This study was influenced by two sociological theories namely: Durkheim’s Structural Functionalism and Relativism. In terms of Durkheim’s Structural Functionalism, I claim that the aspects of social structures, cultural norms and values, which are among its main components, are also among the main components of Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS). In line with Relativism, this study argues against Durkheim’s claim that social structures, and cultural norms and values determine human choices and behaviour. It is claimed that in line with my understanding of IKS in this study social structures, cultural norms and values are relative aspects, because they change and differ from context to context even if their carriers are the same, and human choice in different times and places play a vital role in determining decisions. These theories have been applied practically by examining the relationship between Indigenous Knowledge Systems (IKS) and good governance. The study asserts that IKS has the potential to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of policies at the local municipality level. Thus, the study has sought to understand the extent to which IKS is incorporated in the policy development and implementation at the local municipality level. This investigation has been undertaken in the thematic context of HIV/AIDS. I investigated the extent to which IKS is incorporated into policy development and implementation related to HIV/AIDS at the local municipality level. The study has argued that the extent to which IKS is appropriated into policy development and implementation relies on the power dynamics between the provincial and national spheres of government on the one hand, and the local municipality leaders and officials on the other. The study has found that local municipality leaders and officials have a strong affinity to the IKS due to their proximity to the local citizens. But, political leaders at the national and provincial spheres of the South African government exert influence on the local municipality leaders and officials to exercise their power with limited response to the IKS needs of the local communities. / Sociology / D. Phil. (Sociology)

The importance of agricultural knowledge systems (AKS) especially in rural communities cannot be overemphasized. AKS are important for creation, sharing and enhancing access and usage of agricultural knowledge. They link agricultural research and farms; increase adoption of good agricultural practices; improve the performance of agricultural marketing systems; and enhance effective post-harvest management. Despite the importance of agriculture to the economy and livelihoods of majority of Tanzanians, there is a consensus from scholars that the sector has been performing poorly. This is partially due to limited access to agricultural knowledge resulting into irrational decisions on agricultural activities thus dwarfing the sector. The modified Knowledge Management Processes Model guided the study in investigating how AKS can be strengthened to enhance access and usage of agricultural knowledge among stakeholders. The study adopted a pragmatic paradigm and used mixed method research by applying a survey, key informant interviews, focus group discussions (FGDs) and document reviews. Structured questionnaires were administered to 314 farmers while key informant interviews involved 57 respondents among village executives, councillors, input-suppliers, information providers, buyers, agricultural extension officers and researchers. Moreover, three FGDs involving 24 farmers were conducted. Qualitative data were analysed through classical content and constant comparison analysis, while SPSS software was used to analyse quantitative data. Quantitative and qualitative data were mixed during analysis, interpretation and discussion of results. The study identified farmers, the private sector and the government as major actors, but not working in unison. Most actors used human based systems while few used ICT and paper based systems. Actors needed agricultural knowledge on weather, farm preparation, seeds, crop maintenance, post-harvest practices, agricultural marketing and credits. Most actors shared agricultural knowledge through face-to-face interactions and mobile phones, few through internet. It was concluded that poor linkage among actors limited accessibility of agricultural knowledge. To improve accessibility to agricultural knowledge, a model for strengthening AKS usage is proposed. It is recommended that actors should be linked together and involved in enhancing access and usage of agricultural knowledge. Moreover, the proposed model should be validated before applying it. / Information Science / D. Litt. et Phil (Information Science)

Text in Afrikaans / During the last few decades the need existed for a new framework to give direction to development and ecological thought in respect of the sustaining of nature in order to place development and ecological thought within the limits of nature. However, development thought and the debate relating to nature are to some extent still treated in theory and practice as two separate entities. One of the current challenges for sustainable development is to reconcile the development and ecological branches of this debate. The thesis firstly explains the origin and characteristics of sustainable development. Secondly, the crisis in nature is discussed, followed by a discussion of the most important ecological views relating to sustainable development. Then issues in development thought that relates to sustainable development is discussed, as well as the changing emphasis in development thought that stimulated the growth of sustainable development. The mainstream development view, as the other main branch of sustainable development thinking, is then discussed. In conclusion, some issues relating to the operationalisation of sustainable development is discussed. / Development Studies / D. Litt. et Phil. (Ontwikkelingstudies)

This is an exploratory study on “Evaluation of Pass-on the Gift Concept on the Socioeconomic Welfare of Rural Households: The Case of SACHZEP and ELITE Projects in Katete District, Zambia. The main research objective of the study was to evaluate the impact of the PoG concept on the socioeconomic welfare of rural households. A mixed methods approach was used involving 124 household in the survey interviews, 5 FGDs and 18 key informant interviews. Study findings showed relationships existing between type of livestock with compliance to pass on the gift (p-=0.001), food security (p=0.001), income security (p=0.007) and education at 9th grade level (p=0.002). No relationship exists between livestock type with shelter status of beneficiaries. Livestock type, water scarcity, IKS and practices, sharing of knowledge, skills and livestock affects PoG impact on socioeconomic welfare of rural households. PoG is compatible with indigenous knowledge systems and supports Human Centred Development approach. / Development Studies / M.A. (Development Studies)

Employing decolonized, Indigenous research methods, the author considers Métis Beadwork Practice through the analytical lens of Therapeutic Jurisprudence and establishes the practice as a holistic Indigenous Legal Pedagogy for knowledge creation and mobilization in legal education. The author agrees with Drs. Friedland and Napoleon who suggest that a significant challenge in and to Indigenous legal research is that such research occupies a space of “deep absence,” with the starting line moved back as a consequence of colonialism. Building on the work of Dr. Shawn Wilson, the author espouses an Indigenous Research Paradigm which requires a prioritization of the relationship to the ideas and making space for non-linear logic systems and Indigenous ways of knowing in scholarly research. In her work, the author prioritizes synthesis over deconstruction on the belief that deconstructing relationships to ideas for the purpose of analyzing them would have the effect of damaging the cognitive and emotional relationships developed through the research ceremony. While the work embodies the four essential elements of autoethnography, the author argues that the work of Indigenous scholars speaking in their own voices is sui generis in nature. She argues that Indigenous scholars who employ storytelling and other culturally-relevant knowledge mobilization practices are engaging a distinct Indigenous Research Method. This work ultimately progresses in a non-linear fashion and incorporates extra-intellectual knowledge including poetry, music, and photography. The use of multiple fonts and other formatting devices including right justification are used to underline shifts in voice and perspective throughout the work. These pedagogical choices valourize the ways of knowing of Indigenous women and honour the author’s Métis worldview, including her understanding that all things are interrelated. The author examines, and ultimately eschews, notions of neutral objectivity in research as colonial constructs that undermine Indigenous Knowledge Systems and contribute to the ongoing colonization of Indigenous peoples in post-secondary education. Following an introduction to the legal and social history of Forced Assimilative Education of Indigenous Peoples in Canada, the author reviews recent research into ongoing colonialism, racism, and ethno-stress experienced by Indigenous Learners in post-secondary education. The ii author subsequently explores the specific concern of the subjugation and erasure of Indigenous women’s knowledge in academia. She conducts a review of existing literature in the sphere of Feminist Legal Theory, examining and ultimately rejecting intersectionality and conceptualizations of sisterhood as possible remedies to discrimination faced by Indigenous women legal scholars. She argues that the lived experience of Indigenous women is situated not at an intersection, but rather in the centre of a colonialism collision. As a consequence, the author argues that existing Feminist Legal Theory does not create adequate space for Indigenous difference, experiences, or worldviews. Offering insight into legal education, legal ethics, and professionalization processes, the author also explores questions of lived experience of Indigenous lawyers beyond the legal academy. She argues that learning the language of law is but the first element in a complex professionalization process that engages structures of patriarchal hierarchy in addition to the other forces, including colonialism and racism, that shape the legal profession. She further argues that, for Indigenous peoples, learning to speak the linear, official language of legal education represents a collision of even more complex systems of dominance, with the regulated approach to learning and problem-solving standing in direct opposition to Indigenous ways of knowing. Consequently, Indigenous law Learners frequently experience an intellectual rupture when engaging in the professional assimilation process. The author offers an overview of Calls to Action 27, 28, 42, and 50 of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of Canada and an introductory environmental scan of ongoing efforts to decolonize and indigenize law schools including land-based learning and the development of Indigenous Course Requirements (ICRs). The author subsequently considers the process of decolonizing the legal academy through the analytical lenses of Therapeutic Jurisprudence and Therapeutic Jurisprudence+. She ultimately positions the act of decolonizing legal education as an act grounded in decolonial love with the potential for healing individuals and communities struggling with ongoing colonialism and racism in the academy. Building on the work of the late Professor Patricia Monture-Angus and contemporary Indigenous legal scholars including Drs. Tracey Lindberg, Darcy Lindberg, Val Napoleon, and John Burrows, the author considers possibilities for reimaging legal education through the development and use of Indigenous Legal Pedagogies. The author argues that Beadwork Practice holds a distinctive language of possibility as an Indigenous Legal Pedagogical practice as a result of deeply entrenched links between beads and law. The author explores the social and legal history of beads as a tool for legal knowledge production and mobilization in the context of wampum belts and beyond, including the use of Métis beadwork as a mnemonic device to facilitate intergenerational knowledge transfer of stories and songs that carry law. Further, she examines colonial law and policy that served to undermine the legal value of beads, and canvases emerging trends in the revitalization of community beadwork practice. Finally, the author positions Beadwork Practice as a holistic Indigenous Legal Pedagogy to support not only the revitalization of Indigenous Legal Orders and the development of cross-cultural competency as required under Calls to Action 27 and 28, but also therapeutic objectives of individual and community healing.

This study focuses on the comparison of medical and health terms with special reference to Sesotho sa Leboa and Western languages. The study was conducted in the communities of Zebediela, Groblersdal and Marble Hall. From time immemorial, traditional medical and health terms were associated with certain types of diseases and health problems among Africans. With the introduction of Western civilisation, most of the medical and health terms which were used in the past by the Basotho ba Leboa, are no longer in use, as Western languages are regarded as prestige languages compared to the indigenous African languages. This perception led to a shortage of Sesotho sa Leboa documents that explain medical and health terms. The literature review revealed that traditional medicine is used for healing by many communities. Scholars further revealed that Western health terminology is more developed than traditional health terminology. The study uses the qualitative approach to explain concepts, and coding schemes were used to categorise medical and health terms. Ethnographic and historical theories were used to analyse data. The similarities and differences between the Sesotho sa Leboa terms and their Western counterparts were discussed and assessed. The study found that a relationship exists between diseases and the body parts in both Sesotho sa Leboa and Western terminology, and that the diseases were classified according to the affected body parts. The medical terms of both languages have similar and different semantic properties. Most of the differences were brought about by the cultural differences of the two communities. As the Sesotho sa Leboa medical terms are inimitable, the culture specific terms used in this study are discussed in Sesotho sa Leboa rather than in Western terminology. Conversely, as most of the recent outbreaks of diseases are named in Western terminology, they are translated into Sesotho sa Leboa. / African Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Languages)

No description available.

Published works cite that 70-80% of the total cost of a product is established during conceptual design, and that improvements in time-to-market, quality, affordability, and global competitiveness require the development of better approaches to assist decision-making during the early stages of product design, as well as facilitate enterprise knowledge management and reuse. For many years, concurrent engineering and teaming have been viewed as “the answer” to product development woes, but studies reveal teaming is not sufficient to handle the task complexities of product development and the long-term goal of enterprise learning. The work of Roberto Verganti provides new insights with regard to reciprocal interdependencies (RIs), feedforward planning, selective anticipation in the context of improving teaming and concurrent engineering, as well as enterprise learning, knowledge management, reuse. In this research, reciprocal interdependencies management (RIM) is offered as a means of addressing product development and concurrent engineering issues occurring in the early stages of design. RIM is combination of Verganti’s concepts, a conceptual RIs structure, new RIM-application strategies, RIM-diagramming, and a conceptual RIM-based decisions support system, which come together to form a vision of a RIM-based enterprise knowledge management system. The conceptual RIM-based DSS is presented using the specific case of supporting a working-level integrated product team (IPT) engaged in the design of an aircraft bulkhead. A qualitative assessment tool is used to compare RIM to other approaches in the literature, and initial results are very favorable.

This study concerns itself with how Afrikan masculinities were (perspective on the past), what they are now (perspectives on the present) and what they can, ideally, become (perspectives on the future). By employing a decolonial and Afrocentric approach of deconstructive and critical theory, transdisciplinarity and Afrikological perspectives, the study’s objective is to understand the impact of coloniality on Afrikan masculinities. Coloniality, in this context, refers to the impact of historical colonization, enslavement, Apartheid on (South) Afrikan societies, including how the after-effects and their multiple consequences for changes in (South) Afrikan culture, economy, politics, communities, families and individuals have impacted on the notions about, and roles of, Afrikan men. Further to this, the study seeks to understand the role of Afrikan culture in shaping solutions to problems identified, in the form of an innovative philosophy of education towards relevant Afrikan masculinities. Applying Participatory Action Research (PAR) as research methodology, the study examines how Afrikan masculinities are seen, understood and envisioned by Afrikan men and women. Empirical research was conducted with a co-research team in Mangaya village, Thulamela Municipality in Limpopo Province, South Afrika. Findings from the study were coded, cross-analysed, triangulated with literature and a number of discussions and dialogues, and eventually developed into concepts for emerging theory and practical interventions. The study found that many Afrikan men are caught between expectations to what they should become and systemic obstacles to fulfil these expectations. As a result of colonial injustices – and their many after-effects, many Afrikan men have become confused about their identity, irresponsible in their behavior, “broken” in their self-perception (and in the eyes of the world) and in deficit of Afrikan values as guidelines for meaningful, Afrikan manhood. Essential solution-concepts found were for Afrikan men to deepen their self-knowledge, seek healing, empowerment and engage in re-learning of indigenous guidelines. These concepts have been expressed through nine lessons, serving as an innovative, educational philosophy for Afrikan manhood. A mixtape featuring brief, motivational messages for young Afrikan men against a musical soundtrack was produced as a direct outcome of the study. / Educational Studies / D. Ed. (Philosophy of Education)

The main objective of this mini–dissertation is to investigate the basic form and content of moral education as it manifests itself in the mamtiseni and nkciyo female initiation rituals of the Mount Frere region of the Eastern Cape Province of the Republic of South Africa. The main theoretical position taken is the reemergent African Renaissance coupled with African indigenous knowledge systems, first revived by (former) President Thabo Mbeki. Accordingly the main purpose of this study is to address the transmission of moral aspects of female Bhaca initiation inherent in behavioural/cultural educational enculturation. The main findings of the mini–dissertation constitute the following: 1. Mamtiseni and nkciyo rituals play a major role in the enculturation of young Bhaca girls. 2. The song texts carry strong messages of how to go about achieving a healthy and surviving society. There are further opportunities for research in the following aspects: 1. Nkciyo initiation schools are very exclusive, involving many secret codes. The fact that I am a male put me at a disadvantage. 2. There are many more points of difference between the two rituals than meets the eye. / Thesis (M.Mus.)--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2011.