Bøker utgitt av MISTRA Publishers

Post-1994, South Africa's traditional leaders have fought for recognition, and positioned themselves as major players in the South African political landscape. Yet their role in a democracy is contested, with leaders often accused of abusing power, disregarding human rights, expropriating resources and promoting tribalism. Some argue that democracy and traditional leadership are irredeemably opposed and cannot co-exist. Meanwhile, shifts in the political economy of the former bantustans − the introduction of platinum mining in particular − have attracted new interests and conflicts to these areas, with chiefs often designated as custodians of community interests.This edited volume explores how chieftancy is practised, experienced and contested in contemporary South Africa. It includes case studies of how those living under the authority of chiefs, in a modern democracy, negotiate or resist this authority in their respective areas. Chapters in this book are organised around three major sites of contest: leadership, land and law.

Nanotechnology is sweeping the world. This science of very small particles, which includes genetic modification and the reconfiguring of the arrangement of atoms, presents possibilities beyond imagination. It also has huge implications for all South Africans, especially at home.How exactly is this new technology playing out in South Africa? In countries like India, nanotechnology is being supported as a source of income and innovation. It has the potential to improve both the human condition and a country's productivity and competitiveness.Is South Africa doing what it should and could to foster nanotechnology and biotechnology, and to advance bioeconomies within the country? And what does the new technology mean for us as consumers? How many of us know that this technology is already being employed in substances like suntan cream and lipstick, with potential health implications for users?The application of nanotechnology poses risks as well as huge benefits, so we need to be particularly vigilant of the ethics and dangers of it. This book provokes discussion around these important topics and relays eyeopening information to those of us who thought all of this was sci-fi.

"Do the erstwhile colonial settlers - who, unlike in most other parts of the postcolonial world, have decided in large numbers to make the country their permanent home - deserve equal recognition as members of the emergent nation?" South Africa has been reeling under the recent blows of an apparent resurgence of crude public manifestations of racism and a hardening of attitudes on both sides of the racial divide. To probe this topic as it relates to white South Africans, Afrikaans and Afrikaners, MISTRA, in partnership with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) and the National Institute for the Humanities and Social Sciences (NIHSS), convened a round-table discussion. The discourse was rigorous. This volume comprises the varied and thought-provoking presentations from that event, including a keynote address by former president Kgalema Motlanthe, inputs from Melissa Steyn, Andries Nel, Mary Burton, Christi van der Westhuizen, Lynette Steenveld, Bobby Godsell, Dirk Hermann (of Solidarity), Ernst Roets (of Afriforum), Xhanti Payi, Mathatha Tsedu, Pieter Duvenage, Hein Willemse and Nico Koopman, and closing remarks by Achille Mbembe and Mathews Phosa. It deals with a range of issues around "whiteness" in general and delves into the place of Afrikaners and the Afrikaans language in democratic South Africa, demonstrating that there is no homogeneity of views on these topics among white South Africans overall and Afrikaners in particular. In fact, in these pages, one finds a multifaceted effort to scrub energetically at the boundaries that apartheid imposed on all South Africans in different ways.