AA 2022 Volume 54 Issue 1

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http://hdl.handle.net/11660/11952

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    When reason is not enough for social cohesion: rethinking the place of emotion and art in politics
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Oyekan, Adele
    Reason has often been defended as critical for the prudent harmonisation of competing interests, security and social cohesion in organised societies. Human rationality however, now appears inadequate to cope with the spate of conflicts and dysfunction in many societies, postcolonial Africa inclusive. Thus, imaginative approaches to fostering social cohesion are required. In this paper, I argue that the dichotomy that elevates reason (equated with logic) and derides emotion (equated with irrationality) is not only misplaced, but also unhelpful. I defend art as a valuable vehicle for creating the dialogic space that fosters empathy, make politics affective and promote social cohesion. I conclude by advocating a complementary integration of reason and emotion, with particular focus on empathy, as a remedy to dysfunctional, antagonistic politics, especially in societies confronted by the complexities of diversity.
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    Short- vs long-term vs the middle-ground in critical socioeconomic and environmental planning
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Dhansay, Taufeeq
    Roman Krznaric’s The Good Ancestor provides an account of how temporal thinking drives critical global planning. In particular, Krznaric denotes the effect of extensive short-term thinking, i.e. thinking driven by achieving goals in a present-day sense or a singular generational time frame. These goals may include garnering socio-political advocacy and those agendas driven by tangible economic and financial gains. Furthermore, Krznaric highlights how shortterm thinking and policy developed with these kinds of considerations have a negative impact on the earth’s natural environment.
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    Precarity, ungrievability, and thinking beyond the law: a framework for understanding the position of LGB individuals in South Africa
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Westman, Claire
    Drawing primarily on the work of Judith Butler and Drucilla Cornell, this paper aims to provide a theoretical framework for understanding the position of sexual minorities in South Africa. This will be done particularly in light of the violence, discrimination, and marginalisation that is experienced by, predominantly, black gay, lesbian, and bisexual individuals from poorer South African communities. In so doing, the paper also explores how the marginalisation of and violence against LGB individuals play an important role in national identity development and the upholding of a hetero-patriarchal social order. The goal is thus to create an understanding of why, despite legal and constitutional rights, LGB individuals continue to be marginalised, violated, and discriminated against in their everyday lived experiences, and further, why, because of this socio-symbolic positioning, the law cannot necessarily guarantee these rights or protections.
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    Reflections on The Good Ancestor
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Van Marle, Karin
    Roman Krznaric’s The Good Ancestor: How to Think Long Term in a Short-Term World (2020) is about developing an argument for long-term thinking. In Part 1 he takes up a question posed by Jonas Salk, who was part of the team who developed the first safe polio vaccine, namely ‘Are we being good ancestors?’ (v, 3) in a more active form, ‘How can we be good ancestors?’ (4). He observes that the future has been ‘colonised’ (4) by short-term thinking and calls for it to be ‘decolonised’ (241). Albeit in the background, his argument rests on the rise of Western modernity as the coloniser of how we engage with time, the future and generations to come. Krznaric is convinced that there has been an ‘unprecedented’ ‘growing public belief’ (8) in long-term thinking over the past 25 years in terms of a number of concrete projects, but that there is an ‘intellectual vacuum’, even a ‘conceptual emergency’ in as far as the conceptual development of the term goes.
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    A good ancestor
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Dlamini, Hector
    In The Good Ancestor, Roman Krznaric presents a compelling argument about our responsibility to future generations. He highlights that in order to be good ancestors to the future generations we need to make a shift from short-term thinking, shorttermism, to long-term thinking, long-termism. He notes that most of our decisions have been usurped by short-termism without any regard for their effect in the long term, a term whose horizon is centuries, millennia or even multiple generations in the future. There is also a six-pronged prescription of how we can overcome the grip of short-termism and begin to think long-term. These six aspects of the prescription are: deep-time humility, legacy mindset, intergenerational justice, cathedral thinking, holistic forecasting, and transcendent goal (242).
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    Interaction with The Good Ancestor
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Gess, Rob
    The Good Ancestor is a call to arms for an overthrow of an outmoded system and the rise of a radical new order. Drawing at times on metaphors of the liberation of oppressed colonised people, it draws our attention to the latent oppression of the people of the future. These, our descendants, must bear the brunt of the current culture of consumerism – that happily squanders the resources and health of the future, in pursuit of short-term profits and single use pleasures. Like No One is Too Small to make a Difference by Gretta Thunberg it is an unapologetic wake-up call.
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    Knowledge work in the age of control: capitalising on human capital
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Hofmeyr, Benda
    The main claim that I aim to substantiate in this article is that power in the form of control is exerted in a more insidious manner now that knowledge work has become ‘networked’. To this end, I first describe societal control in the current epoch. Given the fact that my focus is on knowledge work, I next revisit the human capital literature with the aim of coming to a more precise understanding of what knowledge work is. The literature on “leveraging human capital” (Burud and Tumolo 2004) evidences how human capital theory draws on the conditions of free-floating control to optimally capitalise on knowledge workers. Models of overt management have come to be replaced by more expansive and insidious models of control that extend beyond the sphere of work into the intimate recesses of private life. Control operative at the societal level (Castells 1996) extends beyond the macro-level (neoliberal), to the meso-level (organisational), and the micro-level (self-governance). Next, I critically consider the implications of these conditions of control for the (self-)governance of the knowledge worker by drawing on Han’s (2017) further specification of control as “smart power”. I come to the conclusion that under the conditions of apparently greater autonomy and discretion that is so pervasive in the management literature discussing knowledge workers, governance as “control” induces constant work erasing the boundaries between work and private life. Neoliberalism with its mantra of investment in human capital has succeeded in producing an optimally efficient, ever-working subject. Throughout my analyses are informed by Foucault’s (2008) concept of “governmentality”, which fuses the presiding rationality (knowledge) with governance (power as control) to throw light on how human conduct is being conducted (orchestrated) for optimal efficiency.
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    Economic inequality and trust from a Smithian perspective
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Rathbone, Mark
    Globally, and specifically in South Africa, income and wealth inequality are on the increase. This has negative consequences for socio-political stability and sustainable economic growth. These negative consequences are in many cases directly linked to the breakdown of trust in financial institutions and society in general. However, the breakdown is encompassing and also includes interpersonal relations, trust in institutions and systems, and general perceptions of the unfair distribution of wealth. Trust is one of the pillars of economics and social stability in the work of Adam Smith. Although the economics of Smith’s time (18th century) were far less complex and technologically not as advanced as contemporary economics and markets, his work is the foundation of contemporary economics and it remains important because it provides a value- driven and empirical perspective on economics. This value-driven and empirical perspective delves into the cognitive aspects of our being and instincts that are crucial to build trust. The purpose of this article is to revisit the notion of trust in the work of Smith to provide an analysis of trust and possible alternatives for sustainable economics and the flourishing of society. Generally, Smith views trust as multidimensional, with two dimensions of trust that can be distinguished, namely relational and structural trust. I will argue that multidimensional trust is important for the functioning of society and for economic justice.
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    Negotiating belonging: the case of Francophone Cameroonian migrants in Pretoria
    (University of the Free State, 2022) Atabongwoung, Gallous
    Francophone Cameroonian migrants in Pretoria face challenges such as language barriers. The migrants are not easily accepted by locals and often face discrimination and harassment that influence their sense of belonging in the host society. This is accentuated by negative perceptions that see African migrants in South Africa in general as an economic threat to locals. South African policies on migrant labour are also control-oriented to deter immigration. For example, to employ a migrant, an employer must sufficiently convince the Department of Home Affairs (DHA) that there is no suitable South African available to do the job. In the midst of these challenges African migrants must live in cities like Pretoria where the cost of living is high, as opposed to townships where the cost of living is low, for fear of being attacked by locals. The complex relationship between African migrants in South Africa and locals stretches Francophone Cameroonian migrants to belong ‘here’ (Pretoria) and ‘there’ (Cameroon) – “transmigration/ transnationalism”. This article therefore seeks to answer the following questions; how do Francophone Cameroonian migrants negotiate belonging in Pretoria? What is the role of indigenous languages in the process of negotiating belonging?
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    The middle remains missing: class exclusion from the urban rental market in suburban Johannesburg
    (University of the Free State, 2022) McKay, Tracey; Fakudze, Nomfundo; Gunter, Ashley
    There is a huge demand for housing in Johannesburg, South Africa, due to significant in-migration as well as the legacy of apartheid. Rental housing supply in Johannesburg is particularly constrained. Despite this, little is known about the formal rental market in terms of middle income access. Thus, this explorative qualitative study seeks to partially address this research gap. Results show that specific legislative constraints, namely the National Credit Act and the Prevention of Illegal Eviction and Unlawful Occupation of Land Act, have created an imbalance between the rights and responsibilities of landlords and tenants, driving onerous credit checks and documentary demands, all of which are inadvertently excluding individuals from the formal rental market. Thus, while race previously excluded many from the suburbs under study, class now seems to be a significant factor in terms of who can access rental property. As such, rental housing supply is to some degree artificially constrained.
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    Platform: in theory
    (University of the Free State, 2415) Vale, Peter; Mare, Gerhard
    Platform has moved – and we accept that it will be a while before our new and welcoming location in Acta Academica becomes known, beyond the journal’s regular readers. Even in its short life to date the site has presented itself in projects where conversations will develop over time through active collaboration with contributors. The motivation for Platform and two projects already presented in the first three appearances (archived here under Platform: invitation for collaboration and conversation, and found at https://journals.ufs.ac.za/index.php/aa/issue/view/521) are: first, development and examples of theory deliberately employed; and second, keywords as illuminating change and power in society. Here we are introducing a third, namely temporality, and the dangerous framing of ideas and activism within the rigid boundaries of shortterm thinking.