Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / The objectives of the South African Employment Equity Act include providing equal opportunity in the workplace. However, the existing methods for achieving equality of opportunity have been unsuccessful because they do not engage sufficiently with the complexity of, and reasons for, inequality in the workplace. This thesis argues that the body of literature on intersectionality has great potential to contribute to the process of improving equality of opportunity. Derived from the literature, an intersectional analysis offers employers a way to engage with the complex nature of inequality, by obtaining a fuller, more nuanced and specific understanding of the phenomenon in a particular place of work. In this way, profound and effective solutions can be found. The thesis offers background on employment equity in South Africa and an overview of intersectionality, which reveals its value as a theoretical paradigm. It then describes the development of instruments to be used to analyse (in)equality of opportunity in a workplace.

Includes bibliographical references. / Torture is a distinctly horrific human rights violation, which leaves survivors with an acute need for rehabilitation as a form of reparation. However, the state of knowledge around torture rehabilitation suffers from a knowledge gap around how gender influences the impact of torture and rehabilitation outcomes, particularly in developing countries. A gendered understanding of the torture experience can contribute towards the design and implementation of more relevant and effective rehabilitation policies and programs that are better equipped to respond to victims’ needs. Thus, the fundamental question that this dissertation asks is: within rehabilitation programs, should male and female torture survivors be treated differently? In investigating this question, this dissertation will provide an overview of the available literature on torture and torture rehabilitation in order to frame how key gender issues and debates have been understood to date. It will then present and analyze qualitative data around gender and torture impact and rehabilitation gathered from a study conducted by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR). This data was gathered through the use of the Delphi technique: a series of questionnaires were administered via email to a panel of 18 experts in the torture rehabilitation field from around the world, to assist in building consensus on both the impact of torture and the most adequate intervention optionsin developing countries. Each questionnaire included a separate gender section, where panellists were provided with primarily open-ended questions that yielded qualitative results. This data will be discussed in relation to the literature in order to present any new insights raised by consulting this source of expertise which is under represented in the literature base, as well as to highlight areas where more research is needed. There was consensus among the panel of experts that there are gender hypotheses that can inform rehabilitation practice, but many panelists were hesitant to agree that there are systematic differences that would demand different interventions between genders and rather stressed that individual assessment is important in each case, as gender-related aspects will be influenced by contextual, interpersonal, and individual factors. The data highlights a number of factors to consider when working with male and female torture survivors. In relation to male survivors, torture, and men’s inability to fulfill gender roles subsequently, may impact on their sense of self or manhood, which can lead to a range of negative coping behaviors. Males may also present with less obvious ways of expressing emotions and distress, or may be less likely to seek help in the aftermath of torture. This was raised particularly in relation to sexual torture victimization. The lack of literature available on male sexual torture is particularly concerning and this is a clear area where more research is needed. In relation to female victims of torture, a central factor to consider is the experience of sexual violence as part of torture and its consequences, especially the severe stigma that victims face. Female victims are often forced to develop new skills and take on new roles in the aftermath of torture, which provides both challenges and opportunities for their rehabilitation. Additionally, their ability to recover from torture is influenced by the challenges of caring for their children, and women are often likely to place the needs of their families before their own, which was not always seen as negative. It is hoped that this report will assist practitioners in the field of torture prevention and rehabilitation by illuminating the ways in which gender and torture interact, as a gendered understanding of the torture experience could enhance the treatment offered.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 193-202). / This dissertation examines the meaning of university 'transformation' from the perspective of workers in 'non-core' zones of work. Mergers, outsourcing, retrenching and rightsizing, have become features of the post-apartheid higher education landscape; and they seem set to remain. Through higher education restructuring work has been divided into 'core' and 'non-core' zones of work and 'non-core' work has largely been outsourced. The men and women working in the outsourced zones of 'non-core' work engage in the 'reproductive work' of the university and yet they largely remain hidden from institutional debates of transformation.

This minor dissertation is based on fieldwork conducted for the Institute for Intercultural and Diversity Studies (iNCUDISA) at the University of Cape Town's Rural Transformation Project. The focus is on the investment in 'white benevolence' in a small Karoo (Northern Cape) town and in ways that white residents present themselves, and position themselves discursively, as benevolent whites. Loosely located in social constructionist and postmodernist paradigms, this piece of work also attempts to illustrate how lived experience and the situatedness of subjectivity impact on the research experience and the subjectivity of the 'researcher.' Ultimately, it is posited that if we are interested in the nature and extent of social transformation, the question of subjective transformation must be considered.

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 79-89).

Up until the beginning of this century climate change was mostly seen as an environmental issue, although, the issue of violent conflict has been linked to natural resources before. However, in the last decade the focus has increasingly shifted to connecting climate change with, in particular, human security. In contrast to previous debates, contemporary discussions put emphasis on the impacts that climate change has on human lives. Yet, it is not uncontroversial to what extent environmental degradation as well as carbon dioxide emission based economies play and have played an accelerating role. But even if 'climate change sceptics’ or 'climate change deniers’ question the credibility of climate change the reports by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) present a solid base for the international climate debate which is accepted and supported by the majority of academic experts. Nonetheless, there is significant ambiguity about what the negative consequences of climate change could pose on peaceful human co-existence. In 2007, specifically, it was brought to public attention that the effects of a warming climate, such as more intense storms, floods and droughts have severe impacts on the human-wellbeing, especially in more vulnerable areas of the globe. Experts even claimed that, in many parts of the world, climate change would cause dramatic impacts in the form of violent conflicts due to the decrease of drinking water, fertile soil as well as food. Entire states might be weakened and societies could collapse which might lead to severe consequences for conflict resolution institutions and mechanisms, human security as well as migration. However, findings regarding the impacts of climate change on violent conflict are highly controversial and sometimes even contradictory. One reason for that could be that the physical effects of climate change are limited to date. Furthermore, as studies from the 1990s on the consequences of environmental change have shown, it is difficult to disconnect the environmental factor from other societal and political influences that lead to conflict. This thesis explores the politically charged issue as well as academically controversial link between climate change, as one of the environmental changes, and violent conflict by providing a conceptual assessment of the two different bodies of literature, namely the literature on violent conflict and the climate change literature, before examining available literature on the connection of the two phenomena. Finally, the case study of Darfur is analysed with regards to the often misused term climate war in order to conclude that violent conflicts are caused by multiple factors which should not be oversimplified and therefore cannot be traced back to purely environmental reasons. Therefore, the central research questions addressed in this thesis are: what do scholars say about the connection between climate change and violent conflict? Can climate change and its repercussions be seen as a threat multiplier in unstable and therefore vulnerable societies? And can the Darfur conflict be described as one of the first climate wars?

Bibliography: leaves 138-143.

Includes abstract. / Includes bibliographical references. / Using material such as organisational reports and newspaper clippings, along with a survey of relevant literature on the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, this thesis fills an important gap in the literature on the TRC's amnesty process by investigating the perspective and contribution of the South African human rights community on the novel form of amnesty involved in the TRC process. In so doing, the study draws on relevant comparisons with the role of the Argentine human rights movement in advocating for truth and justice for human rights atrocities following the restoration of civilian rule in Argentine 1983.

Includes bibliographical references.

How should the relevant facts about the Rwandan Government's construction of their narrative ofthe Rwandan genocide be established? A frequent point of emphasis by scholars is that an official narrative usually is put forward by the dominant or ruling group to serve their interests: the contents and features oftheir narrative are capable of legitimating their claims to dominance. Different groups within that society might espouse alternative narratives of events. Neither the narratives of the dominant or ruling group, nor the challenging narratives are necessarily the most widely believed or influential account of a particular set of events. The most widely believed and influential narrative is usually referred to as a "master narrative". But official and challenging narratives compete to be the "master narrative". The 'Shoah' [the Hebrew term for "catastrophe"] as the narrative of the genocide of the ]ews of Europe is widely considered to represent the definitive master narrative of genocide and perhaps the twentieth century [LaCapra 1994 and 1998, Lipstadt 1986 and Maier 2000]. The discussion contained herein requires identification of a framework of issues relevant to official narratives: the construction of such a framework will be based on an analysis of [a] narratives of genocide and [b] three of the more prominent cases of official genocide- narratives. The chosen narratives are the Holocaust or Shoah, the Armenian Genocide and the Herero Genocide. Once constructed, this framework of analysis will then be applied to the official narrative of the RPF. The research design is thus a theoretical case study of sorts, with the theory distilled from scholarly literature on [a] and [b]. The case studies have been chosen because they represent the spectrum of narratives employed in the context of genocide: the Shoah as the master narrative of genocide; the Armenian genocide as a contested genocide narrative; and the Herero genocide as a 'silenced' genocide narrative.