Showing papers in "Transformation in 2001"

What's in a name? Racial categorisations under apartheid and their afterlife

Abstract: Among the many paradoxes of South Africa’s transition from apartheid, one of the more obvious and prominent concerns the fate of race. We have been entrusted with a new democratic constitution that enshrines a thoroughgoing commitment to non-racialism, invoking the claim to our common humanity as the basis for the allocation of shared human rights and the eradication of discrimination. But this juridical assertion of human sameness cohabits with existential reiterations of racial difference and separation. An interesting survey conducted by the Institute for Justice and Reconciliation gives some indication of the lingering power of racial reasoning in the everyday lives of South African citizens. Disturbing proportions of respondents make lifestyle choices and judgements about others that reiterate and entrench existing norms of racial separateness. While it might be unsurprising that 51 percent of whites surveyed agreed that ‘despite abuses, apartheid ideas were good ones’, it is striking that 35.5 percent of Africans, 34 percent of Coloureds and 42 percent of Indians thought likewise. According to the survey, several of the markers of a strong sense of racial distance are more prominent among Africans than whites. For example, 56 percent of Africans, 33.4 percent of whites, 26.6 percent of Coloureds and 41.6

High Productivity Now: A Critical Review of South Africa's Growth Strategy

Abstract: In order to make any dent on unemployment, South Africa's growth path needs to become significantly more labour-demanding. But what is the best way of achieving that end? On the face of it, the problem is simple: job creation depends crucially on investment growth, hence appropriate strategies are those which encourage capital accumulation and ensure that as many jobs as possible are created per unit of investment. But this apparently focussed answer raises two further fundamental questions: what drives investment; and what kind of investment is best suited to sustainable, labour-demanding growth?

Strategic Planning & Urban Projects: Responses to Globalization from 15 cities

Abstract: This book draws upon the ongoing research activities of agiobal network of urban researchers - the IBIS network. The IBIS network is a European Community funded network of four European universities and South American universities. The network involves postgraduate student exchanges and the development of research programmes in urban planning, architecture and design. Although still strongly oriented towards Latin America the aim is to further globalise this network and universities from Africa and Asia now participate in it. The IBIS network has focused on three research areas considered to be fundamental for understanding and acting upon contemporary urban processes: globalisation with its policy context of adjustment; the emerging global environmental 'crisis' with its policy context of 'sustainability' and the changing relationship of the state to civil society with its policy context of market, political and community enablement. The goal is to develop a coherent and flexible research agenda for each of these three areas in order to conduct a programme of coordinated research in a deepened and eventually fully globalised IBIS network.