UWCScholar
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The city-region food system approach: lessons for food governance in South Africa.
(University of the Western Cape, 2023) Furnival, Nailah; Karriem, Abdulrazak
Food insecurity is a global challenge, so significant that its elimination ranks second on the list of Sustainable Development Goals (SDG). Global estimates are that between 720 and 811 million people were affected by hunger in 2020. In Sub-Saharan Africa the number of severely and moderately food insecure people rose from 572.5 million in 2018, to 605.4 million in 2019. In South Africa, the combination of internal and external structural mechanisms, like apartheid’s racial-spatial segregation and the globalization of the neoliberal corporate food system, have had reprehensible consequences for the poor in their ability to access affordable, nutritious food. The South African food system is a paradox, in that the country is nationally food secure, is categorised as an upper-middle income country, has a highly developed social welfare programme and is globally competitive in science and innovation research, yet, it continues to experience very poor food system outcomes. As a response, the state has designed many strategies and public policies to improve the outcomes of the food system, but with limited success. Because of these poor food system results from existing food and nutrition security policies in South Africa and the recurring food system governance problems, it is essential to look for alternative approaches to food system governance.
The determinants of falls among the elderly living in long-term care facilities in the City of Cape Town
(University of the Western Cape, 2023) Ebrahim, Nabilah; Leach, Lloyd
Background: Falls are a common health burden with a multi-factorial origin causing physical, psychological, and social problems for the elderly and the society at large, especially within low- and middle-income countries, such as South Africa. Aim: Therefore, the aim of the study is to identify the determinants of falls in the elderly who are living in various long-term care (retirement) facilities in the City of Cape Town, South Africa. Methods: This study used the social-ecological theory, which functions on multiple levels in the study, interacting on an individual level, as well as recognising the impact of the environment. The study used a quantitative, cross-sectional, and descriptive design to investigate the elderly, aged 60 years and older, living in retirement facilities in the City of Cape Town. A total of 258 male and female participants were recruited using convenient sampling. A researcher-generated and self-administered questionnaire, based on the following sociodemographic characteristics, namely, age, gender, educational level, marital status, and medical history, was used for data collection in the study. The Fall Risk Assessment Tool, the Berg Balance Scale, the Dynamic Gait Index, the Timed Up-and-Go test, and the Mini Mental State Examination were the research instruments used in the study. The WHO COVID-19 safety protocol was observed throughout the period of physical testing of the participants.
In the shade of coal: A micro-history of resettlement and the mining industry in Tete province, Mozambique, 2009-2018
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) António, Bernardino; Israel, Paolo
The narratives and stories of the daily experiences of the local communities with the Vale mining project show that it has disrupted not only the lives, livelihood, and ecology but also the cultural and spiritual factors of the local communities in Moatize. Nevertheless, the power asymmetry between the various actors involved in the extractive industry (the mining company, local government, local communities and civil society organisations), dominated by the mining companies, has influenced how the mining issues have been negotiated at the local level. The emergence of the coal mining projects in Tete province displaced thousands of families from their homelands, where they have lived for generations. Thus, many scholars and civil society organisations have sought to analyse the socio-economic and environmental impact of the phenomenon. However, most of these studies have focused on the macro issues, preventing us from accessing peculiarities and details that can widen our understanding of the phenomenon. In contrast, my research, through a micro-historical approach, focuses on the singularities of the Vale resettlement, exploring a range of issues, such as the group of potters displaced by the Vale mining company to initiate its mining activities, the cemetery constructed by the mining company in Cateme and the conflict around the exhumation of the bodies from the old cemetery. However, besides the resettled communities, my research also analyses the ecological effects of the Vale mining activities on the local communities close to the mining site, which Nixon calls “Displaced without moving.”
Prevalence of dental caries and tooth brushing habits among preschool children in Khartoum State, Sudan
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Elidrissi, Sitana Mustafa Idris; Naidoo, Sudeshni
Introduction: Dental caries in preschool children remains a major dental public health problem as it affects significant number of preschool children in both developed and developing countries and it is on increase in the developing ones as in Sudan due to the change in life style with the absence of oral health preventive programs and inadequate access to oral health care. Aim: The aim of this study was to determine the prevalence of dental caries and tooth brushing habits among 3 to 5 year-olds preschool children in Khartoum state. Materials and Methods: This was a cross sectional descriptive study among 553 preschool children age 3 to 5 year-olds in Khartoum state. Data were obtained through clinical examination using a modified WHO examination sheet and through interviews for mothers/guardians using a structured administered questionnaire. Results: Five hundred and fifty three preschool children aged 3- 5 year-olds participated in this study with their mothers or guardians (n=553). Girls (n= 287) slightly outnumbered boys (n= 266). The prevalence of dental caries of the children was 52.4% with mean dmft of 2.27. There was an increase in the dmft scores with increasing age. The highest brushing frequency was found among the children whose mothers had a postgraduate degree and the lowest proportion was from uneducated mothers. Eating sugar-containing food was significantly associated with dmft.
Public eating, food spaces and social identities in South Africa’s spur family restaurant
(University of the Western Cape, 2023) Bongwana, Thembelihle; Lewis, Desiree
Within the broad body of scholarship on critical approaches to the cultural politics of eating, food tastes and food branding, an increasing amount of work is being done on the social and cultural functioning of restaurants. This study contributes to a global body of work on the semiotics, social history and politics of popular restaurant culture by exploring a steakhouse franchise that emerged in apartheid-era South Africa, but that has gone on to become a beacon of convivial South African eating among black and white South Africans from different social classes. One aim of the study, building on a provocative MA thesis at UP several years ago, is to explore how this chain of restaurants, influenced by the American steakhouse model, embeds and reproduces apartheid-era forms of identity formation in a post-apartheid South Africa. Key to this study’s preoccupations therefore are the mechanisms that reinforce relations and ideologies based on “race” in the everyday context of fast-food consumption. This is explored both in the restaurant chain’s employment patterns and in its ideas and standards for service, productivity and leadership. Also important to this study is how the Spur, as a particular kind of fast-food franchise perpetuates and draws on national and globalised myths and meanings. Attention is therefore paid to the iconography it uses in branding, its distinctive advertising images, tropes and strategies, and its evolving efforts to offer South African food consumers the promise of familial experiences of eating. Here, attention is paid to the Spur’s reliance on post-apartheid mythmaking: it is shown how the Spur’s marketing content and strategy draws on popularised ideas about South Africa as a rainbow nation. On one hand, then, the restaurant is explored as a public site of democratic South African conviviality, play, pleasure and entertainment in titillating different senses in relation to food. On the other hand, the Spur’s pleasures are shown to rest on legacies and images of racial and gendered violence, othering and an oddly “nostalgic” imagining of coloniality.