Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) seminars Human Sciences Research Council

Social housing is a powerful tool for integrating divided cities. It can also help low income households to get on in life and thrive by providing a secure home base with good access to jobs and amenities. The HSRC recently completed a study of social housing’s contribution to spatial transformation and upward social mobility in South Africa. The purpose of this webinar is to share the findings and to stimulate discussion about the next steps for policy and practice.

A mixed picture emerged from the research, both in terms of location and upward mobility. Although social housing has a unique mandate to promote urban integration, over the last 27 years there has been a ‘spatial drift’ of new projects away from inner cities towards outer urban areas. This has been most apparent in Johannesburg, and least common in Tshwane. The pressure to accelerate delivery is partly responsible, along with the cost of well-located land. Another important conclusion is that insufficient attention has been devoted to supporting household advancement and finding the most effective pathways to improve people’s life chances.

The discussion will test the veracity of these findings and consider what needs to be done to improve the location of social housing and increase the contribution it makes to upward mobility.

INTRODUCTION:

Agence Française de Développement & EU Delegation

PRESENTERS:

Ivan Turok, Andreas Scheba and Justin Visagie (HSRC/UFS)

DISCUSSANTS:

Representatives from SHRA, NASHO, NHFC, Public Works and DBSA.

FACILITATOR:

Helen Rourke (DAG)

For more information: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/events/seminars/social-housing-spatial-transformation-and-upward-mobility

In keeping with the spirit of 1976 Soweto Uprising, Women in Science in partnership with the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and Impact Centre held a dialogue to commemorate the role the youth played in the events surrounding the historical day. The dialogue looked at developing activities and reflecting on the history, present realities and future of young people in the country. 

It focused on the unemployment crisis in the country particularly the youth who are most acutely affected. The idea was to conceptualise an innovative research approach to confront the challenges and prospects associated with the Fourth Industrial Revolution, which has raised contentious debates about its role in job creation. 

Gloomy statistics 

The 2021 quarterly labour force survey showed that the unemployment rate increased substantially compared to the last quarter of 2020. Furthermore, in an expanded definition that includes job seekers, unemployment is at 43.2%. According to Statistics South Africa, the unemployment rate is the highest amongst people aged 15 to 34. Thus, youth unemployment under the expanded definition is 74.7%. 

South Africa is one of the countries with the highest inequalities, and the year-on-year rise in unemployment points to the need for rigorous engagement on policy, innovation and the industrialisation trajectory as touted in the country’s pathways to economic recovery and job creation. The aforementioned interventions are conceptually targeted at creating employment for youth, stimulate the economic climate and reduce inequalities. 

Strategic plan 

Through knowledge co-creation, innovative solutions can be crafted in order to understand domestic challenges experienced by youth especially in marginalised communities. The strategic plan of the HSRC includes utilising the national, regional and global leadership in the production and use of targeted knowledge to support the eradication of poverty, the reduction of inequalities and the promotion of employment. Through this dialogue, the Partnerships Directorate in the Impact Centre anticipated that the debate will enrich ideas, and build up relations that can identify creative pockets in the public communities. 

The objectives of the dialogue were to engage on the following: 

• To understand the underlying challenges facing the youth in the current economic climate, especially considering the future of work; 

• To establish a mechanism to support skills planning, identify capacity gaps in preparation for the labour market; and 

• To ensure the youth is adequately prepared for a technology driven economy that requires young people to be proficient in science, technology and digital literacy. 

More information: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/events/events/4ir-and-youth-unemployment

Inspiration or Aspiration?

Organised by the Africa Institute of South Africa (AISA) in the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), this Diplomatic Conversation will address the theme chosen by the African Union (AU) for 2021 – Year of the Arts, Culture and Heritage: Levers for Building the Africa We Want. Launched during the 34th AU Assembly under the leadership of the current Chairperson of the African Union, H.E. President Félix Antoine Tshisekedi, the President of the Democratic Republic of Congo, the theme is a declaration at a continental level for Member States to invest more resources in African cultures and heritages as a vehicle for promoting and achieving the national economic and social development goals outlined in Africa’s Agenda 2063. The AU declaration of 2021 as the year of African cultures, heritages and arts may also be seen as an extension of sort of the 2020 focus on ending conflicts through ‘silencing the guns’, since culture plays a leading role in sustainable peace.

The speakers look at the position of the arts, culture and heritage sector within the national agendas of African countries, and the efforts made towards building the Africa We Want through cultural and creative industries. What can Africa do to ensure that this AU theme does not fall on deaf ears and that there are decisive steps undertaken to respond to it? How can the AU Member States use the arts, culture and heritage as levers of sustainable development? The ultimate question is whether that ‘imagined’ Africa is just an aspiration or a possible projection for a near future.

For more information: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/events/events/diplomatic-conversation-arts-culture-heritage

The South African government is committed to fighting xenophobia and providing a welcoming environment for documented migrants living in the country, despite the devastating impact that the COVID-19 pandemic has had on countries’ fiscal resources throughout the world. Among other things, the pandemic has forced countries to close their borders to manage rates of infection and redirect scarce national resources to meeting the needs of citizens who have already been affected by the lockdown situations. 

While the availability of vaccines have been positive for the economic recovery of many countries, there are new concerns emerging including the impact of “vaccine passports” on the free movement of people.  National vaccination programmes will also not mean an automatic recovery of the economy, which has contracted by 7% and is predicted to only be likely to return to pre-Covid-19 levels by 2023/24. Unemployment figures announced by Statistician-General Risenga Maluleka earlier this month indicate that, at 32.6% it is at the level last seen 13 years ago. 

What then does a shrinking tax base and fewer fiscal resources mean for how South Africa fulfils its international obligations to fight xenophobia? How will our nation protect refugees, asylum seekers and foreign workers from discrimination?

CHAIR: 

Dr Konosoang Sobane (HSRC Impact Centre)

PANEL:   

Dr Steven Gordon (HSRC DCES)

Ms Danaline Franzman, Chief Director: Social Justice and Participatory Democracy, Department of Justice and Correctional Services

Mr Amir Sheikh, Chairman of the Somali Community Board

Ms Sharon S Ekambaram, Manager, Refugee and Migrant Rights Programme, Lawyers for Human Rights

For more information: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/events/seminars/addressing-marginalization-of-refugees-asylumseekers-foreign-workers-in-sa

The South African manufacturing and services sectors remain squarely in the crosshairs of economic and industrial policy makers and, equally, business leaders and sector analysts. Whether to stimulate much-needed growth, as in the case of the manufacturing sector, or to adapt to widespread technological change, as in the case of services firms, the argument for a reimagined industrial strategy could not be more compelling or urgent.

In this context, innovation is centrally positioned as both a key engine of development and a catalyst for growth. However, little is known about the impacts of innovation on productivity in manufacturing and services businesses in South Africa, with studies focussing mainly on the role of R&D.

Showcasing new econometric modelling, using data from the South African Business Innovation Survey, 2014-2016, the seminar delves into relationships between different types of technological and non-technological innovation and business productivity. Policy issues and questions for discussion with national and sector stakeholders include: what factors or firm characteristics influence the decision to innovate? What support mechanisms incentivise innovation? Is the relationship between innovation and productivity always positive?

Presenters: Dr Atoko Kasongo and Dr Amy Kahn, Centre for Science, Technology and Innovation Indicators, HSRC

Moderator: Godfrey Mashamba, Deputy Director-General: Evaluation, Evidence and Knowledge Systems, Department of Performance Monitoring and Evaluation (DPME)

Discussant: Saul Levin, Director: Trade and Industrial Policy Strategies (TIPS)

For more information: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/events/seminars/impact-of-innovation-on-productivity 

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. The book also examines how relative privilege and storytelling function as instruments for migrants to negotiate meanings and shape their lives. It employs narrative lifestory research as its guiding methodology and applies various disciplinary analytical perspectives, with an overall focus on social categorisation and its consequences. The featured stories stress how unsettled, mutable and in flux social categories and identities are – just as a messy pencil sketch challenges clear definitions.

MODERATOR:

Leslie Bank, Deputy Executive Director of the Economic Development and Performance Unit at the HSRC. Adjunct Professor at Walter Sisulu University and University of Fort Hare. Author of Migrant Labour after Apartheid: The inside story (edited with Dorrit Posel and Francis Wilson, 2020), Covid and Custom in Rural South Africa: Culture, healthcare and the state (with Nelly Sharpley, 2021), Home Spaces, Street Styles: Contesting power and identity in a South African city (2011) and other books.

PANELISTS:

Oswald Kucherera, Cape Town-based storyteller, human rights activist and educator. Author of The Exodus Down South (2016) and Washing Dishes and Other Stories (2018).

Angelo Martins Junior, Research Associate at the University of Bristol's School of Sociology, Politics & International Studies (SPAIS) and coordinator of the Research Challenge ‘Control, Conflict, Resistance’ at the Migration Mobilities Bristol Research Institute (MMB). Author of Lives in Motion: Notebooks of an Immigrant in London (2015) and Moving Difference: Brazilians in London (2020).

Faith Mkwesha, Researcher and Visiting Scholar at the Swedish School of Social Science Subunit, University of Helsinki. Chief Executive Director and Founder of Sahwira Africa, an anti-racist organisation. Author of Rasismi, valta ja vastarinta: Rodullistaminen, valkoisuus ja koloniaalisuus Suomessa (Racism, power and resistance: Racialization, whiteness and coloniality in Finland, edited with Suvi Keskinen and Minna Kristiina Seikkula, 2021) and Zimbabwe Women Writers from 1950 to the Present: re-creating gender images (PhD Thesis, 2016). 

Alice Ncube, Senior Lecturer at the Natural and Agricultural Sciences; and Senior Lecturer and Programme Director at the Disaster Management Training and Education Centre, University of the Free State. Author of The socio-economic coping and adaptation mechanisms employed by African migrant women in South Africa (PhD Thesis, 2017).

In conversation with the editors of Migrants, Thinkers, Storytellers - Jonatan Kurzwelly (University of Göttingen and University of the Free State) and Luis Escobedo (University of the Free State) and other book contributors.

For more information: http://www.hsrc.ac.za/en/events/seminars/virtual-launch-migrants-thinkers-storytellers