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2015
51 Poets: an Anthology of World Poetry
For a Latin American publisher I have undertaken to compile an anthology of world poetry.
A comparative study of donor and state policies and operational approaches to addressing forced displacement due to armed conflict in the Horn of Africa
The global population of forcibly displaced persons due to armed conflict is about 44 million, comprising about 15.
A convergence of interest between expressivism and pragmatism
Recent years have seen a resurgence of interest in pragmatism, both historically and in its contemporary form, particularly as it has developed through the work of Bob Brandom, Huw Price, Michael Williams and others.
Acting on Stage
Role-playing on stage, e.g. an actor playing Shakespeare’s Richard III, clearly differs from role-playing in real life, e.
African Constitutionalism: Comparative Perspectives (2)
The main project that I have engaged in at STIAS since 2013 falls under the general theme, African Constitutionalism: Comparative Perspectives.
Analysing sub-Saharan African states through a limited access lens
During the past decade, an extraordinary disconnect regarding the futures of states in sub-Saharan Africa has emerged: ‘Aspiring Africa, the world’s fastest growing continent’ (in the words of The Economist on its title page), on the one hand, and, in the words of an economist, ‘informalised and subsistence Africa, with swathes of survivalist pockets of existence, remains the overriding economic reality’ in these states, on the other.
Battling homophobia in the bid to protect East Africa's sexual minorities: A socio-legal analysis
Recent political and judicial battles over the rights of sexual minorities in East Africa have witnessed the introduction of new constricting legislation, judicial interventions and civil society action both in favour and against the expansion of the ‘right to love.
Cape Town’s Creole Songs, Nederlandsliedjies and moppies
Following up on the publication of Sounding the Cape, Music, Identity and Politics in South Africa ( African Minds, Somerset West, 2013) researched and published with support by STIAS, this project will focus on two song repertoires emblematic of Cape Town’s music: the Moppies (or comic songs) and the Nederlandslierdjies.
Deeply equitable development: water provision and biodiversity offsetting in South Africa
Fulfilling human rights to a clean and healthy environment while sustaining that environment for present and future generations of humans and non-humans is unambiguously worthwhile until a nation tries to achieve these goals simultaneously.
Democracy at the Crossroads? Normative, performance and legitimacy changes in contemporary democracies
Current crises can hardly be reduced to fiscal or economic phenomena; they seem to be much deeper, including the crisis of democracy per se.
Dichotomies in biology and the origin of life problem
Advances in synthetic biology have brought the long-standing ‘Origin of Life’ problem once again into prominence.
Faith and Food: The Intersectionality of Belief, Politics, Security and Human Flourishing in Africa
The place and role of food in religious, cultural beliefs and practices is complex and varies among individuals and communities.
Fiction and Reality of Mobility in Africa
The aim of this project is to explore how to marry ethnography and fiction in understanding the intricacies, nuance and complexity of African mobility and mobile Africans as frontier beings.
Generating Knowledge: Conservation Sciences in South Africa’s National Parks
Over many years a considerable body of reliable scientific information has been generated in or about South Africa’s national parks, both by scientists employed by the organization and by outside researchers working with SANParks.
HIV prevention and treatment: from policy to implementation
During my residency at STIAS I will be analyzing data and completing two scientific papers on HIV prevention, in particular the prevention of mother to child transmission (PMTCT) in sub-Saharan Africa, specifically in Kenya and Tanzania where I have ongoing projects and data is being collected.
In Pursuit of a Global Civics
We are the luckiest generation in human history.
Labour after Globalisation: new forms of organisation, new sources of power
In this book-length manuscript a puzzle will be dealt with, namely: the continuing decline of traditional trade unionism in advanced industrial countries, side by side with the growth of a new scholarship on global labour.
Learning a sign language: the challenge of modality
The study of sign languages contributes to our understanding of the human language faculty.
Medical Pluralism, Maternal and Child Health, and Demographic Developments in Southeast Africa, 1890-present
Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable is the 11th goal of the draft Sustainable Development Goals.
Modernity and Modernism in Everyday Life – South Africa and Australia in the Twentieth Century
How do we live? How does our immediate infrastructure work, as house, and home?
On Social Meaning – Ernst Cassirer, Cornelius Castoriadis and Philosophical-Rhetorical Anthropology
In rhetorical theory, the question of how meaning is produced has traditionally been dealt with in terms of the intentions of the orator to influence her or his audience through speech.
Science in South Africa – a synoptic history
The history of science and of scientific knowledge in South Africa is a growing field of interest but it remains relatively fragmented.
South African – Swedish effort on pre-hospital diagnostics of stroke and traumatic injuries
Stroke care represents one of the major global unmet challenges of the global health care system.
South African Literature after the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission
The role of literature is always to speak the truth to power (Nietzsche), and even if it cannot pretend to ameliorate material problems it appears to have impact on the way readers respond to reality and even perhaps behave in the real world.
Systems biology studies on plant desiccation tolerance for food security
Drought is the single greatest threat to world agriculture (FAO, 2008) and this is predicted to be increasingly exacerbated by the effects of global climate change.
The bioarchaeology of South Africa
Perched, inconveniently, at opposite ends of the globe, Scotland and South Africa are nonetheless ‘sisters-in-law’ in the sense that their systems of private law are uncannily close.
The Impact of the Global Recession on Party Policy Preferences
The project continues and wants to bring to an end a project that has been started at STIAS in March 2013.
The malaise of the human condition: Social diagnostics, human evolution and theological discourse on the contingency of “sin”
Social diagnostics gained some currency in the South African context through the Diagnostic Report (2011) produced by the National Planning Commission.
The modern practice of intervention by invitation and its implications for the prohibition of the use of force
The research examines how the criteria for permissible military intervention by invitation as developed in international law doctrine are currently implemented by States, as well as how this impacts the prohibition of the use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of States.
The nature of randomness and fundamental physical limits of secrecy
People have always been fascinated by randomness and intrigued by the fundamental question – is any outcome that appears random to us only so by virtue of our ignorance, or do there exist experiments whose outcome is inherently unpredictable to any observers, no matter how powerful or omniscient they might be?
The transition to Green Economy: Africa’s leapfrogging opportunity
Africa is currently recognized as the fastest growing region in the world while a number of African countries are listed amongst the fastest growing economies in the region over the last decade.
The work and legacy of Sesotho writer Thomas Mofolo
Dunton and Krog are to edit for peer review and publication a set of papers delivered at a conference held in Lesotho on the work of Sesotho writer Thomas Mofolo.
Toward reducing infant mortality via smart and low-cost pulse oximetry
Sepsis kills over six million children in the developing world every year, many of those die at home and thus it is believed that a distributed, community‐based intervention would be most effective in reducing mortality.
Traditional leadership, democracy and development in the rural eastern Cape: a study of futures past
The problem of how to marry constitutional democracy with traditional authorities in the postcolonial context is not unique to South Africa and has been substantially explored in other contexts.
Ubuntu commercial nests in African indigenous markets in Nairobi: alternative business model for an emerging ‘African metropolis’
This research proposes that there is an ‘African metropolis’ that has been struggling for space and ascendancy in the City of Nairobi.
Understanding Southern welfare – social policies in Brazil, India, China and South Africa
A mid-term research programme focusing on the ideational foundations of social policies beyond traditional Northern welfare will be fleshed out.
Writing Across Borders – In Praise of Impurity
The idea of combining and possibly merging ‘ethnography’ and ‘fiction’ emanates from my research on literature’s role in the transition processes of South Africa and Argentina (Fiction and Truth in Transition : Writing the present past in South Africa and Argentina,2012), which brought me in the end, to my own surprise, to the crossroads of Literature and Anthropology.
2014
Animal, Mineral or Vegetable?
During my time at STIAS I will collaborate with Stellenbosch faculty in both the humanities and the sciences to examine ancient Egyptian mummies, particularly those belonging to animals.
Celebrating South African outsider artists: Helen Martins and Nukain Mabusa
In 1972, the British scholar Roger Cardinal coined the term outsider art as an English equivalent of art brut, French artist Jean Dubuffet’s term for artists creating extraordinary work outside the boundaries of mainstream western art.
Deconstructing Shadows: Human behaviour through the prism of evolution
This project involves an in-depth analysis of human behaviour from an evolutionary perspective, as a basis for integrating our modern understanding of behavioural psychology with its neurobiological basis.
Education, Skills and Inequality in the Labour Market
The race between education and technology is a key factor in determining earnings inequality.
Ethnicity and Constitutionalism in Africa
The focus of the study for this year, under the broad theme of constitution-building in Africa will be the issue of separation of powers.
Food and nutrition security in rural communities
A book is being developed which takes into account multiple objectives of providing enough food at household and individual level, an acceptable monetary income and sustainable production under the constraints of limited access to resources (land, credit, water, technology, information, level of education and more), dependency on remittances and social security programs, and limited access to markets.
High-Resolution Laboratory X-Ray Bio-Imaging
This project concerns methods to obtain higher spatial resolution and improved contrast when imaging thick biological samples – a classical and generic bio-imaging problem.
Hypervalent Iodine Compounds as Green Reagents in Organic Synthesis
The need for environmentally benign methodology to perform reactions in organic chemistry is continuously increasing, in order to minimize health and climate effects caused by the chemical industry.
Impact of sustainable intensification of food production on environment and human well-being
Africa, once considered the breadbasket of the world, is now strongly affected by problems with food insecurity and malnutrition.
It’s the Education, Stupid! Martin Luther’s unfinished business
At the beginning of the 21th century mankind is confronted with a number of global challenges.
Rethinking Development in the Global Information Age: Implications for Africa
This seminar conducted by Manuel Castells is a follow-up to his previous STIAS seminar Informational Development and Human Development: South Africa in a Global Perspective (24–26 August 2011).