusion. The chapter begins with a brief overview of the relationship between OER and social inclusion, details the implications of ROER4D’s findings as they pertain to social inclusion, and concludes with recommendations for advocacy, policy, practice and further research in OER and OEP in the Global South.
This is a foundational question in academia, though one that is usually taken for granted in the literature on scholarly values and attitudes. Most studies – which typically focus on scholars from the global North – tend to assess academics’ feelings about research-related issues such as academic peer review, dissemination outlets for scholarly outputs, perceptions of journal quality, digital and Web 2.0 technologies, open access publishing and academic identity.
These studies shed light on scholars’ attitudes toward elements of their research and communication practices, but they do not get at the more basic question of why scholars conduct research in the first place. In Africa, where most universities have only recently incorporated a research mission into what have long been teaching-oriented institutions, the question of why scholars conduct research is a pertinent one, and the answers cannot be assumed. Moreover, the purpose of university research on the continent is shaped by more than just the desires of the scholars themselves, but by those of their national governments, their institutions’ managers, students, overseas funders, local NGOs and community stakeholders. Thus all of these competing interests impact how scholars view the research enterprise.
As part of its work of mapping scholarly communication activity systems in Southern Africa, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) – a three-year research and implementation project based at the University of Cape Town – tried to answer this foundational question by examining regional scholars’ motivations for conducting and disseminating research. Between 2010 and 2013, it engaged with four different faculties in four different universities in four different countries so that the regions’ scholarly research and communication activities would be assessed with an eye for how disciplinary, institutional and national factors impacted scholars’ research values. SCAP conducted its research with the following faculties:
• University of Botswana (UB) Faculty of Humanities (FoH)
• University of Cape Town (UCT) Faculty of Commerce (Comm)
• University of Mauritius (UoM) Faculty of Science (FoS)
• University of Namibia (UNAM) Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences (FHSS)
In this paper, we explore the scholarly values motivating the production and dissemination of research in these four Southern African universities as revealed in SCAP research.
To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.
In the University of Botswana’s Faculty of Humanities, SCAP found that scholars:
• carry heavy teaching and administrative loads which hinder their research productivity
• remain unconvinced by open access dissemination
• find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa
• rarely communicate their research with government
• engage in small, locally-based research projects that are either unfunded or funded by the university
• produce outputs that are often interpretive, derivative or applied due, in part, to institutional rewards structures and funding challenges
• do not utilize social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities.
All of these factors impact UB’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical, legal, social and ethical changes.
“Scholarly Communication at the University of Botswana” shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts at UB’s Faculty of Humanities. It not only analyses the faculty’s scholarly communication ecosystem, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of its scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of the university’s research as a whole.
This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education, academically linked civil society organizations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers."
To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.
In the University of Cape Town’s Faculty of Commerce, SCAP found that scholars:
• remain unconvinced by open access dissemination
• find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa
• rarely communicate their research with government
• tread a fine line between their quest for (academic) prestige and their quest for (social) relevance
• show little interest in producing “alternative” outputs (e.g. policy briefs, reports, etc.) that non-academic audiences would find more accessible than traditional journal articles
• seldom utilise social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities.
All of these factors impact UCT’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical, legal, social and ethical changes.
“Scholarly Communication at the University of Cape Town” shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts at UCT’s Faculty of Commerce. It not only analyses the faculty’s scholarly communication ecosystem, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of its scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of the university’s research as a whole.
This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education, academically linked civil society organisations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers.
To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.
In the University of Mauritius Faculty of Science, SCAP found that scholars:
• carry heavy teaching and administrative loads which hinder their research productivity
• feel positive about the merits of open access communication, but neither they nor the university has an OA dissemination strategy that would capitalize on this sentiment
• find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa
• rarely communicate their research with government
• tend to engage in small, locally-based research projects that are either unfunded or funded by the university
• do not utilize social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities.
All of these factors impact UoM’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical, legal, social and ethical changes.
“Scholarly Communication at the University of Mauritius” shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts at UoM’s Faculty of Science. It not only analyses the faculty’s scholarly communication ecosystem, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of its scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of the university’s research as a whole.
This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education, academically linked civil society organizations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers."
To address this challenge, the Scholarly Communication in Africa Programme (SCAP) was established to help raise the visibility of African scholarship by mapping current research and communication practices in Southern African universities and by recommending and piloting technical and administrative innovations based on open access dissemination principles. To do this, SCAP conducted extensive research in four faculties at the Universities of Botswana, Cape Town, Mauritius and Namibia.
In the University of Namibia’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences, SCAP found that scholars:
• carry heavy teaching and administrative loads which hinder their research productivity
• remain unconvinced by open access dissemination
• find it easier to collaborate with scholars in the global North than in the rest of Africa
• rarely communicate their research with government
• engage in small, locally-based research projects that are either unfunded or funded by the university
• produce outputs that are often interpretive, derivative or applied due, in part, to institutional rewards structures and funding challenges
• do not utilise social media technologies to disseminate their work or seek new collaborative opportunities.
All of these factors impact UNAM’s research in/visibility at a time when scholarly communication is going through dramatic technical, legal, social and ethical changes.
“Scholarly Communication at the University of Namibia” shares the results of SCAP’s research and advocacy efforts at UNAM’s Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. It not only analyses the faculty’s scholarly communication ecosystem, but illuminates the opportunities available for raising the visibility of its scholarship. It concludes with a series of recommendations that would enhance the communicative and developmental potential of the university’s research as a whole.
This study will be of interest for scholars of African higher education, academically linked civil society organisations, educationally affiliated government personnel and university researchers and managers.
In this thesis, I trace the genealogy of literature produced from the 1960s to the 1990s, showing that District Six exercised an important function in the mobilization of resistance to apartheid and the imagination of new forms of communal cohesion and memory. I propose that there are three discrete periods, each related to the status of the district’s integrity, which directly inform the production of coloured literature.
The first period (pre-1966) was a time when the community lived under the threat, but not the actuality, of relocation. Literature of this era is typified by the minute detailing of District Six's material conditions, or what we can call “portrait protest.” The second period (1966-1982) relates to the protracted demolition of the area, in which coloured writing focused on individuals’ psychic and relational trauma which the Group Areas Act effected. The third period (post-1983) was after District Six was cleared, renamed, and reserved for whites, an era where coloured literature turned toward communal nostalgia in the form of romanticized autobiography.
This periodization helps reveal the structural forces impacting coloured artistic expression, showing how the District was an important symbol and organizing principle writers used to protest apartheid and create a new sense of community out of the dislocating removals.