Bøger udgivet af Wits University Press

Pelong ya ka is a volume of twenty essays and stories written by Sophonia Machabe Mofokeng and first published in 1962 in the Bantu (later, African) Treasury Series by the University of the Witwatersrand Press. In his short life Mofokeng, an expert on African folklore, was also regarded as a gifted exponent of African languages, in particular Southern Sesotho, and this assessment is still valid today.The essays and stories in this collection are largely autobiographical, with the author being both the writer and the main character in them. Their style is in turn meditative, descriptive, narrative and polemic, and the tone of voice of the narrator is characterised by melancholy, humour and satire. The themes span a wide range of human experiences, and reflect Mofokeng's deep personal convictions and passion for freedom, as well as his Christian beliefs . As he says in 'Nako' ('Time'), 'we are worried because we want to live for a long time, as if the most important thing is to live for many decades, but the fact is that we must live our life to the fullest'.His descriptions of his time spent in hospital are filled with insights into the experiences of the patients, doctors and workers he met there, and reflect his gift for observing the details of everyday life, and recounting them with both depth and simplicity.

A tragic play adapted from Sotho folk narrative. The play is regarded as a classic of Sesotho literature. Seen as one of the greatest essayists and dramatists writing in Southern Sotho, Senkatana was S. Machabe Mofokeng's first book.

Provides a textured analysis of a contested urban space that will resonate with other contested urban spaces around the world and challenges researchers involved in such spaces to work in creative and politicised ways.

Civil society, NGOs, governments, and multilateral institutions all repeatedly call for improved or 'good' governance - yet they seem to speak past one another. Offering a set of multidisciplinary analyses of governance in different sectors, in different locales, and from different theoretical approaches, this volume makes a useful addition to the growing debates on how to govern.

Shortly after the statue of Cecil John Rhodes came down at the University of Cape Town, protestors called for the decolonisation of universities. What exactly is decolonisation? This book brings together some of the most innovative thinking on curriculum theory to address this important question.

Social science researchers in the global South, and in South Africa particularly, utilise research methods in innovative ways in order to respond to contexts characterised by diversity, racial and political tensions, socioeconomic disparities and gender inequalities. These methods often remain undocumented - a gap that this book starts to address. Written by experts from various methodological fields, Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences is a comprehensive collation of original essays and cutting-edge research that demonstrates the variety of novel techniques and research methods available to researchers responding to these context-bound issues. It is particularly relevant for study and research in the fields of applied psychology, sociology, ethnography, biography and anthropology. In addition to their unique combination of conceptual and application issues, the chapters also include discussions on ethical considerations relevant to the method in similar global South contexts. Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences has much to offer to researchers, professionals and others involved in social science research both locally and internationally.

Brings together leading scholars and activists from around the world studying and challenging racism. In eleven thematically rich and conceptually informed chapters, the contributors interrogate the complex nexus of questions surrounding race and relations of oppression as they are played out in the global South and global North.

Comprising approximately 300 letters, this book provides access to the voice of Robert Sobukwe via the single most poignant resource of Sobukwe's voice that exists: his prison letters. Not only do the letters evince Sobukwe's storytelling abilities, they convey the complexity of a man who defied easy categorization.

Argues against the stereotype that the goal of new democracies, such as South Africa and other developing nation-states, is to become like the global North, and asserts that democracies can only work when every person has an equal say in the public decisions that affect them.

Performance art is transgressive and interdisciplinary. Acts of Transgression, an illustrated collection of 15 essays by respected researchers, critically probes where live art and socio-political turbulence intersect in post-apartheid South African society. Focusing on work by 25 contemporary artists, it adds significantly to the field.

Why were depictions of animals a crucial trigger for the birth of art? And why did animals dominate that art for so long? To answer these questions, Renaud Ego examined the rock art of the San of southern Africa. This collection of essays is beautifully illustrated with the author's photographs from across southern Africa.

The first study to probe the primary features, and possible effects, of some major literary genres as they pertain to elephants south of the Zambezi over three centuries: indigenous forms, early European travelogues, hunting accounts, novels, game ranger memoirs, scientists' accounts, and poems.

From early department stores in Cape Town to gendered histories of sartorial success in urban Togo, contestations over expense accounts at an apartheid state enterprise, to elite wealth and political corruption in Angola, this collection of essays explores the ways in which conspicuous consumption is foregrounded in various African contexts.

Argues that domestic worker relations in South Africa were shaped by the institution of slavery at the Cape. This established social hierarchies and patterns of behaviour that persist to the present day. To support her argument, Ena Jansen examines the representation of domestic workers in a diverse range of texts in English and Afrikaans.

What does the lawn want? To be watered, fertilised, mowed, admired, fretted over, ignored? This unusual question serves as a starting point for Civilising Grass: The Art of the Lawn on the South African Highveld, an unexpected and often disconcerting critique of one of the most common and familiar landscapes in South Africa.

In 1937, a group of young Capetonians embarked on a remarkable public education and cultural project called the New Era Fellowship (NEF). By shining a contemporary light on the NEF, Crain Soudien shows how its members were at the forefront of redefining the debate about social difference in a racially divided society.

In this history of more than 3,000 years, beginning with Ancient Egypt, Marcus Byrne and Helen Lunn capture the diversity of dung beetles and their unique behaviour patterns. Outlining the development of science from the point of view of the humble dung beetle makes this charming story of immense interest to general readers and entomologists alike.

Presents the stories of South Africans, some Gauteng-born, others from neighbouring provinces, striving to realise the promises of democracy. They are also the stories of newcomers, from neighbouring countries and from as far afield as Pakistan and Rwanda, seeking a secure future.

To dress is a uniquely human experience, but practices and meanings of dress vary greatly among people. In Dress as Social Relations Vibeke Maria Viestad provides an interdisciplinary study of Bushman dress, as it is represented in the archives and material culture of historical Bushman communities.

This intriguing memoir details in a quiet and restrained manner what it meant to be a committed black intellectual activist during the apartheid years and beyond. Few autobiographies exploring the "life of the mind" and the "history of ideas" have come out of South Africa, and N. Chabani Manganyi's reflections are a refreshing addition to the genre of life writing.

Capitalism's addiction to fossil fuels is heating our planet at a pace and scale never before experienced. Political leaders across the world are failing to provide systemic solutions to the climate crisis. The Climate Crisis investigates ecosocialist alternatives that are emerging.

This four-volume publication reappraises South African visual art of the 20th century from a postapartheid perspective. This fourth and final volume in this collection looks at how the end of the Cold War and subsequent emergence of globalization, along with the advent of democracy in South Africa, introduced new social and political orders, with profound implications for South African artists.

This four-volume publication reappraises South African visual art of the 20th century from a postapartheid perspective. This second volume discusses how, between the end of the Second World War and the Soweto Uprisings, South Africa was increasingly isolated from the international world by its policies of racial exclusion and extreme social engineering.

Provides the first in-depth study of one of the leading trade unions in South Africa. Deftly navigating through workerist, social movement and political terrains that shape the South African labour landscape, this book sheds light on the path that led to the unprecedented 2012 Marikana massacre, the dissolution of the Cosatu federation and to fractures within the African National Congress itself.

The transition from apartheid to the post-apartheid era has highlighted questions about the past and the persistence of its influence in present-day South Africa. This is particularly so in education. Between Worlds scrutinises the experience of a hitherto unexplored German mission society, probing the complexities and paradoxes of social change in education.

This collection of six plays by one of South Africa's leading playwright/actors features works written between 1984 and 1993 and includes ""Under the Oaks"" (1984), ""The Return of Elvis Du Pisanie"" (1992) and ""Mooi Street Moves"" (1993).

Shaping markets through competition and economic regulation is at the heart of addressing the development challenges facing countries in southern Africa. The contributors to Competition Law and Economic Regulation critically assess the efficacy of the competition and economic regulation frameworks, including the impact of a number of the regional competition authorities.

Paul Slabolepszy's Suddenly the Storm set in Johannesburg's East Rand at the home of an ageing former police officer Dwayne Combrink and his much younger wife Shanell, poses the question of whether the wounds of the past can ever truly be healed.

How is "race" determined? Is it your DNA? The community that you were raised in? The way others see you or the way you see yourself? In Race Otherwise Zimitri Erasmus questions the notion that one can know race with one's eyes, with racial categories and with genetic ancestry tests.

Presents surveys of the opinions, attitudes and lifestyles of members of trade unions affiliated to the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu). In its analysis, Labour Beyond Cosatu shows that Cosatu, fragmented and weakened through fissures in its alliance with the African National Congress, is no longer the only dominant force influencing South Africa's labour landscape.