Metabolism and capacity: history and labour in post-apartheid South Africa
I start with the question, why was it necessary, from 2008, for Mondi South Africa to spend R50 million (USD 8 million) a year on a nutrition intervention…
Tag: South Africa
Smileys in SA: Women’s Work, Social Value, and the complex story of “recycled meat”
Langa Township, Cape Town. Smoke billows as Yonela sears a sheep head with a hot metal rod, cleaning off any remaining wool. This is part of the cleaning…
Omotayo’s book, You Can’t Go to War Without Song
https://iupress.org/9780253063212/you-cant-go-to-war-without-song/ Tayo Jolaosho died on October 21, 2021, months before their book was published in July 2022. We honor their work and memory …
Russel Kaschula on his book, Language, Identities and Intercultural Communication in South Africa
Interview by Jennifer Cox https://www.routledge.com/Languages-Identities-and-Intercultural-Communication-in-South-Africa-and/Kaschula/p/book/9780367364359 Jennifer Cox: Your book fo…
Protecting the Pandemic from the People: Perpetual Panic, Permanent Emergency
There are some suggestions that the Omicron variant could well end “the pandemic”. And that is a problem. It is a problem on two fronts. First, a variant that…
The Enduring Urgency of Black Breath
Breath is a powerful material and spiritual force, a point not only of harm but also recovery. It can show us how Black people experience multiple convergences of…
The Enduring Urgency of Black Breath
Breath is a powerful material and spiritual force, a point not only of harm but also recovery. It can show us how Black people experience multiple convergences of…
The Enduring Urgency of Black Breath
Breath is a powerful material and spiritual force, a point not only of harm but also recovery. It can show us how Black people experience multiple convergences of…
Lightning strikes, or how an object of global health is made by Megan Vaughan
When we were children my mother always told us there was nothing to fear from thunderstorms. But it was hard not to notice that she did so whilst…
In the Journals – Incarceration, Rehabilitation, and Recidivism
Josh Shapiro: Fair Commutation Not Mass Incarceration by joepiette2 via creativecommons Welcome back to In the Journals! This ongoing series aims to bridge conversations that are often siloed…
#Academic Fictions: Cape Town through Time and Space: An Experimental Poem
Part 1: 1921 “Poison Tea, Colonial Imports”, by an Observer “Them nasty Malays can make it work months after you take it”, quotes Lady Duff G.: This,…
Urban Acupuncture Design Theory: Researching New Development Practices in South Africa
Sometimes it only takes a “spark,” a “simple, focused intervention,” a “single stroke of genius,” or “the single prick of a needle” to release the flows and create…
Covid-19 and the plight of youth living with HIV in South Africa
Long before South Africa was hit by Covid-19, youth living with HIV identified stigma as one of the major challenges they face every day. In my ongoing qualitative…
On unsolicited nostalgia and Tinder frustrations
‘I’ve been here before’ – the feeling of the present being firmly rooted in the past can be intense and disorienting. It is difficult to trace, like a…
No questions asked: the rise of loan sharks in lockdown South Africa
Flipping through my fieldnotes written back in the early days of the South African lockdown, it’s the stoicism of my research participants that strikes me. When president Cyril…
The Ethnographer’s Catch 22
Did I hear a knock at my door? I stopped what I was doing, listening more attentively. South Africa had been on lockdown for over a week,…
In the Journals – Policing and Discrimination
George Floyd protest signs at the Ottawa Courthouse by Janderson L. via wikimedia Welcome back to In the Journals! This ongoing series aims to bridge conversations that are…
Steve Black on his book, Speech and Song at the Margins of Global Health
Interview by Yeon-Ju Bae https://www.rutgersuniversitypress.org/speech-and-song-at-the-margins-of-global-health/9780813597713 Yeon-Ju Bae: How did you become interested in the South African gospel ch…
Convivial networks: how migrants cope with the pandemic in South Africa
Stanley (not his real name) is among many Zimbabwean migrants who left their home country, escaping the economic downturn and political instability. In search of greener pastures, he…
The Militarisation of the COVID-19 Response in South Africa (#WitnessingCorona)
Hide Press Release (4 Less Words) Susan Levine, Lenore Manderson The imponderabilia of our COVID times As medical anthropologists well versed in the social grammar of infectious…
In the Journals – Conflict and Captivity
POW release to UN authorities was the first step in repatriation. Here, communists turn over UN troops at the POW receiving center at Panmunjon, on the border of…
In the Journals – Confinement and Mental Health
Cour des agitées by Amand Gautier via wikimedia Welcome back to In the Journals! This ongoing series aims to bridge conversations that are often siloed by discipline, geographical…
Anchoring our days through the senses during South Africa’s lockdown
IWe had been in lockdown since 18th March 2020 when J.’s daycare closed for a break. A few days later, on 23rd March, South Africa’s President Ramaphosa announced…
In the Journals – Prisons and Pandemics
Prisoners’ Round by Vincent Van Gogh via wikimedia Welcome back to In the Journals! My name is Ally, I am a graduate student beginning a Master’s in Anthropology at…