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Research Advisory Committee |
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Criteria for evaluating research proposals |
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Completed projects |
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Current projects |
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Projects under development |
1. Merging the layers of life
Developing a (mathematical) model suitable for the integration of the different levels of biological research (sub-molecular, molecular, organisms, populations) in one framework.
Project Leader: Jannie Hofmeyr (SU)
Fellows: Hans Westerhoff (Amsterdam) and Wayne Getz (Berkeley)
Publications: Journal articles listed under STIAS publications
2. String Theory and Quantum Gravity -- New Developments and Links to Low-energy Physics
The project explores the relationship between classical gravity and quantum field theories, as well as possible applications of the mathematical structures of string theory to low energy systems such as Quantum Hall Fluids. A further focus deals with the quantization of constrained systems, which naturally links to the above problems. The opportunity for African theoretical physicists to interact with colleagues from Europe, the USA and other parts of the world is used to plan future structures in South Africa and Africa in support of theoretical physics research on the continent.
Project leader: Hendrik Geyer (SU)
Fellows: Leonard Susskind (Stanford), James Gates (Maryland), Jan Govaerts (Leuven), Robert De Mello Koch and Joao Rodrigues (Witwatersrand)
Publications: Journal articles listed under STIAS publications
3. Dealing with the Past (Historical memory)
Why do some individuals or societies transcend a divisive past and why do some remain prisoners of their own past? A study in the ambiguity of memory in the light of the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission in South Africa and similar attempts in different countries.
Project Leaders: Jörn Rüsen (Essen) and Mamadou Diawara (Bamako and Frankfurt)
Fellows: Justin Bisanswa (Kinshasa and Quebec), Patrick Harries (Basel), Bogumil Jewsiewicki (Quebec), Elisio Macamo (Mozambique and Bayreuth) and Masayuki Sato (Kofu, Japan)
Publication: Historical Memory in Africa. Dealing with the past, reaching for the future in an intercultural context. - Diawara, M, Lategan, BC & Rüsen, J (eds): New York: Berghahn (2010)
4. Social and Economic Justice
The South African Constitution contains extensive social and economic rights. The interpretation of these rights, most markedly by the Constitutional Court itself, thus far had to rely on a tradition of jurisprudence that is based on the theory and practice of individual human rights. The aim of the project is to develop a theoretical framework that will provide a basis for the equitable and consistent application of social and economic rights.
Project leader: Andre van der Walt (SU)
Fellows: Greg Alexander (Cornell), Aeyal Gross (Tel-Aviv), Istvan Pogany (Warwick)
Publication: Theories of Social and Economic Justice - A.J. van der Walt (ed); Stellenbosch: SUN MeDIA (2005)
5. Good Governance and Poverty Relief
The project explores the hypothesis that the eradication of inequalities (especially the alleviation of poverty) in developing regions and especially in Africa is directly dependent on the practice of good governance – not only by governments, but also in the corporate and NGO sectors of society.
Project leader: Ulf Engel (Leipzig)
Fellows: Tim Shaw (London), Philip Nel (Otago), Alfred Nehema (Nairobi), Robert Kappel (Hamburg)
6. HIV Strain Dynamics
A growing concern in HIV research is the emergence of drug resistant strains of the virus. This could have far-reaching consequences for treatment strategies and the government’s ARV plan. The dynamics between host and virus and the factors contributing to drug resistance are not adequately understood. The project will use analytical and numerical methods on appropriately crafted models to obtain new levels of understanding regarding the host-viral dynamics. The project is a joint undertaking with SACEMA (see below the section on special programmes).
Project leader: Gareth Witten (UCT and AIMS)
Fellows: Ekkehard Kopp (Hull), Wayne Getz (Berkeley), David Bangsberg (San Francisco), Cathal Seoighe (UWC)
7. Global Media Ethics: Fundamental Values Amid Plurality
The growth of global news media presents a fundamental challenge to the theory and practice of media ethics. We live amid a technological revolution in the media that blurs geographical, cultural and even temporal boundaries. News media are global in reach and impact. Therefore, there is a need for a media ethics that is global in its principles and in its understanding of news media. The duties of the world-wide news media cross borders, altering the parochial perspectives of existing media ethical frameworks.
These issues have sparked a growing debate and a search for a global media ethics, at roundtables, conferences and in journals. But the “search” so far has been preliminary and exploratory, inconclusive and lacking in theoretical rigor. Theoretical, one set of issues orbit around the tension among universal and particular values, global power relations and specific cultural frameworks. How can a global ethic be based on universal principles yet allow for diversity of media systems and cultural values? Another set of issues involves the meaning of a socially responsible global media. In a global world, who is the “public” that the news media serve? How is the notion of “socially responsible media” interpreted across cultures and media systems?
This project develops a theoretical foundation for a global media ethics by resolving the central theoretical issues and clarifying bedrock concepts. The project will explicate and validate these theoretical constructs by reference to cross-cultural knowledge of media systems in Africa, Europe, India, North America and beyond. The result will be a philosophically rigorous and culturally informed theory of global media ethics that can serve as a basis for future research and practical media reform.
Project Leader: Herman Wasserman (Associate Professor Extraordinary, Stellenbosch University; University of Sheffield)
Fellows: Clifford Christians (University of Illinois, USA); Stephen Ward (University of British Columbia, Canada); Shakuntala Rao (State University of New York, USA)
Publication: Clifford G Christians, Shakuntala Rao, Stephen JA Ward and Herman Wasserman, Toward a Global Media Ethics: Theoretical Perspectives, Ecquid Novi: African Journalism Studies 29(2) (2008) 135-172
8. Urban Music and Identities
Cape Town has a rich and most diverse musical heritage, shaped by all kinds of cosmopolitan influences. From the perspective of the sociology of music, the project examines the expression of identities and the organization of social networks in a cosmopolitan urban setting. Apart from the importance for the transformation of the Western Cape, a hot spot of differing identities, the aim is also to develop a methodology to better understand the complexity and dynamics of processes of social aggregation and identification.
Fellow: Denis-Constant Martin (Paris)
Publication: Denis-Constant Martin, TRACES D'AVENIR: Mémoires musicales et ré conciliation en Afrique du Sud, Cahiers d'ethnomusicologie, 22/2008: Mémoire, traces, histoire
9. The Quality of Young Democracies
After the initial euphoria surrounding democratic transitions since the 1990’s, what is the present state and future prospects of these young democracies? How deeply embedded is the democratic spirit and how strong the democratic ethos and culture? A comparative and empirical study of the current situation in Poland, Germany, South Korea, South Africa and Chile in the second phase of democratisation.
Project leader: Ursula van Beek (SU)
Fellows: Hans-Dieter Klingemann (Berlin), Edmund Wnuk-Lipinski (Warsaw), Dirk Bergschlosser (Marburg), Radek Markowski (Warsaw)
Publication: Ursula J van Beek (ed), Democracy under Scrutiny: Elites, citizens, cultures,
Barbara Budrich Publishers (Leverkusen Opladen, 2010), 300 pp
10. Ethics, Politics and the Law
A critical investigation of post-apartheid life under a transformed legal, political and social order from the perspective of women. Taking the concrete lives of women in the new dispensation as point of departure, the tension between the ‘public’ face of the new legal order (human rights, constitutionalism) and the ‘private’ reality of individual lives is examined. The aim is to find alternative forms of subjectivity and agency other than those produced by a liberalist private economy or that of autonomous complacent individuals – lives that could resist new and old forms of hegemony.
Fellow: Karin van Marle (Pretoria)
Publication: Karin van Marle, Haunting (in)equalities in "Rethinking equality projects in law: Feminist perspectives", R Hunter (ed) (2008) London: Hart
11. A Socio-Historical Perspective on Organized Crime
The project investigates organized crime around the Atlantic seaboard from an unusual perspective – by tracing the migration of RussoPolish criminals to North and South America and to South Africa between 1881 (after the assassination of Tsar Alexander II) and 1914. Using originally developed techniques of social history, the aim of the study is to gain new insights into the origin or organized crime, its trans-national and trans-continental expansion and the social dynamics driving these processes.
Fellow: Charles van Onselen (Pretoria)
Publication: C van Onselen, Who killed Meyer Hasenfus? Organized crime, policing and informing on the Witwatersrand, 1902-8, History Workshop Journal 67 (2009) (Oxford University Press), pp. 1-22
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