HEARTED EFFORTS BY THE MOGOGELO COMMUNITY TO PROTECT TRADITIONAL SITES BY MEANS OF PUBLIC PARTICIPATION FORUMS: A REVIEW REPORT

ABSTRACT

Traditional values, especially those regarding ancestral graves, crafts, beliefs, songs, dances and languages, are part of Africa's oldest heritage. These existed prior to knowledge of sustainable development or any legal framework to enforce conservation. Development was, in the past, community-centred without constraints to these antiquities. Current legislation acknowledges the necessity of stakeholders’ consent, that is, the consent of community residents. This was the case with the development of a photovoltaic solar energy project in the Mogogelo community in the North West province in South Africa, where environmental practitioners were required as legislated to conduct an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA). Among these specialist studies was the Heritage Impact Assessment (HIA). This article is based on the interest shown by the community and the standoff that arose over the allocation of the project site and the conservation of traditional values. Using a public participation process as a social forum, this report highlights the degree of traditional knowledge and legislative awareness within the community about its right to protect heritage resources.     

Arab Local Government in Israel: Partial Modernisation as an Explanatory Variable for Shortages in Management

About one-third of all local and regional councils in Israel are Arab. Ever since their establishment, and especially during the last decade, the Arab authorities have suffered from financial crises and from administrative and organisational deficiencies that jeopardize their functioning. Arab local politics is characterised by the increased strength of traditional clan-affiliated forces, at the expense of modern representative groups. The present article has tried to explain the problems that beset the management of Arab local government in Israel. We believe that the explanation is rooted in the fact that ‘partial modernisation’ is the dominant explanatory variable for Arab local government shortages.     

An East-West Approach to Serving Chinese Immigrants in a Mental Health Setting

Abstract

This article discusses the unique design of a community day treatment program that addresses the issues of loss and acculturation for a Chinese American immigrant population who suffers from chronic mental illness. The program utilizes an integrated, multi-cultural milieu of staff and clients to create a microcosm of the diversity of American society, and reflects the agency's belief in the affirmation of the clients' cultural heritage as a more effective way of supporting clients in their recovery process. Case vignettes are used to illustrate the importance of helping immigrant clients who are marginalized in society to feel accepted, empowered and hopeful in their lives in a new country.     

An elusive community? Lesbian usage of the Internet in South Africa

Abstract

The initial celebratory response that hailed the Internet as some kind of utopia has been tempered, and gender scholars increasingly interrogate the Internet in relation to gender (in)justice. There is still a scarcity of work that engages with non-normative identities, and while there is a growing visibility of gay sexuality in the literature, lesbian usage is seldom considered – particularly in South Africa. Against the background of homophobia and limited Internet access, the article first presents an overview of sites relevant to lesbian users by mapping the South African lesbian web sphere, and categorising dating, lifestyle and political sites. It then considers the responses of lesbian users of the Internet as pertains to the value they ascribe to it. While the overview of the websites suggests a fragmented or elusive online lesbian community, the respondents insist on the value of the Internet as a space for community engagement. This contradiction points to the potential for personal and political engagement through the Internet – one that is arguably not yet fully realised.     

Positioning independent community media: Findings from a case study of six small South African newspapers

Abstract

This article brings defining aspects of ‘community media’ – as proposed by a group of media stakeholders – into dialogue with research findings from a study on small ‘independent media’. One significant difference between the two media sectors is that the former is usually understood as being driven by commune-style ownership and community control, and the latter by private ownership and profit-driven control. We argue that perceptions constructed by this difference potentially marginalise small independent media organisations. It may compromise their access to funding as well as obscure how, and how much, they contribute to their communities. We find that the six South African small independent newspapers in this research meet defining criteria for ‘community media’. Research findings on issues such as social responsibility, participatory democracy, media diversity and the generation of skills and wealth demonstrate how the principles and practices of the two media sectors overlap. So we propose ‘independent community media’ as a more inclusive and appropriate concept and term for small community-oriented publications, irrespective of their ownership profiles or relationship to profit. Independence is also examined – particularly how the newspapers balance editorial independence with outside control: this reveals inequitable practices currently threatening some newspapers’ survival and success.     

Gap Analysis: Participatory Democracy,Public Expectations and Community Assemblies in Sheffield

This article offers an argument of almost primitive simplicity: politics tends to promise too much and deliver too little. In order to substantiate this argument this article presents the results of the first attempt to analyse an experiment with participatory democracy through the lens of ‘gap analysis’. This approach focuses attention on the creation, management and fulfilment of public expectations vis-à-vis products, services or experiences. In a historical period in which the fiscal and social resources of democratic politics are severely limited the argument and empirical research set out in this article offer valuable insights for scholars and practitioners of politics and public policy. Central amongst these is the suggestion that responding to unprecedented levels of anti-political sentiment is likely to demand that politicians pay more attention to the management of public expectations (i.e. demand) and less on how to maximise political outputs in terms of public services (i.e. supply).     

Rethinking media diversity policy on the community press in South Africa

ABSTRACT

It has been well acknowledged by historians of South African media that the country had a vibrant grassroots community press under apartheid, which declined with the advent of democracy. The ruling African National Congress (ANC) has supported media diversity in its media policy and has also criticised the supposedly anti-transformative nature of mainstream agenda-setting press. It has called for a range of measures to counteract this problem, including media diversity and intensified support for community media. However, apart from the establishment of the Media Development and Diversity Agency (MDDA), in its practices in government, the ANC has adopted a market-driven approach to the development of the sector, leaving questions of market structure to the Competition Commission and Tribunal. Evidence from the community press suggests that this approach, which amounts to an adaptation to neoliberalism, but with a public service top-up, is inadequate to the task of realising diversity. As a result, the community press is facing deep crisis. The article will then consider why the ANC has adopted an incoherent, even contradictory approach to press diversity, and what policy measures are needed to encourage the sorts of vibrant community press that a democratic South Africa needs.     

NATO Regional peacekeeping center in Central and Eastern Europe: A proposal

Abstract

The article asks what the evolution of NATO–Swedish relations signifies for the understanding of the evolution of security communities. Given the astonishing evolution of NATO and Sweden as a community of practise, it is logical to imagine the two as forming part of the same security community. It could then be argued that common practise can bring about new security communities rather hastily. Analysing NATO's and Sweden's recent discourses on security, the author identifies a significant gap between a principally realist and a predominantly idealist discourse that indicates that the two parties do not share key characteristics of a security community – identities, values and meanings. However, if Libya is the case of the future, the discursive differences may fade and Sweden could more easily pursue its journey towards inclusion in NATO, not as a member of an Alliance, but as a member of NATO as a security community.     

Local community on trial

Abstract

While plenty has been written about the reinvention of the social by the Third Way as a new governmentality of control, consensus, and social integration, less has been said about its subtle elision of social and the local, and the implications of this elision for urban and regional regeneration. This is the theme taken up by this paper, beginning with a critical appraisal of the recent turn by New Labour to community cohesion and social capital as a means of overcoming local poverty and disadvantage. It shows how the social has come to be redefined as community, localized, and thrown back at hard-pressed areas as both cause and solution in the area of social, political, and economic regeneration. The second half of the paper develops an alternative designation of the local-social that is less instrumentalist, decidedly a-moral (though equally ethical), agonistically political, and geographically unconstrained. It argues for a return to ideas of agonistic democracy and the society of commitments and connections so thoroughly repudiated by new versions of market social democracy.