The study explores ukuthwasa initiation process amongst amaXhosa women in the Eastern Cape Province. The focus is on the training of women amagqirha in three areas in the Eastern Cape. The study looks at how the women are trained as amagqirha and how they construct their multifaceted identities during their tedious five-year training process. The Komanisi iphehlo is used as a paradigmatic model school for the training of amagqirha. The ritual of ukuthwasa is analysed as a transformational practice that operates changes in those who undergo it. A brief review of the interface between ukuthwasa and Christianity is included and reflections in specific historical and socio-cultural contexts are provided. AmaXhosa have been shaping and reshaping their ethnicity, religious culture, their identities and political systems during the course of political instability and economic and social-cultural challenges, including challenges during the democratic government. Such challenges affected amaXhosa as a nation and their religious life, as traces of such can be observed in transformations that have affected ukuthwasa practice. The study reveals the structure of the training process and incidents that led to the evolution of ukuthwasa, ritualism, symbolism, myth or magic and possible inexplicable realities of the world of ukuthwasa, to reveal the epistemologies and existential realities of ukuthwasa and female experiences. The polymorphism of ukuthwasa demands the use of various theoretical approaches to explain the process and practice of ukuthwasa. Consequently, that led to the use of a triangulation approach as a method of choice to collect, analyse and interpret the data. The grounded theory method was used. The life histories of four trainers and the spiritual journey of the researcher are used as retrospective data to explain the process, existential experiences and practice of ukuthwasa. In total, 115 participants, including amagqirha, faithhealers, public community members, family members of those who thwasa, initiates and key public figures have been interviewed through structured and unstructured interviews. Verification and soundness of data collected are maintained by means of verifying data through focus groups. Results reveal that the amaXhosa experience ukuthwasa as a cultural initiation process that helps in nurturing, awakening and stimulating the personâs umbilini (intuition), which is an inborn gift used in divining. Umbilini is the only skill used to assess, diagnose and treat their clients and patients. Therefore amagqirha use inductive ways of assessing their clients. Through ukuthwasa initiation, women are able to understand their âselfâ better. Ukuthwasa also instils maturity and opens up insights into their other gifts such as âleadershipâ skills. In that way, ukuthwasa enhances their identities. In addition, amaXhosa understand ukuthwasa as a reality and an inborn gift that runs in families. The result is also that ukuthwasa is a complex and abstract phenomenon that unfolds as a long process and is never completed fully in its entirety; only death relieves a person from its demands. It is fraught with various crises and to reject it is to invite continuous crises and ultimately madness and death; the best way is to accept it. To treat ukuthwasa as a possession and as a psychological phenomenon or syndrome is to underestimate the primary factor of the inborn dispositionâs importance as cultural text and cultural discourse. Variations in the structure and procedures carried out in ukuthwasa are identified within the cultural group and other Nguni cultures, as well as at national and international level. Furthermore, there is an inevitable interface between ukuthwasa and Christianity. The amaXhosa believe in one, universal world. The infusion of cultural doctrines with Christian values leads amagqirha to construct their multiple identities as amagqirha, faith-healers, powerful healing women as well as women leaders in the cultural and Christian healing profession.

Indigenous peoples around the world have sought knowledge of physical reality throughout the ages. Their understanding of the physical universe is codified in their knowledge systems. However, often the content of agricultural information in less developed countries is devoid of inputs from the indigenous people. It is based on the need to modernise agriculture without consideration of the goals and strategies of indigenous people. Indigenous agriculture, however, as it was originally applied prior to colonisation and apartheid, as is the case with South Africa, can neither be fully resumed nor would it satisfy the world food needs and recession crisis of the ever-increasing world population. It will, however, if taken on a solemn note, have a significant impact on the world food production (World Bank 2005). Despite the enormous value of IKS in the sustainable management of natural resources, the world has suffered and continues to suffer from a profound loss of indigenous peoples, rural groups, and their knowledge about the natural world, which has been constructed from their intimate ties to land and place. This loss has been accompanied by neglect and the marginalisation of their practices and beliefs often figured as inferior forms of knowing that should be replaced by universalised knowledge derived from the western scientific traditions (Hardison 2005). This study is an exploration of how indigenous knowledge, which has been marginalised over the years, is incorporated in Land Reform Projects of agricultural development. It is an attempt to help indigenous people regain the value of their knowledge. Employing a multidisciplinary method, the work presents an analysis of indigenous knowledge practices in agricultural land reform projects (Basotho Letjhabile and Maolosi Trust), and how indigenous knowledge contributes to sustainability and transformation with these two community projects.

Oral tradition and diverse literary sources in Sesotho indicate that African peoples have for centuries been performing rituals for different purposes at the sacred sites, such as caves within their communities as well as their families. Ritual performance has served the Basotho well as a means of celebrating their religious beliefs and communication with God through ancestors (Machobane and Manyeli, 2001: 4). This study, therefore, takes its cue from this common African ritual tradition and aims to examine different rituals performed at the two sacred sites in the Eastern Free State, namely, Badimong near Rosendal and Motouleng near Clarens. These two caves were selected because of their prominence within the Basotho cultural tradition and history. The study mainly highlights the classification of rituals and the use of local language as a mode of typification of different ritual performances. The Sesotho names given to rituals and their meaning have been communicated in Sesotho and in English. Variations in the structure of rituals have been examined and highlighted including how and where as well as when the given rituals are performed. The significance of each ritual performance is also dealt with in the study. Interpretation of the Sesotho language used in ritual performance is important as interviews were conducted in Sesotho and later translated into English while still serving the purpose of the survey in classifying the major kinds and Sesotho names given to ritual performances at the two sacred sites. In this way, the study retains its aim to categorize and classify types of rituals performed at the two sacred sites specified while examining the role of language in ritual performance together with the structure and significance of rituals. The major research questions were: What is the extent and nature of rituals performed at sacred sites in the Eastern Free State? How can the rituals at the sacred sites be classified so that the local user communityâs conceptualization is fully acknowledged? The major research questions directly relate to a survey and clarification of rituals performed at the sacred sites mentioned. Notion was taken that the classification of rituals cannot be done without an exploration of the different rituals in terms of their space, time, actors, audience, structure and materials. All in all, the research design is basically an explorative survey of rituals performed at the two sacred sites mentioned in the Eastern Free State. This study, therefore, employed a qualitative-explorative approach. An increased popularity of the two caves also provided an ideal opportunity to explore a wide range of rituals within centralized geographical localities. The research findings indicates that ritual activities at the sacred sites need to be taken seriously due to their association with ancestral and religious Basotho beliefs which have been an integral and is still said to be an important part in the cultural, spiritual and religious beliefs of most local user communities of the sacred sites under study. The recommendations made are that more literary sources should be made available in which ritual activities at sacred sites are not merely elaborated upon as superstitious or traditional African dilemma but as healthy, informative, religious and valuable practice that should be acknowledged and contextualized with the respect that it deserves. It is also recommended that the two major sacred sites mentioned should be preserved and maintained as sources of African Traditional Indigenous Knowledge in the Eastern Free State.

The study is an investigation into the linkage between, landownership and poverty alleviation in Mashonaland East Province of Zimbabwe. The focus is directed by the fact that in Zimbabwe, the poorest live in rural areas. The problem of rural poverty has been attributed, in part, to lack of access to land due to historical imbalances arising from colonialism. The objective of this study is to find out how the livelihoods of those who were resettled have been transformed. Despite heated debate among scholars on Zimbabweâs controversial land reform, a systematic investigation of the relationship between access to land and poverty alleviation in Zimbabwe is generally weak; consequently, there are gaps in the analysis of land occupation processes and what is required for sustainable agrarian livelihoods. Indeed, the programme of land reform is crucial to the resolution of rural poverty. It is, therefore, important that such a programme be implemented in a fair, just and sustainable manner in the interest of all the stakeholders within the ambits of the law and constitution of Zimbabwe. The approach followed in the discussion can be described as moving from the macro to the micro in that the thesis covers broad but very important contextual issues about the political history of the land question in Zimbabwe and then narrows down to a discussion of land reform and poverty in Mashonaland East. The theoretical position of the study is that the land question in Zimbabwe is by and large, a political issue. The key argument is that distribution of societyâs scarce resources in Zimbabwe is primarily informed by political calculations rather than non-partisan concerns for alleviation of poverty at the grassroots of society. Land is finite and therefore a scarce resource and its redistribution has largely been informed by political calculations rather than consistent criteria to deal with the plight of the rural poor based on measured levels of need and poverty. The politicization of land reform in Zimbabwe has a lot to do with the reproduction of power of the ruling ZANU-PF political elites. Poverty in Zimbabwe emanates from lack of access by the poor majority to resources and other material means of life. The theoretical perspective is that governmentâs decisions on who gets land leads to poverty as the vulnerable groups and less politically connected are not always prioritized for access to land. The research paradigm used is the sustainable livelihoods approach, which is influenced by qualitative methodology. It emphasizes the complexity of rural class structures and the contingency of individual agency. This approach has, at its center, the individual or individual households, and tries to understand how each household derives its livelihood. The theory of justice is also partially used to inform the assessment of the social character of land reform beneficiaries, in relation to grievances, the procedure of the reform, the social organization of beneficiaries, and the intended impact of the reform. Because of the economic and political environment in which the study was done, simple random sampling was used to select respondents for discussions and interviews. This approach was justified because it gave each unit an equal chance of being chosen. But the study is based, on the overall; on a case study method hence the findings may have limited generalization to contexts outside Mashonaland East. The narrative of the Zimbabwean state is that the land reform programme met its targets. Resettlement benefited a broad set of people. However empirical evidence examined during the research shows that there was no significant reduction in rural poverty levels, beneficiary selection was not done in a just, fair and transparent manner and productivity was generally low. The thesis argues that the land reform programme in Zimbabwe is in a crisis characterized by a lack of transparency and presided over by a state that is itself unclear about the redistribution strategy that it wants to pursue. There is an ambiguous implementation plan as well as inadequate capacity enhancing policy parameters that are vital to enable a fair and objective evaluation of the whole programme.