Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1455
T. Raniga
Women establish their entrepreneurial projects for economic independence and to reduce vulnerability to poverty. The numberof women engaged in entrepreneurial activities has increased as a result of access to business training and mentorship facilitated by non-governmental organisations. This paper advances empirical evidence in the field of social development and sustainable livelihoods. Using qualitative methodology, I present evidence from 20 women who were beneficiaries of a Non-Governmental Organisation’s entrepreneurship training in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. Underscored by the sustainable livelihoodapproach, this paper deliberates three connected themes: motivational factors that promote women entrepreneurs, nurturing social networks, and navigating financial capital challenges. The paper affirms women entrepreneurship as a positive social development strategy to assist unemployed women to work towards economic self-reliance.
{"title":"Women Entrepreneurship as a Strategy for Sustainable Livelihoods","authors":"T. Raniga","doi":"10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1455","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1455","url":null,"abstract":"Women establish their entrepreneurial projects for economic independence and to reduce vulnerability to poverty. The numberof women engaged in entrepreneurial activities has increased as a result of access to business training and mentorship facilitated by non-governmental organisations. This paper advances empirical evidence in the field of social development and sustainable livelihoods. Using qualitative methodology, I present evidence from 20 women who were beneficiaries of a Non-Governmental Organisation’s entrepreneurship training in the province of Gauteng, South Africa. Underscored by the sustainable livelihoodapproach, this paper deliberates three connected themes: motivational factors that promote women entrepreneurs, nurturing social networks, and navigating financial capital challenges. The paper affirms women entrepreneurship as a positive social development strategy to assist unemployed women to work towards economic self-reliance.","PeriodicalId":34673,"journal":{"name":"The Thinker","volume":"28 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72928427","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1461
R. Frenkel
David, as an academic who has researched Zimbabwe for many years, please tell us how and why you became interested in this country.
大卫,作为一个研究津巴布韦多年的学者,请告诉我们你是如何以及为什么对这个国家感兴趣的。
{"title":"David Moore","authors":"R. Frenkel","doi":"10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1461","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1461","url":null,"abstract":"David, as an academic who has researched Zimbabwe for many years, please tell us how and why you became interested in this country.","PeriodicalId":34673,"journal":{"name":"The Thinker","volume":"100 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88137707","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1462
D. Moore
After an attempt at a theoretical and contextual introduction to Mugabe’s Legacy, I dug into the main menu with something akin to the mainstay of Joost Fontein’s nearly simultaneously published book on the politics of death in Zimbabwe: a death. I am sure Joostwould agree that such a denouement hardly means ‘the end’. My end-that-is-a-new-beginning entailed the somewhat magical way I discovered that Robert Mugabe had indeed reached the final point of his mortal coil, and my recounting of Stephen Groote’s hastily rallied Zimbabwean éminence activistes grises’ epitaphs on SAFM’s Sunrise. Surprisingly (to me), none of them mentioned in other than laudatory mode Mugabe’s learning many of his trade’s tricks during Zimbabwe’s liberation war. I tried to remedy some of such lacunae at the end of the interviews on that September 6, 2019 morning, but when writing the book discovered writer Percy Zvomuya’s historical delving reflected my interests. Zvomuya zeroed in on the mid-1970s moment Mugabe’s Legacy takes as integral to Mugabe’s political making: that being his ability to get rid of those he thought challenged him. Zvomuya’s never-erring literary marksmanship hit on some remarkable writers’ takes on history and politics, including Graham Greene, one of African Arguments brilliant managing editor Stephanie Kitchen’s favourites. I brought Zvomuya and his interpretations to my story in these excerpts: I owe him the book’sliterary legacy.
{"title":"Excerpt from Moore’s Mugabe’s Legacy: Coups, Conspiracies, and the Conceits of Power in Zimbabwe","authors":"D. Moore","doi":"10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1462","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1462","url":null,"abstract":"After an attempt at a theoretical and contextual introduction to Mugabe’s Legacy, I dug into the main menu with something akin to the mainstay of Joost Fontein’s nearly simultaneously published book on the politics of death in Zimbabwe: a death. I am sure Joostwould agree that such a denouement hardly means ‘the end’. My end-that-is-a-new-beginning entailed the somewhat magical way I discovered that Robert Mugabe had indeed reached the final point of his mortal coil, and my recounting of Stephen Groote’s hastily rallied Zimbabwean éminence activistes grises’ epitaphs on SAFM’s Sunrise. Surprisingly (to me), none of them mentioned in other than laudatory mode Mugabe’s learning many of his trade’s tricks during Zimbabwe’s liberation war. I tried to remedy some of such lacunae at the end of the interviews on that September 6, 2019 morning, but when writing the book discovered writer Percy Zvomuya’s historical delving reflected my interests. Zvomuya zeroed in on the mid-1970s moment Mugabe’s Legacy takes as integral to Mugabe’s political making: that being his ability to get rid of those he thought challenged him. Zvomuya’s never-erring literary marksmanship hit on some remarkable writers’ takes on history and politics, including Graham Greene, one of African Arguments brilliant managing editor Stephanie Kitchen’s favourites. I brought Zvomuya and his interpretations to my story in these excerpts: I owe him the book’sliterary legacy.","PeriodicalId":34673,"journal":{"name":"The Thinker","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"76627680","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1456
L. Attree
Masande Ntshanga’s novel The Reactive (2014) is the first South African novel written by a black male writer to feature the first-personvoice of an HIV-positive man, Lindanathi. Following Kgebetli Moele’s The Book of the Dead (2009), which gave the virus itself a voice, The Reactive heralds a significant shift in the portrayal of HIV in South African literature. Eben Venter’s Afrikaans novel Ek Stamel, EkSterwe (1996) which was translated into English by Luke Stubbs as My Beautiful Death (2004), and which has – significantly – received little critical review in English as an HIV narrative, tells the story of a white South African man, Konstant, in the Australian diaspora whoeventually succumbs to AIDS. Both novels complicate ideas of masculinity and can be described as ‘coming of age’ narratives or bildungsromans. Both novels sit historically on the cusp of change, before and after the widespread availability of ARVs. Given theircommonality of subject and narrative perspective, these texts seem ripe for comparison despite their authors’ different backgrounds. The shifts and continuities in the representation of HIV/AIDS found between these two novels, published 18 years apart, seem to disrupt the trajectory of the post-colonial bildungsroman as it is mediated (for the first time?) through the HIVpositive narrator. Reading these two novels together helps us to understand literary patterns, associations and dissociations, which reveal a cultural symbology of HIV/AIDS, part of a wider cultural symbology of illness in South African literature.
{"title":"Daring to Be Different: The First-Person HIV-Positive Narrator in Two South African Novels","authors":"L. Attree","doi":"10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1456","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1456","url":null,"abstract":"Masande Ntshanga’s novel The Reactive (2014) is the first South African novel written by a black male writer to feature the first-personvoice of an HIV-positive man, Lindanathi. Following Kgebetli Moele’s The Book of the Dead (2009), which gave the virus itself a voice, The Reactive heralds a significant shift in the portrayal of HIV in South African literature. Eben Venter’s Afrikaans novel Ek Stamel, EkSterwe (1996) which was translated into English by Luke Stubbs as My Beautiful Death (2004), and which has – significantly – received little critical review in English as an HIV narrative, tells the story of a white South African man, Konstant, in the Australian diaspora whoeventually succumbs to AIDS. Both novels complicate ideas of masculinity and can be described as ‘coming of age’ narratives or bildungsromans. Both novels sit historically on the cusp of change, before and after the widespread availability of ARVs. Given theircommonality of subject and narrative perspective, these texts seem ripe for comparison despite their authors’ different backgrounds. The shifts and continuities in the representation of HIV/AIDS found between these two novels, published 18 years apart, seem to disrupt the trajectory of the post-colonial bildungsroman as it is mediated (for the first time?) through the HIVpositive narrator. Reading these two novels together helps us to understand literary patterns, associations and dissociations, which reveal a cultural symbology of HIV/AIDS, part of a wider cultural symbology of illness in South African literature.","PeriodicalId":34673,"journal":{"name":"The Thinker","volume":"22 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"85696030","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-09-02DOI: 10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1454
N. Shabalala
This paper offers a critical auto-ethnographic account about navigating entry into the academy as an emerging woman academic. In this paper, I reflect on the multiple intersecting positions I inhabit to draw attention to the tensions often experienced by black women in the academy. I also allude to tensions inherent in being a psychologist and an academic. The paper aims to bring to the fore the dynamics that perpetuate black women academics’ sense of nonbelonging, voicelessness, and stagnation. Through my narrative, I critically discuss the concepts of time, space, temporality, emotion, and gender within the academic environment and how these elements intersect to shape experience. I make partial reference to feminist thought and critical psychology to drive the conversation about structural issues that persist within the academy that result in the feeling of dis-ease. I also argue that perhaps this dis-ease is the starting point for us to look at what is happening and move towards a radical or reimagined academy. Through this process, I recognised how I became violently silent and disillusioned but emerged hopeful that constant processes of confrontation such as this will eventually create a home for us.
{"title":"What Is Happening Here?: An Auto-Ethnographic Account of an Emerging Woman Academic’s Entry into the Academy in South Africa","authors":"N. Shabalala","doi":"10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1454","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/thethinker.v92i3.1454","url":null,"abstract":"This paper offers a critical auto-ethnographic account about navigating entry into the academy as an emerging woman academic. In this paper, I reflect on the multiple intersecting positions I inhabit to draw attention to the tensions often experienced by black women in the academy. I also allude to tensions inherent in being a psychologist and an academic. The paper aims to bring to the fore the dynamics that perpetuate black women academics’ sense of nonbelonging, voicelessness, and stagnation. Through my narrative, I critically discuss the concepts of time, space, temporality, emotion, and gender within the academic environment and how these elements intersect to shape experience. I make partial reference to feminist thought and critical psychology to drive the conversation about structural issues that persist within the academy that result in the feeling of dis-ease. I also argue that perhaps this dis-ease is the starting point for us to look at what is happening and move towards a radical or reimagined academy. Through this process, I recognised how I became violently silent and disillusioned but emerged hopeful that constant processes of confrontation such as this will eventually create a home for us.","PeriodicalId":34673,"journal":{"name":"The Thinker","volume":"23 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"81145507","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-06DOI: 10.36615/thethinker.v91i2.1284
Ashraf Jamal
When asked to convene a colloquium about something that, for me, defines the art world during this on-going pandemic, I thought of the obvious – revisionism in the West, and the stratospheric obsession/fetishization of the black body. Why, I wondered, is black portraiture ‘a thing’? And why, of all people, was Amoako Boafo the most sought-after black portraitist in 2020? Why, at this historicalmoment, should the art world reclassify its driving concerns, rethink curation, staffing, education, and access? Because black art is the new frontier? Because of a seismic ethical shift, generated by theslaughter of blacks in America? Because the spectreof imperialism persists?
{"title":"Black Self","authors":"Ashraf Jamal","doi":"10.36615/thethinker.v91i2.1284","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/thethinker.v91i2.1284","url":null,"abstract":"When asked to convene a colloquium about something that, for me, defines the art world during this on-going pandemic, I thought of the obvious – revisionism in the West, and the stratospheric obsession/fetishization of the black body. Why, I wondered, is black portraiture ‘a thing’? And why, of all people, was Amoako Boafo the most sought-after black portraitist in 2020? Why, at this historicalmoment, should the art world reclassify its driving concerns, rethink curation, staffing, education, and access? Because black art is the new frontier? Because of a seismic ethical shift, generated by theslaughter of blacks in America? Because the spectreof imperialism persists?","PeriodicalId":34673,"journal":{"name":"The Thinker","volume":"20 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"77994043","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-06-06DOI: 10.36615/thethinker.v91i2.1293
Nkgopoleng Moloi
This essay provides a study of colour as a dematerialised object through which to consider Blackness and art making. I ask how colour has been employed by Black artists as a critical component of their practices, proposing that a critical study of colour can help us understand how Black artists navigate the art landscape and create spaces of imagination, possibility, and life for themselves. Foregrounded by Darby English’s book, 1971: A Year in the Life of Color (2016), I consider Alma Thomas’ A fantastic sunset (1970), David Koloane’s Mgodoyi III (1993), and various exhibitions by Serge Alain Nitegeka. Although rooted in Black studies, I also consider British artist Marlow Moss’ painting Composition in yellow, black and white (1949). Here I’m interested in how colour can be usedto expand notions of intersectional identities through a queering approach. Colour is read as an effective tool of creation, resistance, and refusal. Through this text I consider Fred Moten’s riff on Fannie Lou Hamer, ‘Refuse what has been refused to you,’ as a potential approach and method, while considering colour as a method of refusal. That is to say, what does it mean when Black artists gravitate towards or away from a certain colour? How are these choices influenced by what they have been refused and what they choose to refuse?
{"title":"Colour, Abstraction and Fantastic Sunsets","authors":"Nkgopoleng Moloi","doi":"10.36615/thethinker.v91i2.1293","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/thethinker.v91i2.1293","url":null,"abstract":"This essay provides a study of colour as a dematerialised object through which to consider Blackness and art making. I ask how colour has been employed by Black artists as a critical component of their practices, proposing that a critical study of colour can help us understand how Black artists navigate the art landscape and create spaces of imagination, possibility, and life for themselves. Foregrounded by Darby English’s book, 1971: A Year in the Life of Color (2016), I consider Alma Thomas’ A fantastic sunset (1970), David Koloane’s Mgodoyi III (1993), and various exhibitions by Serge Alain Nitegeka. Although rooted in Black studies, I also consider British artist Marlow Moss’ painting Composition in yellow, black and white (1949). Here I’m interested in how colour can be usedto expand notions of intersectional identities through a queering approach. Colour is read as an effective tool of creation, resistance, and refusal. Through this text I consider Fred Moten’s riff on Fannie Lou Hamer, ‘Refuse what has been refused to you,’ as a potential approach and method, while considering colour as a method of refusal. That is to say, what does it mean when Black artists gravitate towards or away from a certain colour? How are these choices influenced by what they have been refused and what they choose to refuse?","PeriodicalId":34673,"journal":{"name":"The Thinker","volume":"1 6","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-06-06","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72372179","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-21DOI: 10.36615/thethinker.v90i1.1170
Anthoni van Nieuwkerk
Modern warfare is becoming more technological and increasingly employs advanced technologies. Advances in precision location,targeting and strike, navigation, large data transmission, weapon-system range and manoeuvrability, and the growing importance of the outer space and cyber domains are collectively altering the ‘spatial dimensions’ of warfare. But are these rapidly evolving technologies and their use in defence and warfare relevant to developing nations and Africa in particular? There still exist high barriers to implementation, especially in countries with weak military research and development infrastructures. This article examines these 4IR-induced shifts in warfare thinking and practice, and focuses on the implications for Africa. It also probes the options open to states to prepare for the use of digital technologies in the warfare domain, in particular drones and their application. It concludes with a number of recommendations for African security decision-makers to enhance innovative, effective, and efficient security sectors [1].
{"title":"The Impact of Digital- Driven Warfare on Africa","authors":"Anthoni van Nieuwkerk","doi":"10.36615/thethinker.v90i1.1170","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/thethinker.v90i1.1170","url":null,"abstract":"Modern warfare is becoming more technological and increasingly employs advanced technologies. Advances in precision location,targeting and strike, navigation, large data transmission, weapon-system range and manoeuvrability, and the growing importance of the outer space and cyber domains are collectively altering the ‘spatial dimensions’ of warfare. But are these rapidly evolving technologies and their use in defence and warfare relevant to developing nations and Africa in particular? There still exist high barriers to implementation, especially in countries with weak military research and development infrastructures. This article examines these 4IR-induced shifts in warfare thinking and practice, and focuses on the implications for Africa. It also probes the options open to states to prepare for the use of digital technologies in the warfare domain, in particular drones and their application. It concludes with a number of recommendations for African security decision-makers to enhance innovative, effective, and efficient security sectors [1].","PeriodicalId":34673,"journal":{"name":"The Thinker","volume":"32 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"72697964","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-21DOI: 10.36615/thethinker.v90i1.1179
D. McCracken
It is with a certain hesitation that one opens a new book about the work experience written by a former colleague. Flicking nervously to the index I am relieved to see my name is not mentioned, only moments later to be mortified on flicking through his 244-page apologia to see my name up in lights. So, we shall start with a shoddy index. That and the 1970s drab brown cover do not speak well for a good read. Then the acknowledgements contain this ominous paragraph: ‘These chapters are constituted and rewritten from columns published in UKZNdabaOnline, with others from UKZNtouch, SUBtext, Wits Review, the Sunday Times and some other published and original materials. The first of these he wrote as the Griot, the oral storyteller of African communities. The chapters have been edited, updated and the original ideas elaborated on and offered here in essay form, rather than as columns.’ So, the 1970s are pushed back to the 1950s when in South Africa the common if quaintly outdated practice of selected published columns actually sold books. A quarter of a century ago I recall advising a celebrated journalist and broadcaster not to even think of such a retrograde step. And yet, like some remarkable madcap Grand Design, Tomaselli has succeeded where others have failed. The book is a success.
{"title":"Contemporary Campus Life","authors":"D. McCracken","doi":"10.36615/thethinker.v90i1.1179","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/thethinker.v90i1.1179","url":null,"abstract":"It is with a certain hesitation that one opens a new book about the work experience written by a former colleague. Flicking nervously to the index I am relieved to see my name is not mentioned, only moments later to be mortified on flicking through his 244-page apologia to see my name up in lights. So, we shall start with a shoddy index. That and the 1970s drab brown cover do not speak well for a good read. Then the acknowledgements contain this ominous paragraph: ‘These chapters are constituted and rewritten from columns published in UKZNdabaOnline, with others from UKZNtouch, SUBtext, Wits Review, the Sunday Times and some other published and original materials. The first of these he wrote as the Griot, the oral storyteller of African communities. The chapters have been edited, updated and the original ideas elaborated on and offered here in essay form, rather than as columns.’ So, the 1970s are pushed back to the 1950s when in South Africa the common if quaintly outdated practice of selected published columns actually sold books. A quarter of a century ago I recall advising a celebrated journalist and broadcaster not to even think of such a retrograde step. And yet, like some remarkable madcap Grand Design, Tomaselli has succeeded where others have failed. The book is a success.","PeriodicalId":34673,"journal":{"name":"The Thinker","volume":"78 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"90909584","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2022-02-21DOI: 10.36615/thethinker.v90i1.1172
Xichavo Alecia Ndlovu, Z. Ngwane, Mmabatho Mongae
Literature on the advent of 4IR has focused on the disruptive features of 4IR for the workplace and the role 4IR will play in enhancing economic growth and productivity. However, less is written about whether and how 4IR technologies may affect and be affected by the existing political settlement, especially in developing countries like South Africa. We investigate whether and how the adoption of technological advancements associated with 4IR would affect (and be affected by) the political settlements in South Africa’s mining industry. We argue that the displacement of workers can shift the balance of power against organised labour and in favour of mining companies. Nonetheless, the impact of 4IR is not predetermined. South Africa’s mining industry is a contested terrain, and the existingpolitical settlement is likely to influence the process, pace, and extent of adopting 4IR technologies.
{"title":"The Fourth Industrial Revolution and the Political Settlement in South Africa’s Mining Industry","authors":"Xichavo Alecia Ndlovu, Z. Ngwane, Mmabatho Mongae","doi":"10.36615/thethinker.v90i1.1172","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.36615/thethinker.v90i1.1172","url":null,"abstract":"Literature on the advent of 4IR has focused on the disruptive features of 4IR for the workplace and the role 4IR will play in enhancing economic growth and productivity. However, less is written about whether and how 4IR technologies may affect and be affected by the existing political settlement, especially in developing countries like South Africa. We investigate whether and how the adoption of technological advancements associated with 4IR would affect (and be affected by) the political settlements in South Africa’s mining industry. We argue that the displacement of workers can shift the balance of power against organised labour and in favour of mining companies. Nonetheless, the impact of 4IR is not predetermined. South Africa’s mining industry is a contested terrain, and the existingpolitical settlement is likely to influence the process, pace, and extent of adopting 4IR technologies.","PeriodicalId":34673,"journal":{"name":"The Thinker","volume":"20 1 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2022-02-21","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"88071758","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}