UWCScholar
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For the Dutch-speaking students, i will translate it': code-switching as discretionary transformation of emi language policy
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2025) De Soete, Alexander
In the study of english-medium instruction in higher education, attention is being drawn to discrepancies between codified language policy and its enactment in classroom practice. this can be situated in a larger trend in language policy studies, in which researchers document and analyze language policy as an interactional concept, revolving around norms which guide language selection and use. in this context, i discuss how lecturers discretionarily transform institutional policy through code-switching in interactions with students, resulting in the production of a micro-level classroom language policy. the dataset consists of 23 classroom recordings which capture the interactions between six engineering lecturers and their students in two english-medium engineering programs at a belgian university. drawing on street-level bureaucracy and frame analysis, i study code-switching in lecturer-student interaction, with a specific focus on the initiation, timing, procedure, and purpose of code-switching, including whether it involves meta-pragmatic commentary and/or enactment routines which seek, grant, or presume permission. findings highlight a functional distribution of code-switching driven by pedagogical and pragmatic considerations. in conclusion, the study brings into focus how an explanation for the unfolding multilingual dynamics of the english-medium classroom necessarily appeals to both activity-specific interactional expectations and (overlaps in) individual speakers’ repertoires.
Masculine aesthetics and food ascetics: an autobiographical exploration of fitness religion in Cape Town
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2025) Jodamus, Johnathan
This article explores how South African gym culture crafts racialised, gendered and classed identities through the aesthetics of the body (“bodywork”) and the discipline of diet (“foodwork”). following various scholars who have conceptualised fitness regimes as religion, i conceptualise gym culture as a form of “wild religion”. challenging mainstream literature on fitness and masculinity – which largely overlooks race and class dynamics – i draw on autobiographical embodied experiences within fitness spaces to reveal the power of this culture to function as a quasi-religious domain, with its own symbols, rituals and beliefs. this analysis exposes how ideals of masculinity are forged within these sacred spaces, underscoring the need to interrogate how race and class intricately shape these ideals in ways that are often hidden from view. by reframing fitness as a site where masculinities are not only formed but ritualised, this work calls for a new understanding of gym culture as a potent arena for exploring race, class and masculine identity in South Africa.
A comparative analysis of the different measures used o determine the size of the informal sector of the South African economy
(University of the Western Cape, 2011) Davids Shafeeqa
Since the concept of informal sector was first introduced in a 1971 analysis of the Kenyan economy, there were debates about the appropriate definition of informal economic activity, as well as about the estimation of its size. I n recent years, there seems to be a universally accepted definition of informal economic activity, which refers to enterprises that are unregistered, including those that employ workers with inferior working conditions and weak employment relationships. However, there i s still no real consensus on the method to estimate the size of this sector, as well as which aspects of the informal economy should be measured (for instance, informal employment, or informal economic activity as proportion of GDP). In South Africa, the informal economy is expected to play a significant role mainly because informal employment is relatively high (as proportion of formal employment). The formal economy
is characterised by a slow pace of employment creation and a high rate of unemployment. Yet, according to recent studies the country is an international outlier with regard to the size of informal employment as proportion of total non-agricultural employment. Some researchers believe that informal employment is under-estimated due to shortcomings of the specific method used by Statistics South Africa (which is the official method). Furthermore, there is a
Jack of South African studies investigating the specific nature and reasons behind inform a l economic activity, as well as the contribution of the informal economy y to GDP. As informal economy is important to absorb the unemployed who are retrenched and those who are unable to find formal employment due to reasons like a skills mismatch. an economic recession, and there are important linkages between formal and informal economies, which cannot be ignored by policy makers. Hence, various researchers suggested that other approaches to measure the informal economy should be considered .
This study provides a critical evaluation of the various methods to estimate the size of the informal economy and of the results of the empirical evidence applying these methods to both South Africa and other (developed and developing) countries. It was found that there is no indication that the informal economy has diminished as a country develops. In contrast, in general, in both developed and developing countries, the size of the informal economies showed an upward trend throughout the years. The results indicate that in the South African context, the informal economy does play a significant role in terms of job creation and contribution to the national product. However, the method used by Statistics South Africa seems to have under-captured informal employment. This has important pol icy implications and it is thus recommended that more research should be done with a specific focus on the estimation of the size of the informal economy as proportion of GDP.
An un/timely re-reading: the first South African by Fatima Dike
(Taylor & Francis Group, 2025) Flockemann, Miki
It has been suggested that re-staging iconic performances from the 1970s and 1980s over the last three decades has become a way of reflecting on the ‘now,’ and recouping previously desired futures that have failed to materialize. Local audience responses to the 2022 revival of Fugard’s The Blood Knot, 60 years after its first production noted how it still spoke powerfully to the present. But instead of seeing this familiarity as a stark indictment of the entrenched legacy of racialiszd identity politics, the play was described as potentially ‘hopeful.’ This apparently counter-intuitive response uncannily brought back to mind a character from another less well-known family drama from the late 1970s, provocatively titled, The First South African by Fatima Dike. Despite similarities in their broad thematic focus on apartheid identity politics within intimate settings, the two works use very different performance aesthetics. The primary aim here is thus to return to Dike’s The First South African in order to explore whether the earlier assessments of a sense of historical ‘stuckness’ evoked in her play can be challenged by paying attention to what can be described as the polyphonic modality employed in the text. Moreover, I shall explore how the representation of the bi-racial white–black protagonist’s psychic break speaks to the concept of ‘political death’ when looking at the play again from the vantage point of the present.
Investigation of organic hydrotrioxide (roooh) formation from ro2 + oh reactions and their atmospheric impact using a chemical transport model, stochem-cri
(Royal Society of Chemistry, 2025) Shallcross, Dudley E; Khan, Md Anwar Hossain; Holland, Rayne
Incorporating the reactions of fifty peroxy radicals (RO2) with the hydroxyl radical (OH) into the global chemistry transport model, troposphere, affected the composition of the troposphere by changing the global burdens of NOx (−2.7 Gg, −0.5%), O3 (−2.3 Tg, −0.7%), CO (−3.2 Tg, −0.8%), HOx (+2.1 Gg, +7.7%), H2O2 (+0.5 Tg, +18.3%), RO2 (−8.0 Gg, −18.2%), RONO2 (−19.4 Gg, −4.7%), PAN (−0.1 Tg, −3.4%) HNO3 (−7.4 Gg, −1.3%) and ROOH (−96.9 Gg, −3.8%). The RO2 + OH addition reactions have a significant impact on HO2 mixing ratios in tropical regions with up to a 25% increase, resulting in increasing H2O2 mixing ratios by up to 50% over oceans. Globally, a significant amount of organic hydrotrioxides (ROOOH) (86.1 Tg per year) are produced from these reactions with CH3OOOH (67.5 Tg per year, 78%), isoprene-derived ROOOH (5.5 Tg per year, 6%) and monoterpene-derived ROOOH (4.2 Tg per year, 5%) being the most significant contributors. The tropospheric global burden of CH3OOOH is found to be 0.48 Gg. The highest mixing ratios of ROOOH, of up to 0.35 ppt, are found primarily in the oceans near the tropical land areas. The RO2 + OH reactions have a small, but noticeable, contribution to OH reactivity (∼5%) over tropical oceans. Additionally, these reactions have a significant impact on RO2 reactivity over tropical oceans where losses of the CH3O2 radical, isoprene derived peroxy radical (ISOPO2) and monoterpene derived peroxy radical (MONOTERPO2) by OH can contribute up to 25%, 15% and 50% to the total RO2 loss, respectively. The changes in RO2 reactivity influence the global abundances of organic alcohols (ROH) which are important species due to their crucial impact on air quality. The ROOOH generate secondary organic aerosol (SOA) of up to 0.05 μg m−3 which affects the Earth's radiation budget because of enhancing modelled organic aerosol by up to 5% and 2000% on land surfaces and the remote tropical oceans, respectively.