Contract Archeology in South Africa

Author(s):  
Ndukuyakhe Ndlovu

The roots of contract archeology were laid even before the development of a legislative framework that prescribed the processes to be followed. Contract archeology was being seen by the museums and universities as the best avenue to the subsidizing of archeological research. The increased research funding of the 1960s and 1970s was on the decline in the 1980s. Universities, therefore, were at a disadvantage and needed to explore other avenues of funding. Legislative changes over the years, which made it mandatory for developers to fund impact assessments to mitigate potential damage of valuable heritage resources from their proposed activities, have led to a significant proliferation of private archeological companies. These have been established to provide developers with the expertise they need to satisfy these legal requirements. The approach used in South Africa is that the developer must pay to assess the nature of the likely impact of their proposed activity. Government entities are then tasked with the responsibility of reviewing studies undertaken by specialists subcontracted by developers. The subdiscipline of archeology has grown significantly in South Africa, specifically enabled by legislative changes over the years requiring that predevelopment assessments of heritage sites be undertaken prior to approvals being made. However, archeology has continued to be defined as racially unrepresentative of the South African demography. In addition, the management of heritage resources through the use of contract archeology has been characterized by a variety of administrative challenges.

Author(s):  
Jessica Stephenson

Born in 1934 in Bedford, Eastern Cape, South Africa, William (Bill) Stewart Ainslie was a painter and educator, and the founder of a number of visual art programs and workshops that countered discriminatory racial and educational policies in apartheid-era South Africa. These programs encouraged students to work in abstract and other modernist idioms not practiced in the country at the time. Until his untimely death at age 55, Ainslie melded his career as an artist with his vision of art as a means to combat apartheid. In the 1960s and 1970s, Ainslie fostered the only multiracial art programs in the country, culminating in a formal art school, the non-profit Johannesburg Art Foundation (1982). He helped found the Federated Union of Black Artists (FUBA) and the art schools Fuba Academy (1978), Funda Center (1983) (funda means "learn" in Xhosa), and the Alexandra Arts Centre (1986). The generation of modern African artists and educators trained at these institutions shaped the course of art after apartheid. Ainslie also organized short-term workshops, most notably the Thupelo Art Workshop (thupelo means "to teach by example" in Southern Sotho) in 1983. Thupelo linked local and international artists and focused on abstraction, a radical departure from the social realist style expected of politically engaged South African art of the 1980s.


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lauren Peacock

<p>“National ideals or National Interest?” examines the making and implementation by successive New Zealand governments of policy toward apartheid South Africa from 1981 to 1994. Its main focus is the contradictory relationship between living up to New Zealand’s ideals against doing what was practicable in the context of the time. The dilemma the apartheid state faced, in trying to solve its internal problems while not imperilling its external security was often not appreciated by the New Zealand government. These misconceptions helped shape New Zealand policy. Ironically once the South African regime began to investigate the possibilities of some sort of political transformation, their New Zealand counterparts were less willing to empathise with the risks involved with such an undertaking than they had been in the 1960s and 1970s. “National Ideals’ also examines the role of civil society and what was often a parallel unofficial foreign policy based around these person -to - person contacts, including the problems posed for the government by the need to persuade groups such as the NZRFU to follow government policy without overstepping what were strongly entrenched principles of individual freedom. The conflicts within the two main political parties of New Zealand were also important in shaping policy, as was the adversarial relationship between the major parties. “National Ideals” concluded that more often than not interests came first and indeed that at times policy decisions often to the product of accident and intrigue.</p>


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
◽  
Lauren Peacock

<p>“National ideals or National Interest?” examines the making and implementation by successive New Zealand governments of policy toward apartheid South Africa from 1981 to 1994. Its main focus is the contradictory relationship between living up to New Zealand’s ideals against doing what was practicable in the context of the time. The dilemma the apartheid state faced, in trying to solve its internal problems while not imperilling its external security was often not appreciated by the New Zealand government. These misconceptions helped shape New Zealand policy. Ironically once the South African regime began to investigate the possibilities of some sort of political transformation, their New Zealand counterparts were less willing to empathise with the risks involved with such an undertaking than they had been in the 1960s and 1970s. “National Ideals’ also examines the role of civil society and what was often a parallel unofficial foreign policy based around these person -to - person contacts, including the problems posed for the government by the need to persuade groups such as the NZRFU to follow government policy without overstepping what were strongly entrenched principles of individual freedom. The conflicts within the two main political parties of New Zealand were also important in shaping policy, as was the adversarial relationship between the major parties. “National Ideals” concluded that more often than not interests came first and indeed that at times policy decisions often to the product of accident and intrigue.</p>


Author(s):  
E. Myburgh ◽  
E.M. Nevill

The medical, veterinary and economic importance of blackflies in South Africa, and the historical development of blackfly control programmes in various South African rivers, are reviewed in this paper. In 1996 it was estimated that blackflies can cause more than R 88 million damages per annum along the middle and lower Orange River where Simulium chutteri is considered the main pest species. A clear link between the construction of dams and the spread of the blackfly problem was shown. Four phases characterize the development of blackfly control in South Africa: (1) during the 1960s blackflies in the Vaal River were controlled with DDT; (2), during the 1970s and into the 1980s blackflies were controlled using water-flow manipulation; (3) when used at strategic times, water-flow manipulation could be used to enhance the effect of natural predator populations; and (4) during the 1990s the organophosphate temephos and toxins produced by the bacterium Bacillus thuringiensis var. israelensis were tested for their efficacy against blackflies. The larvicides temephos and B. thuringiensis proved to be effective and are still used in several control programmes. The latest research focuses on the factors that influence adult blackfly survival and annoyance, as well as the development of methods that can be used to protect sheep from blackfly attacks.


Obiter ◽  
2017 ◽  
Vol 38 (2) ◽  
Author(s):  
Heleen van Niekerk

The social rules of standing and waiting in a queue do not require explanation. When queuing at the post office, supermarket, or the theatre entrance, it is common knowledge that someone trying to enter the queue at any place but the rear end will cause, to say the least, an unfriendly reaction. Leaving the queue without good reason and without discussing this with the person behind one, may very well lead to losing one’s place in the queue. There are nuances, of course, informed by other important social norms or common decency, such as allowing leniency to queuing decorum for the infirm or disabled; or to be reasonable in allowing someone back into the queue when he/she had to leave for a good reason and with the promise of return, for example, to fetch an ID document accidentally left in the car. Adherence to these rules and norms is an expression of the deeply democratic principle of “ordinality” – something going more commonly by the statement “first-come; first-served”. Very simply, with limited exceptions, the person that is first in the queue must be served first.The “first-come; first-served” principle is not only a social rule of queuing. The notion that priority must be given according to the time of arrival is a manifestation of distributive and procedural justice, and is also “one of the most primitive canons of property jurisprudence”. In South African mining law, the “first-come; first-served” principle is associated with the notion that overlapping applications for a licence to conduct extractive-related activities, must be processed in order of receipt. In the mining context, the application of rules related to queuing and the “first-come; first-served” principle is, of course, more complex in a social setting. The reason for this stems from the different, and at times conflicting, interests that must be taken into account. While a simple application of the “first-come; first-served” principle may benefit individual queuers, the government, for example, may be interested in granting rights to entities that have the best financial and technical skills to exploit a mineral deposit optimally. The government may also be interested in granting rights to entities that are best able to advance the objectives of transformation and equitable access to mineral resources.The decision in Aquila Steel (South Africa) Limited v Minister of Mineral Resources ((72248/15) [2016] ZAGPPHC 1071) presents a striking illustration of the importance of rules related to queuing in the South African mining industry. This illustration is even more vivid, taking into account legislative changes to the Mineral and Petroleum Resources Development Act 28 of 2002 that were pending at the time of the judgment and that has subsequently taken effect. The judgment and legislative developments, furthermore, illustrate the interrelationship between the “first-come; first-served” principle and the notion of “exclusivity” as understood in the mining context.This case note discusses all aspects of the Aquila Steel judgment, but hones in on its implications for the queuing system in the South African mining context and, in particular, the relationship between the “first-come; first-served” principle and the notion of exclusivity.


Author(s):  
James M. Burns

The history of moving images in Africa dates to the late 19th century, when the first films premiered in South Africa shortly after their world debut in Paris. By 1940 cinema had become a staple of public leisure in urban areas across the continent. In the postwar era cinema’s popularity grew in cities and began to make inroads into rural areas. In the 1930s, colonial administrators started producing didactic films for African consumption. Before the Second World War, the majority of films made for African audiences were produced by administrators in British territories. In the postwar era other colonial governments got involved to varying degrees in the project to educate Africans through film. Films for African education continued to be produced and distributed in the postcolonial era by governments and international aid organizations. The earliest commercial film industry in Africa emerged in South Africa during the silent era. Elsewhere, indigenous production did not begin until the late colonial period. Television came relatively late to Africa, premiering in Nigeria during the waning days of colonial rule and being introduced gradually during the 1960s and 1970s in most nations. The initial reach of television was limited by the poverty of most Africa consumers, and African governments produced few original television programs before 2000. The economic crisis that gripped postcolonial Africa in the 1960s shuttered many urban cinemas and limited television’s reach at a time when it was expanding globally. During this period African artists, frequently with the financial assistance of Western governments, and technical training on both sides of the iron curtain, began producing their own films. A central concern of these pioneering artists was to provide a response to the negative depictions of Africa that were a staple of Western commercial cinema. The distribution of these films was limited on the continent, though many received critical acclaim when shown at film festivals in Europe and North America. In the 1980s audiences in West Africa became consumers of a new genre of moving image, video films, which were produced on limited budgets in urban areas in West Africa. The advent of satellite television services in the 1990s made moving images increasingly accessible to African people across the continent. The end of apartheid in 1990 also proved a fillip to cinema and television production in southern Africa. In the 21st century the availability of visual images has expanded across the continent, as individual ownership of televisions has risen broadly and mobile phone technology has made moving images available to many other consumers.


2020 ◽  
Vol 61 (2) ◽  
pp. 219-239
Author(s):  
Tom Lodge ◽  
Milan Oralek

AbstractCzechoslovak ‘people's democracy’ supplied a model for the development of a South African notion of a ‘national democratic’ revolution as well as providing key skills and resources. Czechoslovak support for this project in the 1960s and 1970s was both a source of confidence and fragility for South African Communists, boosting morale but confirming their subordinate status in their partnership with African nationalism. Drawing upon Czech archival materials as well as memoirs and interviews, this paper explores encounters and connections between South African Communists and the Czechs against the backdrop of the broader strategic concerns that shaped Soviet and Eastern European support for South African liberatory politics.


Author(s):  
Christian M. Rogerson ◽  
Jayne M. Rogerson

The concept of “turning points” is increasingly applied to understand the evolution of tourism. Using archival research, it is demonstrated that a significant turning point for the evolution of tourism in South Africa occurred in 1964–1965 with the establishment of the Hotel Board and the beginnings of its operations. From 1928 government legislation produced a hotel industry in which most “hotels” were oriented more to liquor selling than the supply of accommodation services. This trajectory of the hotel industry continued into the 1960s. Arguably, the initiation of the Hotel Board was a turning point in the growth and modernization of the hotel sector and for the tourism industry in South Africa. Undertaken at a period of expansion in the domestic and international tourism industry as well as of rising government awareness as to the potential economic (and political) benefits from expanded tourism promotion the activities of the Hotel Board addressed the long standing shortcomings surrounding the quality and standards of provision of accommodation services in South African hotels. It represented a transition in the character of the tourist hotel in South Africa from one that was formerly dominated by liquor to an institution that—going forward—would be mainly concentrated on the provision of hospitality services.


Author(s):  
Shula Marks

In this chapter, the author reflects on her long personal association with the Society for the Protection of Science and Learning (SPSL)/Council for Assisting Refugee Academics and many of its South African grantees. The academic refugees who came to the SPSL's notice in the 1960s, specially the South Africans, bent the ‘rules’ and signalled the new ways in which the SPSL was going to have to work in a very changed social and educational environment in Britain, and equally great changes in the nature of the academic refugees. Before the rise of Hitler, German scholars had advanced the frontiers of knowledge in the sciences, the social sciences, and the humanities. And in many of these fields the Jews of Central Europe had played a crucial role. Increasingly from the 1960s, however, many of the refugee academics to the UK were from the so-called ‘third world’, especially Latin America and countries just emerging from colonialism in Africa. Academic refugees from South Africa formed something of a bridge between the old and the new. While most of the South African grantees were white and from institutions modelled on British universities, they were on the whole younger and less highly qualified than the earlier generation of grantees. The very small number of Africans assisted at this time were in fact far more eminent; significantly, however, they were the very first Africans to be assisted by the Society.


1993 ◽  
Vol 21 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 51-59
Author(s):  
Fadzai Gwaradzimba

Since the 1960s, Southern Africa’s regional alliance patterns have been primarily determined by South Africa’s military and economic dominance of the region. Not surprisingly, divisive and conflict-ridden relations between South Africa and the less powerful majority-ruled states characterized interstate relations in the region throughout this period. In the 1970s, the latter’s collective and individual opposition to an apartheid-dominated regional order gave rise to two competing regional blocs: the South African-led Pax Pretoriana and the Frontline States (FLS) informal diplomatic alliance, which became the nucleus of the Southern African Development Coordination Conference (SADCC).


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