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Programmes

 

Land, Livelihoods and Rural Development



The FHISER Land, Livelihoods and Rural Development Programme emerged out of the Institute’s involvement in research into land restitution claims in the Eastern Cape in the early 2000s.

Starting with the verification of a set of forestry claims in the former Ciskei and developing into a thorough involvement with the complex issues around betterment and restitution, the theme group developed a broadly based interest in the issues of land, livelihoods and rural development.

The theme group interests have also been decisively shaped by the ongoing academic and donor engagements with questions of rural livelihoods, poverty and food security in southern Africa.

A concern with food security is at the centre of the Eastern Cape’s recently adopted 10-year Provisional Growth and Development Programme (PGDP) and has also been picked up in an NRF focus area proposal submitted under this theme group.

More recently, the theme group has become more deeply involved in research surrounding the potential implementation of the Communal Land Rights Act (CLaRA) in the Eastern Cape.

Three concerns are therefore the central focus of this programme: the legacy of agricultural betterment planning in the Eastern Cape; the way in which rural livelihoods have changed in the Eastern Cape during the post-apartheid period, paying special attention to the question of food security; and most recently, the potential implications of the implementation of the highly controversial Communal Land Rights Act, which is still being contested in court.

As with the other FHISER programmes there are postgraduate students attached to the Land, Livelihoods and Rural Development Programme pursuing Masters and PHD degrees by thesis on topics related to the above questions. These students get the opportunity to take part in the Institute’s commissioned research as part of their internship and training.

Under the above-mentioned focus areas, research has been conducted reviewing the extent of betterment planning in the province and the mechanisms that were involved in its implementation in different areas. In this regard, FHISER has worked closely with the rural NGO Border Rural Committee which is leading a campaign for the compensation of families displaced by betterment in the province (Vulamasango Singene).

The campaign was launched following the success of BRC in securing betterment-based restitution for individuals and families in Keiskammahoek. The research undertaken by FHISER has brought betterment back into the spotlight and has greatly broadened our understanding of its implications, especially across the former Ciskei.

Under the second focus area, research has been undertaken into one of the realities of rural life in this region, the increasing dependence of rural households on state grants for survival, especially pensions and other social funds. Studies have been conducted into questions of rural poverty and the role of the state in providing welfare support to rural households, as well as into the delivery of basic services in rural areas and its impact on livelihoods. More specifically, fieldwork-based research has been conducted into household food security and the management and use of livestock in specific areas. There is strong academic and social interest in the programme on the way local people construct their livelihoods in changing circumstances and the way they themselves devise strategies for survival and understand poverty.

Most recently, the programme has focused on how CLaRa proposes to transfer communal land out of the hands of the state by transferring it to ‘communities’. A major research project commissioned by the Department of Land Affairs (DLA) is currently underway which seeks to explore how land is used and managed in traditional authority areas across the Eastern Cape. It is this research that the programme is currently working on as scholars and activists across the country seek clarification on questions such as what constitutes a ‘rural community’ in South Africa today, who is likely to gain from the titling process and whether CLaRA will merely entrench the power of traditional leaders, or, contribute to development and popular democracy in rural areas. Also being investigated is how CLaRA will impact on the position of women and other vulnerable groups.

In trying to throw light on these issues, FHISER researchers have turned their attention to the use and management of land in a wide range of rural areas across the Eastern Cape.


Urban Renewal and Local Economic Development


Following President Thabo Mbeki’s 2001 State of the Nation address, in which he emphasised the need for the social and economic integration of former townships into the mainstream urban economies of towns and cities, Urban Renewal and LED were identified as key research themes in South Africa. Urban renewal is also associated with the regeneration of the central business districts in South African cities. The emphasis on urban integration in both economic and social terms has found further expression in a number of policy initiatives, such as the 2004 Breaking New Ground housing strategy, and recent economic policies stressing the urgent need to break down the dual economy of the past through the promotion of a viable and integrated second economy.

It is against this backdrop that the FHISER Urban Renewal and Local Economic Development Programme was created to provide a space for social and academic research that would keep in step with this area of increasing importance in the country.

The FHISER Urban Renewal and LED Programme is primarily concerned with trying to understand the changing nature of urban experience in post-apartheid towns and cities. It seeks to chart what sorts of new communities have emerged in South African cities since the end of apartheid and how social identities and economic possibilities have changed. It is also of interest how new groups and communities emerge and function and in what ways they are socially and economically integrated into the wider society. These questions underpin a more general concern with understanding the nature of post-colonial urbanism, especially in ‘ordinary’ South African towns and cities.

Under this FHISER programme is a group of postgraduate students working on Masters and PHD theses on a series of issues surrounding new post-apartheid residential communities in RDP housing estates, social housing complexes and company housing complexes. These studies seek to document social, cultural and economic change in the everyday lives of urban residents, paying special attention to issues such as consumption, material culture and social identity. Broadly, the studies seek to assess the extent to which these new urban communities have been able mould themselves into the ‘new suburbs’, imagined in urban housing policy.

To supplement this academic work, the FHISER Urban Renewal and LED Programme undertakes project research on the above questions for various clients ranging from government departments to municipalities and the private sector. A range of policy-related research projects have been undertaken into various aspects of housing policy and research in the Eastern Cape.

In 2006, FHISER, working with DRA and Take Note Trading, undertook, on behalf of the Office of the Premier, a major “Rapid Assessment of Service Delivery and Socio Economic Survey in the Eastern Cape” that entailed a 12 000-strong household survey. This was led in the Institute by the Urban Renewal and LED Programme. The programme, on behalf of the Office of the Provincial Department of Housing, also undertook critical research into housing supply and demand in the Eastern Cape in order to inform government policy and targets for housing delivery in the province between 2006 and 2011. The theme group has also worked intensively on the issue of social and low-cost rental housing and on the potential for the development of this sector. Postgraduate students participate in these studies as part of their internship providing them with vital practical experience.

The FHISER Urban Renewal and LED Programme is currently working on a series of ongoing research into the dynamics of small- and micro-business development in the region as well as the nature and form of BEE in the province and beyond.


Culture, Heritage and Social Transformation


The Culture Heritage and Social Transformation Programme aims to encourage the development of new academic and public discourses, explanations and practices around heritage and culture in the Eastern Cape. It also seeks to explore the relationships between local cultural understandings and notions of heritage, museum practices and the development of public culture and cultural tourism in the region.

The Eastern Cape's history is that of a settler colony. As such, its representations of the past - which were constructed through a world view which defined modernity as the possession of white settlers, and tribe and tradition as that of the black indigenous people - is an area in which the continued influence of out-dated anthropological, governmental and settler public understandings of culture is notable.

It is the aim of FHISER's Culture, Heritage and Social Transformation Programme therefore to provide a space in which academic and commissioned research can occur around the many critical questions thrown up in this sector by the ending of apartheid.

Some of the main areas of concern of the programme are:
  • To track and explore the variable utilisation of “ideas of culture” in different contexts and by different interests in the Eastern Cape Province and situate them within debates about the local and global and around nationalism, identity and culture;
  • To critically develop a deeper and wider engagement with heritage meanings and heritage production in the Eastern Cape;
  • To explore meanings of tradition and traditional practices and of indigenous knowledge systems; and
  • To address the essential need for expanded academic research in this area.

As with other FHISER programmes the Culture Heritage and Social Transformation Programme has a group of postgraduate students pursuing PhD and Masters Degrees under it. The postgraduates are each undertaking thesis research dealing with various topics including questions of cultural tourism and its effect on local communities, the legacies of apartheid on the heritage landscape, the attempt to recapture lost identities and construct new meanings for old monuments and the investigation of notions of identity in various communities.

The Culture, Heritage and Social Transformation Programme undertakes a large amount of commissioned research for various government, civil society and private institutions in the Eastern Cape. It has been asked to undertake a number of heritage audits for Municipalities attempting to take stock of their heritage landscape as well as carry out heritage impact assessments which determine the impact that proposed development may have on heritage and historical sites, and to establish that this will not be detrimental to their preservation.

Currently the Programme is compiling a list of potential heritage sites and developing tourist heritage information for the Amathole District Municipality.

Youth, Gender and Reproductive Health


HIV/AIDS remains one of the leading causes of death in South Africa. This year, 2007, the findings of the largest ever representative study of young people showed that by the age of 23 years, one in five South African youth are HIV positive.

Among women aged 20-24 years, the figure is as high as 1 in 4, in contrast to the 1 in 14 found in men of the same age group. Young South African women continue to not only be the group most vulnerable to infection, but also remain the group most likely to bear the brunt of the HIV/AIDS pandemic.

Aside from the biological reasons for greater female susceptibility to HIV infection, numerous studies point to unequal power relations - fear of gender-based violence, rape, the negotiation of condom-usage just some of the factors that result in young women not only being more susceptible to becoming infected but also more likely to ‘drive the epidemic'. To understand how these factors come to affect reproductive health decision-making, attention to local social relations, cultural constructs and regional history is critical.

The aim of FHISER's Youth, Gender and Reproductive Health Programme is to draw attention to the politics of reproductive health by using a historical and socio-cultural lens. Students who enrol in this programme will learn to engage critically with ideas and concepts pertaining to reproductive health.

They will learn how to conduct both ‘rapid' and ethnographic research in this field, some of which will have implications for policy and planning. Students who are accepted into this programme will learn about the biologisation, medicalisation and technologisation of women's health; men's health and masculinity; child care and women's reproductive health, teenage sexuality and reproduction, the inter-relation between reproduction and global trends.

Although an Eastern Cape regional focus will be encouraged, a cross-cultural examination of the variation in social action and thought with regard to gender and reproductive health will pursued.