New releases

South Africa’s governing party, the African National Congress (ANC), has undergone dramatic changes over the last thirty years. Historically a hotbed of political activism, Port Elizabeth is an illuminating site. In 2016, observers greeted with shock the ANC’s loss of the city, one of its crown jewels and a party stronghold. Yet, as this book shows through its analysis of power and politics in Port Elizabeth, the party’s political decline was authored by its own hand.

Connected lives: Families, households, health and care in contemporary South Africa, illustrates the changing constitution and the variability of households, fluid understandings of family, and the impact of these in the context of life changes and health problems.

Decolonisation as democratisation considers three factors that define the debate in South Africa on the decolonisation of the academy: educational aspiration, competing interests and political contestation. The book explores an academic system that attempts to serve two masters, the first being the historical beneficiaries of the academy (i.e. whiteness) and the second being those who pin their hopes on the system in order to escape abjection (i.e. blackness or indigeneity). The book highlights how the recent thrust of decoloniality protects the ideal of academic freedom and presents an argument that this ideal should not be used to protect the interests of the historical beneficiaries.

Multi-layered inequalities and a sense of insecurity has long been the hallmark of South African life. Recently, however, the uncertainties of Covid-19 have led to greater shared experiences of vulnerability among South Africans. This volume of State of the Nation offers perspectives that may help us navigate our way through the ‘new normal’ in which we find ourselves.

The Fourth Industrial Revolution (4IR) is having a major impact on all aspects of life, both in South Africa and globally. The chief technological developments associated with the 4IR offer much promise for human development and improvements in quality of life. Yet, as this book explores, these technologies are a double-edged sword, bringing both benefits and drawbacks, particularly in relation to the realisation and enjoyment of fundamental human rights and freedoms.

Worldwide, countries have to respond to local and global socio-technological shifts and needs, specifically the transformations wrought by a rapidly shifting understanding of the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

South Africa is a rapidly urbanising society. Over 60% of the population lives in urban areas and this will rise to more than 70% by 2030. However, it is also a society with a long history of labour migration, rural home-making and urban economic and residential insecurity.

Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers develops an argument about how individual migrants, coming from four continents and diverse socioeconomic backgrounds, are in many ways affected by a violent categorisation that is often nihilistic, insistently racial, and continuously significant in the organisation of South African society.

Miriam Tlali was a novelist, short story writer, playwright, essayist, and activist against apartheid and patriarchal confinement. She worked consistently to build literary and political community, was one of the founders of Staffrider magazine, promoting the work of younger writers, and was the most prolific writer of her time.

What does it take for entrepreneurs to be effective competitors? What are the factors affecting entry and participation in sectors where there are historically strong incumbent firms? Opening the South African Economy brings to light the challenges of concentration, inequality and exclusion in different sectors of the South African economy.