MA, Dissertation in Development Studies, Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, 2011 / This research was encouraged by the recent developments in migration patterns in the world. Though immigration is not new to South Africa, with people migrating to the country from as early as the 1600s, there has been a notable increase post – 1994 at the fall of apartheid. The profile of migrants has also changed considerably to include refugees, asylum seekers and other forced migrants (Landau 2007; Jacobsen 2006). It is the emergence of a new group of immigrants in the form of asylum seekers and their relationship with the state, economy and society which makes for interesting analysis. This thesis argues that the continual framing of migration as a security issue, in relation to crime and unemployment overlooks the positive brain gain for the recipient countries (Mawadza 2007). Framing forced migration in this manner disregards the important question of why people migrate and what service they (can) provide to their countries of asylum and in the process violates their rights.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Finance and investment. Johannesburg, 2015 / A pairs trading strategy is a market neutral trading strategy that tries to make a profit by making use of inefficiencies in financial markets. In the equity pairs trading context, a market neutral strategy, is a strategy that hedges against both market and sector risk. According to the efficient market theory in its weak form, a pairs trading strategy should not produce positive returns since the actual stock price is reflected in its past trading data. The main objective of this paper is to examine the performance and risk of an equity pairs trading strategy in an emerging market context using daily, weekly and monthly prices on the Johannesburg Securities Exchange over the period 1994 to 2014. A bootstrap method is used determine whether returns from the strategy can be attributed to skill rather than luck. / MT2016

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in the field of Cultural Policy and Management, 2016 / Without an audience, theatre is meaningless; however, getting that audience to the theatre can be challenging; especially for small scale independent theatre organisations that often don’t have access to the necessary skills and budgets. This research report considers the potential place of Facebook in audience development. It investigates whether Facebook, as a social networking platform, can function as an effective tool to help small scale independent theatre organisations to broaden, deepen and/or diversify audiences. Additionally, it explores audience motivations, key drivers and barriers, and how they influence theatre attendance especially in a South African context. The research report follows a mixed method approach which includes in-depth interviews, focus group discussions as well as an online (Facebook) survey to try and find ways to curb the issue of declining audiences. It concludes that audience development requires a thorough understanding of audience needs, drivers, trends and barriers as well as commitment from the entire organisation and sector; that developing audiences is about building on-going and mutually beneficial relationships between audiences and organisations, and that appropriate monitoring and evaluation systems need to be put in place. The report also concludes that Facebook can be effective in helping organisations to reach new audience segments, providing a platform for communication between organisations and their audiences, and for marketing; but proposes that Facebook should be included as one aspect of the holistic audience development plan. / MT2017

Thesis (M.M. (Finance & Investment))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Commerce, Law and Management, Graduate School of Business Administration, 2013. / The subject of this study posits the profitability of an investment strategy focused on high-dividend yielding securities from the South African stock market over the period of 10 years from 2002 to 2012. The study follows an expected dividend yield model, similar to the model proposed by Hsu and Lin (2010), for the construction of a high-dividend yielding portfolio. Financial data of listed companies’ dividends and other financial information is used to estimate these expected current dividend yields by employing multiple regression analysis. It is suggested that these expected yields better reflect companies’ future profitability than traditional current dividend yields. The results of the study show that the performance differences between the portfolios based on the expected dividend yield model and the benchmark portfolios are significant; however the tests of the model suggest that the model is not a good fit for the data.

The World Health Organisation Commission for the Social Determinants of Health (CSDH, 2008) report calls upon the need to consider the social determinants of health, including migration in health planning. Unfortunately, the introduction of Pre Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) in South Africa is being framed as a stand-alone intervention without incorporating the social determinants of health i.e. migration and structural drivers of HIV, despite numerous evidence of failure of one-dimensional HIV approaches. The study aimed to explore the attitudes and knowledge (s) of HIV prevention amongst young, internal migrant, Black self-identifying gay men and its implications for PrEP. This study used an interpretive qualitative approach by conducting 12 in-depth interviews with both men who have sex with men (MSM) who self-identify as gay individuals and experts working in the field of HIV. Social determinants of health like migration and homophobic attitudes both within the health care system and beyond could impact the uptake of PrEP and continuity access for PrEP among MSM who self-identity as gay within the context of circular migration. Likewise, the study highlights structural drivers of HIV that if left unaddressed could also have a bearing on PrEP as an HIV intervention vis-à-vis PrEP uptake and continuity to PrEP access within a context of circular migration. Using Weiss (1979) interactive model, the study points out the need for all actors involved in policy making to take into account evidence, such as empirical data, best practices, insights from various stakeholders as a basis upon which South Africa’s PrEP policy/programme can be based on. / A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts (Development Studies), November 2017 / GR2018

This document is submitted in partial fulfillment for the degree: Master of Architecture [Professional] At the University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, South Africa, in the year 2016 / Sound, in the form of speech and song was celebrated in all preliterate societies. Oral history has recently come back into prominence, with the realisation that it can be more inclusive than traditional academic history and contribute to a shared experience within a group. In Post-Apartheid South Africa it played an important role in the TRC hearings. Organisations such as StoryCorps, have discovered the important therapeutic value gained by the sharing of stories between individuals and groups. The Speak Memory Oral History Centre aims to encourage historians to engage with oral history as a medium for memory recollection and to create a body of populist oral history testimonies. Oral history deals with memory and so the relationship between architecture and memory was investigated, with a particular focus on the neurological mechanisms involved in memory. An approach to the design of an Oral History Centre used these neurological mechanisms as design tools for a building that would facilitate the recording and recall of memory. / EM2017

Climate change poses serious challenges to households in informal settlements located in marginal areas such as flood plains that are sensitive to extreme weather events. This thesis explores the complex interrelationship between climate variability and informal settlements using two city-level case studies in Johannesburg, viz., Msawawa and Freedom Charter Square. The main objective of this study was to establish the nature of household adaptive capacity in informal settlements in relation to climate change. This entailed assessing household vulnerability to the increased frequency and severity of extreme weather events such as strong winds, extreme cold, extreme heat, floods, drought and fire, as a basis from which to understand household adaptive capacity. Methodologically, the thesis applied a mixed method approach combining quantitative and qualitative instruments to explore household adaptive capacity in relation to climate change. This methodology was used to understand how households have coped and adapted to extreme weather events in the past. Secondary research involved analysing a range of published and unpublished documents, while the primary research component consisted of a survey of two hundred households across the two settlements as well as key-informant interviews with local leaders in the two informal settlements and relevant officials from the City of Johannesburg. The results of this study show that in Msawawa and Freedom Charter Square, households’ social and economic conditions such as those relating to employment, income, assets and health play a role in their vulnerability to climate change. The ability of households to improve their adaptive capacity is influenced by a range of factors that include access to physical capital, social capital, financial resources and governance. The research found that households in the two informal settlements rely mainly on coping mechanisms such as repairing their shacks after disasters related to extreme weather. They have very limited ability to address underlying causes of vulnerability such as weak dwellings. Social capital is one of the drivers, although not very significant, for coping and critical to efforts for improving household adaptive capacity. The study also found that governance is a contested terrain in which it is difficult to recognise a positive impact on household adaptation to climate change. The study highlights the importance for policy-makers to recognise the need to improve household socio-economic conditions as well as building relationships of trust as drivers that could help in improving adaptive capacity and addressing household vulnerability to climate change.

No description available.

A green palisade fence is not all that separates the urban, kinetic Braamfontein from it’s dormant cemetery. It’s a long-standing perception that the two spaces are not related despite their proximity. And for this reason, you too have likely driven past it’s sixty metre long edge without having given it too much acknowledgement. Granted, it’s easier to overlook a space supposedly devoid of rational markers from their neighbours because of rhythmic disturbance in function and social experience or even their inability to mirror their adjacent counterparts: a derelict building, a desolate parking lot in the evening, a twenty one hectare cemetery in a city. However, what makes the green, park-like Braamfontein Cemetery different from any other in Johannesburg is that it was the first cemetery in the city. As a result, is the final resting place of significant contributors of the country’s history. It is then, currently a commemorative landscape in which events, social and burial practices of Johannesburg and South Africa are recorded. For this reason, one could say that this cemetery is very much a part of urban Braamfontein in 2014. How then to negotiate the de-alienation of this remarkable space while preserving its beauty.

The built environment is a product of man’s rationales and understandings of space. It is on the basis of these understandings that man builds, to facilitate his ways of life. These “understandings”, are the discourses that each individual is born into and the “ways of life” are the cultural practices resulting from these discourses. Architecture being a product of cultural discourse is intended to facilitate cultural practices. Post 1994 South Africa, has inherited a Johannesburg inner-city built environment, which is predominantly a product of apartheid and colonial discourse. During this era, black people were marginalised and excluded from the inner city, both physically and through architectural representation. The inner city was built in accordance with western (white) discourse to facilitate western cultural practices. Today the inner city is predominantly inhabited by black people, who were excluded and marginalised in its conception. Post colonial theorists assert that, while black people have embraced “modernity” and “western urbanity”, it has not resulted in a complete acceptance or appropriation of western cultural practices and discourses. Due a process termed “post colonial hybridity” these people merge the two seemingly irreconcilable cultural discourses and practices to form new cultural hybrids. The consequence of hybridity in the inner-city is; while the appropriated western cultural practices and discourses are inherently reflected and catered for, the retained aspects of black cultural practice and discourse remain marginalised. The built environment, which is meant to facilitate and reflect, negates and marginalises aspects of black discourses and cultural practices. “To be truly expressive, a building should grow out of its natural, social, and civilization context. It should reflect not only the personal values, needs and interests of its dwellers but also its relation to its natural and architectural site. Thus the formal organization of a building cannot be imposed on a people from the outside; it should originate from the context of human life in the given region. In this origination the process of spatial articulation results from a thought- full grasp of the dynamic interaction between the material elements of the architectural work and the human vision which guides this activity.” (Mitias 1994:103) In order to make a contribution to the creation of a more inclusive built environment this paper proposes the development of a hybrid building prototype that would facilitate and reflect the hybrid cultural practices and discourses of the city’s black inhabitants. The building prototype named the “Inner City Ritual Centre” aims to facilitate some of the marginalised practices of black people living in the city and to reflect some of the excluded spatial understandings of black people. The paper proposes a method of practice that utilises postcolonial hybridity, to include excluded and marginalised practices and discourses into the architectural representation of the city. This paper uncovers and highlights a few of these discourses and practices and demonstrates how the use of postcolonial hybridity in architecture would result in a more inclusive built environment.