Research Articles (Geography & Environmental Studies)

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Neoliberalism, regime rurvival, and the environment: economic reform and agricultural transformation in Zimbabwe in the 1990s
(Taylor & Francis, 2001) Logan, B. Ikubolajeh; Tevera, Daniel
Economic reform in Zimbabwe under the auspices of the Bank World Bank and IMF began in 1991. The first phase of program, called structural economic adjustment program (ESAP ) lasted from 1991 to 1996. The second phase, the Transformation Agenda social and economic development of Zimbabwe (ZIMPREST) should go until at least 2002. Much of the debate about the performance of reform in Zimbabwe revolves around three main actors: Government of Zimbabwe ( GOZ ) , international financial institutions (IFIs) and the environment, particularly droughts 1991-92. This paper contributes to a broader discussion on the reform Economic Zimbabwe in three ways : first, by describing the outline of its economy, chronologically and structurally politically , the second , by assessing its impact on production agricultural , and the third , evaluating its impact on security food of a neglected set of actors, the urban poor . The article concludes that agricultural reform failed to reallocate productive resources , to reorganize the spatial distribution of production and increase access various social classes to food. Moreover, this failure can be attributed to a combination of factors including the post- colonial political economy dynamics orchestrated by ZANU (PF) is not reduced. [Note: translated from French]
'Africanisation' of South Africa's international air links, 1994-2003
(Elsevier, 2006) Pirie, Gordon
In the first decade of democratic rule in South Africa scheduled commercial passenger flights across the country�s borders more than doubled. Additional flights served new African air passenger markets and secondary airports in established markets. Overseas flights increased more slowly, serving a diminishing number of overseas countries and cities. In 1994 the Republic was linked directly by air with more overseas than African countries and cities; within a decade the pattern reversed. The changing geography of South Africa�s international air links reflects developments in the international airline industry, and South Africa�s increasingly prominent political and commercial role in Africa.
The recycling industry and subsistence waste collectors: a case study of Mitchell's Plain
(Springer, 2007) Langenhoven, Belinda; Dyssel, Michael
The article reflects the findings of a survey undertaken in Mitchell�s Plain and presents a case study of the factors that impact recycle-related employment tendencies and opportunities in the area of the Cape Flats in South Africa. The article states recycling also has advantages for the creation of formal and informal employment and it can be enhanced with the encouragement of local authorities through incentives
Community as utopia: Reflections on De Waterkant
(Springer, 2008) Rink, Bradley M.
This paper will reflect on research currently in progress in Cape Town's De Waterkant neighbourhood�an area also known as Cape Town's 'gay village'. This paper engages the literature of utopia as a framework of analysis for interrogating the performance of community�while at the same time problematising the terms "community" and "utopia" upon which much geographical description of the area is based. This research argues that both 'comforting' and 'unsettling' relational achievements amongst the human and non-human actors in De Waterkant function as building blocks of real or imagined community and further recognises multiple tensions that affect the formation of community and the pursuit of utopia in the South African urban context.
Distance
(Elsevier, 2009) Pirie, Gordon
The English language has long acknowledged and required some preconception of distance, but it has only been considered explicitly as a key element of human geography for half a century. The distances of greatest consequence in human geography are those between public places on the earth�s surface. Measures of physical distance have become increasingly standardized, but anomalous practices persist. Straight-line distance in nature has less applicability to human geography than route distance on a transport network. Even circuitous distance measures may be less useful measures of the separation of places than the time, expense and effort of traversing distances. Cognitive and compound distance also measure relative distance. In human geography distance is treated mainly as an organizing principle in location decision making and travel behavior, as a deterrent to spatial interaction and diffusion, and as a differentiator. Advances in rapid, long-range transport and communication have mediated sheer physical distance and rendered it less significant. Yet even while the world shrinks metaphorically, distances measured in relative terms are being reconfigured unevenly and imaginatively. Even where distance has ceased to be a material concern, the idea and discourse of distance survives.
Performing cities: Engaging the high-tech fl�neur
(The Forum on Education Abroad, 2011) Rodr�guez, Karen; Rink, Bradley M.
The city as place forms the backdrop to many study abroad experiences. Our sense of place, however, is often fractured by modern mobilities. As Sack (1988) notes, we move from place to place so much that places often begin to appear ever more generic and alike. Or they seem to be �out there,� and we forget that they are humanly constructed. If we now have trouble conceptualizing place, when we turn to cities in particular, we also find that they are being submerged into a discourse of sameness where today�s �global cities� are portrayed as almost cookie-cutter copies of one another in their consumption-based, high tech identities. Yet the culture-neutral character of this discourse about contemporary cities belies the cultural-historical personality that each city retains, and it can obscure or even erase the rich placespecific learning opportunities that each city offers.
Food security in Southern African cities: the place of urban agriculture
(Sage Publications, 2011) Crush, Jonathan; Hovorka, Alice; Tevera, Daniel
Several decades of research on �urban agriculture� have led to markedly different conclusions about the actual and potential role of household food production in African cities. In the context of rapid urbanization, urban agriculture is, once again, being advocated as a means to mitigate the growing food insecurity of the urban poor. This article examines the contemporary importance of household food production in poor urban communities in 11 different Southern African Development Community (SADC) cities. It shows that urban food production is not particularly significant in most communities and that many more households rely on supermarkets and the informal sector to access food. Even fewer households derive income from the sale of produce. This picture varies considerably, however, from city to city, for reasons that require further research and explanation.
Starting the conversation: land issues and critical conservation studies in post-colonial Africa
(Taylor & Francis, 2013) Barrett, George; Brooks, Shirley; Josefsson, Jenny; Zulu, Nqobile
This thematic issue brings together the scholarly fields of critical conservation studies and African land issues, a relationship largely unexplored to date. The alienation of land for conservation purposes, introduced to Africa under colonial rule and still taking place today, has fundamental impacts on the politics of land and land use, and is contested in contemporary nation-states - including those that are attempting to implement land restitution and reform. The contributors explore these issues in a range of African contexts. Three key themes are identified: the problematic constructions of �community� by outside agencies; spatial exclusion and the silencing of local voices; and the neoliberalisation of conservation spaces. In contributing to new perspectives on these themes, this thematic issue shows how discourses and practices of conservation, increasingly shaped by neoliberalism, currently impact on land ownership, access and use. It further highlights some important historical continuities. These trends can be observed in transfrontier conservation areas, on state-owned land used for conservation and �green� initiatives, but also on private land where conservation is increasingly turned to commercial purposes.
Relocation: to be or not to be a black diamond in a South African township?
(Elsevier, 2013) Donaldson, Ronnie; Mehlomakhulu, Thobeka; Darkey, Dan; Dyssel, Michael; Siyongwana, Pakama
Beginning in the mid-1990s, South Africa�s geopolitical, social and economic landscapes have been rapidly transforming. Driven primarily by government policy particularly after 1994, these changes have among other effects offered tailor-made opportunities to the educated and resourceful black South Africans (so-called �black diamonds�) in the townships to rise on the socio-economic ladder. The main question this research paper attempts to answer is why only some of black middle-class township dwellers (black diamonds or BDs) do not relocate to former whites-only suburbs? The study, conducted on BDs in the townships of Bloemfontein, Cape Town, Port Elizabeth and Pretoria, reveals the role of cultural, social, spatial, political and economic factors in the residential-location decisions of the black middle class. The survey found a duality of social identities emerging within the black middle class which could no longer be perceived as a single cohort. These identities may be categorized as the BDs who live in, educate their children there and are assimilated into the historically white suburb culture and those who are inextricably enmeshed in the townships. This paper also reports that there are other incentives, incorporating unquantifiable socio-economic benefits, that keep BDs �sparkling� in the townships because they may be absent in the former whites-only suburbs. Although their consumption power may be of most interest to economic planners and analysts, their role in the townships transcends economics into some being seen as role models.
African Migrants, Xenophobia and Urban Violence in Post-apartheid South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, 2013) Tevera, Daniel
The urban space in South Africa is increasingly becoming a troubled terrain of xenophobic violence. In recent years xenophobia has emerged as one of the major contributing factors to urban violence in several African countries and the phenomenon is becoming an urban management challenge that deserves academic inquiry and policy attention. Yet most of the academic research into the incidence and causes of xenophobic violence has not explored the connections between urbanity and xenophobia. This article aims to contribute to the debate by examining the broader relationship between xenophobia and urban violence in South African cities and by pulling together the latest literature into creating a better understanding of xenophobia in urban spaces. This article provides an assessment of xenophobia in contemporary South Africa within the context of the on-going and important debate regarding the extent to which poverty and poor service delivery are determinants of urban violence. In addition, it argues that debates surrounding the complex spaces of deprivation in urban areas, citizenship and belonging should be central to the discourses on violence in South Africa�s cities, which in many ways are still struggling to erase the imprint of apartheid. Xenophobic violence in cities is a phenomenon that deserves policy attention and direct intervention by central government, local authorities and community leaders.
International trends in health tourism: Implications for thermal spring tourism in the Western Cape Province of South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, 2013) Boekstein, Mark; Spencer, John
Travel to thermal springs for the sake of health and healing can be traced at least as far back as the ancient Greeks and Romans, with the earliest forms of tourism being based on apparent curative powers of mineral-rich thermal waters. There are 11 thermal springs in the Western Cape, seven of which have been developed into a total of eight resorts. Only one of these resorts has a focus on health, with appropriate facilities, the others functioning primarily as family leisure resorts. Internationally there has been a move by traditional thermal spring resorts to offer a combination of health (medical and wellness) services in combination with leisure activities. In the light of the rapidly growing demand for healthy holidays in other parts of the world, it may be that a potentially lucrative natural resource, mineral-rich thermal water with a long tradition of healing, is not being adequately utilized as part of the Western Cape�s tourism offering. This literature-based article traces the development of thermal spring health tourism internationally, and questions why such an industry is not being developed in South Africa, and in the Western Cape in particular, given the excellent resources currently available. Recommendations are made for location-specific medical and wellness thermal spring tourism product development in the Western Cape that focus on the utilisation of locally available natural resources and benefit local communities.
Activity-based market segmentation of visitors to thermal spring resorts in the Western Cape Province, South Africa: Assessing the potential for health tourism development
(University of the Western Cape, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, 2013) Boekstein, Mark; Spencer, John
There are eight thermal spring resorts in the Western Cape. Only one of these resorts has a focus on health and wellness, with the others functioning primarilyas family leisure resorts. Considering apparent domestic and international preferences, it would seem that a potentially valuable natural resource, that is, mineral-rich thermal spring water, is not being optimally utilized as a tourist attraction in the Western Cape. This research set out to assess the potential for health tourism development of thermal springs in the Western Cape. A questionnaire-based survey was undertaken, involving 383 respondents at six resorts, and activity-based market segmentation was carried out using k-means cluster analysis. A four-segment typology of current visitors, based on activity preferences, was compiled. It was found that the main divisions between visitors are, firstly, between �active� visitors who generally desire and make use of facilities and organised entertainment, and �passive� visitors, who make little to no use of facilities and organised entertainment; and secondly, between visitors who choose activities mainly for themselves, and those who choose activities for both themselves and their children. One of the four segments appears to show particular interest in both medical and wellness health tourism activities. However, most visitors, through their choice of activities, are able to gain considerable health benefits from their stays at thermal spring resorts, but they do so in different ways, and this is reflected in various combinations of active and passive activities.
Camp Lwandle: Rehabilitating a migrant labour hostel at the seaside
(Routledge Taylor Francis Group, 2013) Murray, No�leen; Witz, Leslie
In southern African narratives of migrant labour, hostels and compounds are represented as typical examples of colonial and apartheid planning. Visual and spatial comparisons are consistently made between the regulatory power of hostels and those of concentration camps. Several of these sites of violence and repression are today being reconfigured as sites of conscience, their artefactual presence on the landscape being constructed as places of remembrance. In this trajectory, a space of seeming anonymity in Lwandle, some 40 km outside of Cape Town, was identified by the newly established museum, at the beginning of the twenty-first century, as a structure of significance. The migrant labour compound in Lwandle, of which Hostel 33 is the last remnant, was designed by planners and engineers and laid out as part of a labour camp for male migrant workers in the 1950s. This article explores the ambitious project initiated in 2008, by the Lwandle Migrant Labour Museum (and funded largely by the US Ambassadors Cultural Restoration Fund), to restore Hostel 33. Although Hostel 33 was not a very old structure, having been built in 1958/9, nor was it easily considered to have conventional architectural significance, its material presence in present-day Lwandle represents a reminder of the conditions of life in the labour camp. The article traces the work entailed in the restoration process through paying attention to both the built fabric and its materiality, and by giving an account of the explorations into finding ways to restore the hostel to the museum through making it into a site of significance. In place of the centrality of the building as the object of restoration, the work shifted to considering how the hostel could function most effectively as a stage and destination for the Museum�s narrations of the past. Retaining and maintaining Hostel 33 was less concerned with the fabric as an empirical fact of the past, than with its projection into an envisaged future for museum purposes.
From illness to wellness-has thermal spring health tourism reached a new turning point?
(University of the Western Cape, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, 2014) Boekstein, Mark
Thermal spring health resorts around the world are repositioning themselves by moving away from medical treatments, and moving towards fitness and wellness, often accompanied by an increase in facilities for recreation. It is suggested in this paper that this represents a turning point for the thermal spring health tourism product, with the focus changing from using thermal water primarily for the treatment of illnesses, to helping already healthy people become even healthier. In the light of current developments, the historical development and geographical distribution of thermal spring tourism is discussed, with new developments highlighted, particularly those involving local communities. A historical overview of thermal spring health tourism is provided, starting with the ancient Greeks and their belief in the healing powers of water, and Roman bathing culture, where a symbiotic relationship between health and recreation developed. Recent trends in thermal spring tourism in most parts of the world, including sub-Saharan Africa, are explained. It is concluded that thermal spring health tourism has indeed turned a corner, and a new kind of product has emerged, where the medicinal properties of thermal waters are now being successfully used for wellness treatments. It is recommended that developing counties create thermal spring tourism products that combine thermal water resources with location-specific healing methods and remedies, but are extended to encompass surrounding natural and cultural attractions, and where possible, involve and benefit local communities.
Food for the urban poor: safety nets and food-based social protection in Manzini, Swaziland
(Springer, 2014) Tevera, Daniel; Simelane, Nomcebo
This paper aims to contribute to the urban food security debate by exploring the role of informal safety nets and formal food-based social protection in addressing food insecurity challenges facing low-income urban households in Manzini. The empirical data used in this paper came from two surveys: the first involved 500 households and was undertaken in three low-income areas of Manzini. The second involved a series of in-depth interviews with senior staff at supermarkets and spaza shops. The results reveal that food security challenges are considerable in the low-income areas of Manzini and that, at the same time, various forms of community and intra-household food sharing are an important food source for a minority of poor households in the city. In this regard, the national government needs to consider strengthening food-based social safety net programmes that assist poor and vulnerable groups.
Tourism, health and the changing role of thermal springs - should South Africa reposition its thermal spring tourism product?
(University of the Western Cape, Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, 2014) Boekstein, Mark
Visiting thermal springs for medicinal purposes is one of the oldest forms of tourism in many parts of the world, including South Africa. An overview is provided of the concepts of health tourism, including medical and wellness tourism, as well as spa and thermal spring health tourism. Water-based, treatment-based and recreation-based facilities and services offered at selected international thermal spring resorts are assessed and compared to the thermal spring health tourism product in South Africa, where only three out of more than 20 thermal spring resorts offer sophisticated health treatments. It appears that, internationally, the focus of thermal spring tourism is shifting towards wellness activities, although in South Africa it has shifted further, in the direction of recreation. While the product offerings of thermal spring resorts generally contain elements of water-based, treatment-based as well as recreation-based activities, it is suggested that the main focus should be guided by the activity preferences of current markets, which in the case of South Africa are almost exclusively domestic, and South African domestic visitors have far less interest in health facilities and treatments than their counterparts in Europe, although there is a significant minority that would welcome such services. The question therefore arises as to whether thermal spring resorts in South Africa, especially those that do have health-related services, have shifted their product offerings too far in the direction of recreation, and if so, whether South Africa?s thermal spring tourism product should not be repositioned so as to capture a greater portion of the international, and domestic, health tourism markets.
Cape Town as Africa's gateway for tourism to Antarctica - development potential and need for regulation
(2014) Boekstein, Mark
Cape Town is one of the five Antarctic gateway cities from which ships and aircraft travel to and from various parts of Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands. Gateway cities are used by government scientific expeditions, as well as for tourism. While tourism to Antarctica is increasing rapidly, most of it occurs from the South American gateways of Ushuaia and Punta Arenas, and to a lesser extent from Christchurch (New Zealand) and Hobart (Australia). The Cape Town-Antarctica tourism industry is relatively undeveloped in comparison to other gateway cities, mainly because the distance to Antarctica from the South American gateways is considerably less than from Cape Town. In 2009 the City of Cape Town signed the Southern Rim Gateway Cities Agreement, joining the other gateway cities in an agreement to cooperate on issues such as science, education, logistics, business opportunities and tourism. Tourism to Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands, and the regulation thereof, is discussed in the light of the fact that South Africa, unlike countries like Australia, does not have any specific policy to develop or regulate tourism to Antarctica, neither to its own bases, nor to other parts of Antarctica accessible from Cape Town by ship or air. This paper considers the development potential of Cape Town as a gateway for tourism to Antarctica and the sub-Antarctic islands, with recommendations for particular types of tourism development, in specific locations, and suggestions for both growing and regulating the industry.
Mobility and the city improvement district: Frictions in the human-capital mobile assemblage
(Taylor & Francis, 2016) Rink, Bradley Michael; Gamedze, Asher Simiso
In this paper, we interrogate the role of the city improvement district (CID) in the intervention and management of mobility within the context of the South African city and the case study of the Groote Schuur Community Improvement District (GSCID), a public�private urban governance scheme situated in Cape Town�s middle income southern suburbs. Using the theoretical lens of bodily-scale mobility, we investigate the CID�s activation and management. This is useful, as we will demonstrate, because it is through the mobility and immobility at the scale of the body, where the CID�s mandate is operationalised and it is through the control of mobility that the CID�s mission, discourses and activities are linked. This work demonstrates that CIDs, as elite-driven urban renewal initiatives closely aligned with capital interests, employ exclusionary spatial practices that have the potential to shape the twenty-first century urban experience in significant ways. We conclude by theorising the co-constitutive nature of human mobilities and capital as the �human-capital mobile assemblage� and by arguing that the CID occupies an ambivalent place in the contemporary city.
Will a rising sea sink some estuarine wetland ecosystems?
(Elsevier, 2016) Callaway, R.M.; Bertelli, C.M.; Mendzil, A.F.; Tew, I.; Grenfell, Suzanne; Grenfell, Michael
Sea-level rise associatedwith climate change presents amajor challenge to plant diversity and ecosystemservice provision in coastal wetlands. In this study,we investigate the effect of sea-level rise on benthos, vegetation, and ecosystem diversity in a tidal wetland in westWales, the UK. Present relationships between plant communities and environmental variableswere investigated through 50 plots atwhich vegetation (species and coverage), hydrological (surface or groundwater depth, conductivity) and soil (matrix chroma, presence or absence ofmottles, organic content, particle size) data were collected. Benthic communities were sampled at intervals along a continuum from saline to freshwater. To ascertain future changes to the wetlands' hydrology, a GIS-based empirical model was developed. Using a LiDAR derived land surface, the relative effect of peat accumulation and rising sea levels were modelled over 200 years to determine how frequently portions of the wetland will be inundated by mean sea level, mean high water spring and mean high water neap conditions. The model takes into account changing extents of peat accumulation as hydrological conditions alter. Model results show that changes to the wetland hydrology will initially be slow. However, changes in frequency and extent of inundation reach a tipping point 125 to 175 years from2010 due to the extremely low slope of the wetland. From then onwards, large portions of the wetland become flooded at every flood tide and saltwater intrusion becomes more common. This will result in a reduction in marsh biodiversity with plant communities switching toward less diverse and occasionally monospecific communities that are more salt tolerant.
Juxtaposing a cultural reading of landscape with institutional boundaries: the case of the Masebe Nature Reserve, South Africa
(Taylor & Francis, 2016) Boonzaaier, Chris; Wels, Harry
The article explores theoretically the juxtaposition of local stories about landscape with institutional arrangements and exclusionary practices around a conservation area in South Africa. The Masebe Nature Reserve is used as a case study. The article argues that the institutional arrangements in which the nature reserve is currently positioned are too static, and consequently exclusionary, in their demarcation of boundaries. This stifles local communities� sense of belonging to these landscapes. Hence, they strongly resent and feel alienated by the nature reserve. Their opposition and alienation often manifests in poaching. The empirical material is based on how local people living adjacent to the Masebe Nature Reserve have historically named and interpreted the area�s impressive sandstone mountains, in the process creating a sense of belonging. Juxtaposing this mostly tranquil cultural reading of the landscape to the institutional practices of boundary demarcation gives the analysis an immediate critical edge regarding issues of social justice

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