Research Articles (Sociology)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttp://hdl.handle.net/2263/5832

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Rights-based analysis of basic education in South Africa
(Faculty of Law, University of the Free State, 2024-12) Chirowamhangu, Raymond
The right to basic education is a fundamental human right, the realisation of which is dependent on the holistic fulfillment of all educational needs. The study reflects on the interpretation of basic education by the South African legislation, supported by regional and international treaties and case law. The analysis is anchored on the rights-based approach, as prescribed by the Committee on the Rights of the Child, General Comment 13. The study adopts a qualitative methodology which outlines thematic education challenges faced by children in South Africa, especially in the rural areas. These issues include poor schooling infrastructure, lack of water and sanitation services, discrimination, inclusive education, and harmful cultural practices. Thus, considering the role of various stakeholders in promoting basic education, the study recommends that concerted efforts be made to enhance engagement with local communities and civil society, and advocates for effective accountability mechanisms on implementing education policies in South Africa
Just participatory research with young people involved in climate justice activism
(Springer, 2024-09) Mayes, Eve; Arya, Dena
This commentary reflects on the tensions inherent in enacting creative, co-produced, and participatory methods with younger co-researchers who are also climate justice advocates. Whilst participatory research with young people involved in climate justice work has the potential to build intergenerational networks of solidarity, such research is contoured with complexity. The authors, two university-based researchers, juxtapose the social justice agenda at the foundation of participatory research, with the climate justice agenda, and consider the resonances and tensions between research and social movements. They advocate for an intersectional climate justice approach to participatory research that positions young people as co-researchers and co-authors, aiming to counter epistemic injustices and amplify the voices of those first and worst affected by climate change. Simultaneously, the felt value-action gap (between the justice sought and the injustices that persist within research) generates questions about the profound differences, even incommensurability, between university-generated research and the pursuit of climate justice in movement spaces. A series of questions are offered to those engaged in participatory research with younger people to prompt collective reflection on research processes and practises. The commentary concludes with a call for university-based researchers to engage critically with the power structures within academia and to prioritise the needs and goals of younger climate justice advocates over institutional demands.
“That’s what we think of as activism” : solidarity through care in queer Desi diaspora
(Routledge, 2024) Bhardwaj, Maya; u21769118@tuks.co.za
This article examines a framing of solidarity as both activism and community care work in diasporic South Asian (sometimes referred to as “Desi”) communities in the US and the UK. From the vantage point of the researcher as a pansexual Indian-American activist herself, this article draws conclusions based on ethnographic research and interviews conducted with lesbian, gay, queer, and trans activists during the height of the COVID-19 pandemic and Black-led uprisings against police and state violence in the US and the UK. These conversations and this article particularly examine the participation of Desi activists and their peers in these movements, and their explorations of different modes of solidarity, from joint struggle to allyship to coconspiratorship and community transformation. They ultimately argue that queerness in Desi diaspora fosters solidarity through care that nurtures relationships across and between the diverse groups that make up LGBTQ + communities and the Desi diaspora, as well as between Desi, Black, and other racialized and diasporic communities. By examining lesbian, gay, trans, and broadly queer South Asian activists’ relationships to each other and to other racialized groups in struggle, this article conceptualizes a framing of solidarity and Black and Brown liberation together that transcends difference, transphobia and TERFism, and anti-Blackness through centering kinship and care. Through the intimacies borne out of months and years on the frontlines of struggle together, this article argues that deepening an understanding of activism, kinship, and care together in Desi diasporic organizing is key to building a solidarity that imagines and moves toward new and liberated worlds.
Enhancing gender-responsive social protection among informal and traditionally uncovered workers in sub-Saharan Africa : an assessment of access to maternity protection
(Wiley, 2024-10) Mokomane, Zitha; Grzesik-Mourad, Laurel; Heymann, Jody
A wide and established body of research evidence has consistently shown how the effective provision of social protection benefits and the promotion of gender equality are among the key tools for addressing shocks, vulnerability and poverty. It is largely to this end that these ideals implicitly feature throughout the United Nations 2030 Sustainable Development Agenda and explicitly in two Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The first is SDG 1 on poverty reduction, target 1.3 of which calls for the implementation of nationally appropriate social protection systems, measures and floors for all. The second is SDG 5, which aims to achieve gender equality and empowerment for all women and girls. Despite this, women across the world continue to receive contributory social security benefits that are notably lower than those of men. There is, therefore, a need for a critical and deeper understanding of policy, legislative and programmatic factors that underlie gender gaps in social protection provision. To contribute to knowledge in this regard, and while not aiming to address the intractable challenge of labour market formalization, this article draws on qualitative data from case studies conducted in 2022 among informal economy and other traditionally unprotected workers in three countries in sub-Saharan Africa (Mozambique, United Republic of Tanzania, and Togo), the region with the highest proportion of informal workers. The aim was to explore the extent to which these workers, who are predominantly women, have access to the various elements of maternity protection. The results showed the extent to which explicit legislative and policy frameworks as well as knowledge and service context often limit women’s access to maternity protection. The article draws on the key findings to provide strategic recommendations for designing and effectively implementing more gender-responsive social protection benefits in developing economy contexts.
Planned stitching practical suturing : assembling community voices and mobilisation across difference in Johannesburg’s corridors of freedom
(Routledge, 2024-10) Makwela, Mike; Dittgen, Romain; Rubin, Margot
The City of Johannesburg’s Corridors of Freedom (CoF), launched in 2013, were intended to cut across the economically and racially divided city using infrastructure and interventions in the built environment around new transport nodes. Undertaken in haste for political reasons and projected to be delivered as swiftly as possible, those driving this mega project oversaw substantial consultation exercises, but provided relatively few spaces for direct engagement to shape the project. This paper presents the experiences of a team of engaged-researchers, a long-standing NGO in partnership with University-based scholars jointly investigating the CoF development process. Interested in the ways in which the CoF initiative sought to ‘stitch’ the city together, our contribution to the project was to engage with different communities, clarify their different experiences with participation in the Corridors development and explore the possibility of collaboration across these different communities. Using the conceptual framework of stitching and suturing, the paper, in two parts, interrogates the roles that engaged partners can have in complex and diverse communities and our ability to support engagement. We reveal the limitations of engaged research when faced with political and institutional cycles that do not synchronise with the research projects, and point to the cleavages and disruptions that result when the local state does not systematically incorporate the needs and lived realities of its residents.
Towards the desired city of compromise : the politics of negotiating large-scale transformation across diversity in Johannesburg
(Routledge, 2024-11) Dittgen, Romain; Cochrane, Allan; Robinson, Jennifer
How to reinvent Johannesburg, a metropolis whose geography of inequality has remained stubbornly entrenched since the end of apartheid? By launching the ‘Corridors of Freedom’ (CoF) initiative in 2013, the municipal government decided to take bold and deliberate steps towards conceiving and promoting a more inclusive and peoplecentred city. The goal was to disrupt the prevailing spatial and social pattern by connecting different parts of the city via a large public transit network and altering these same areas through increased levels of (affordable) accommodation, density, and mixed-use development. Cutting across the existing urban fabric and affecting a significant number of distinct neighbourhoods, both in terms of socio-economic and racial characteristics, this ambitious project, unsurprisingly, triggered a wide spectrum of reactions. To successfully embed this initiative required securing support (or countering opposition) from both the majority poor and black electorate demanding accessible housing and jobs, and the highly mobilised middle-class groups on whom the City authorities were financially dependent. Taking the CoF public participation process as analytical entry point, we reflect on the diverse power relations of ‘building consensus’ across highly divided neighbourhoods and populations to take forward this largescale urban transformation. While there was widespread agreement on the broad vision outlining the need for transformation, interpretations of the ‘good’ or ‘desired’ city, views on priorities to be considered, and acceptance of required adjustments, varied greatly. Through this case, the paper offers insights into the uneven landscape of politics associated with large-scale urban developments which stretch across highly differentiated urban areas. We note the initial scope for building shared visions and a ‘consensual arena’ between state and society across such diversity, but as the project unfolded the varied challenges of implementation at scale saw a diversity of forms of power relations shaping the dynamic processes of urban development along the multifaceted landscape of the Corridors. Initially, a powerful vision, innovative technologies of planning and fast paced consultation sought to corral actors into a tight delivery schedule driven by electoral cycles. But over time actors engaged in persuasion, contestation and collaboration, as well as moments of violence and heated disruption as the development process unfolded. Drawing theoretical insights from the geographies of power and learning from analyses of the close entwining of state-citizen relations in South African urban politics, the paper suggests that in assessing the politics of largescale developments, an agile analytical lens is needed to reflect on the diversity of power relations associated with governance and decisionmaking, as well as engagements and contestations, in the light of shifting political terrains, and diverse urban environments.
Decolonisation of knowledge production on Children’s Rights in Africa
(African Renaissance, 2024-12) Chirowamhangu, Raymond
This paper provides a critical perspective on the decolonisation of children's rights. The research is a comparative analysis between the African Charter on the Rights and Welfare of the Child (ACRWC) and the United Nations, Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC). It explores the progress and challenges on addressing children's rights within the context of Africa. The paper explores the limitations faced by African scholars to promote research on children's rights. These limitations include lack of funding and imposed conditions on research projects. Subsequently, without addressing such barriers studies on children's rights remain dominated by an imperialist approach anchored on colonialism. An important point to draw from this paper is the need to promote African research, which does not seek to re-write history, but offers an alternative view which contextualises the realities faced by children in Africa. The paper recommends the need to reframe hegemonic epistemologies on children's rights to accommodate the needs and challenges of children in the Global South
Mineral resource exploitation and landownership rights : understanding the ‘doctrine of custodianship’ in minerals and mining legislation in South Africa
(Elsevier, 2025-06) Issah, Moshood; Sulaiman, Lanre Abdul-Rasheed; Raji, Abdullateef; Aliu, Fatima; Yusuff, Ridwan Olabisi; Abdulbaqi, Salihu Zakariyyah; Akor, Sunday Joseph; Malik, Nurudeen Adesola; u24141072@tuks.co.za
Legislation and policy frameworks on mineral resource exploitation and landownership rights in South Africa were heavily influenced by the Roman-Dutch law. These legal frameworks changed from 1795 with the annexation of the Cape by the British, and the discoveries of Gold and diamonds in the 19th century in South Africa. Expectedly, scholars have documented the evolution and development of mineral resources and landownership rights in South Africa. However, while there is interesting scholarship on mineral resource exploitation and landownership rights in South Africa, this scholarship fail to see mineral legislation from the perspective of eminent domain. Thus, this paper contextualized the doctrine of ‘custodianship’ as embedded in the Mineral and Petroleum Development Act of 2004 (MPRDA) within the conceptual framework of eminent domain. The paper uses discourse analysis to analyze historical and legal documents and academic literature. The analysis revealed that the doctrine of ‘custodianship’ as used in MPRDA connotes eminent domain. This is because the doctrine implies that nation's mineral resources are res publicae (belong to all South Africans, and the state is the custodian thereof). Looking at the notion of ‘custodianship’ in this way would open a new discussion on mineral resource discourse in post-apartheid South Africa.
Deconstructing a single-actor resource ownership model : a study of the proposed uranium mining in the Karoo region of South Africa
(Elsevier, 2025-06) Issah, Moshood; Sulaiman, Lanre Abdul-Rasheed; Aliu, Fatima; Raji, Abdullateef; Yusuff, Ridwan Olabisi; Abdulbaqi, Salihu Zakariyyah; Akor, Sunday Joseph; Oluwaseun, Ojogiwa T.; u24141072@tuks.co.za
This study engages the discourse of ‘eminent domain’ – the power of the state to expropriate communally or individually owned properties for ‘public good’ – as it applies in the mineral extractive sector in resource-rich countries, such as South Africa. It is argued that the use of the ‘eminent domain’ principle in the acquisition of land and allocation of mining rights reinforces the notion of the ‘supreme state’. The entrenchment of this idea advances ‘the single metric model’ in which one stakeholder's voice is heard at the expense of other stakeholders. This hierarchical framework privileges the state and the licensed mining companies and excludes resource-rich communities and other egalitarian structures. It is against this backdrop that this study makes a case for the deconstruction of a ‘single-actor resource ownership’ model in South Africa. Using data collected through qualitative instruments, the study concluded that the ‘single metric’ approach, in which the state enforces its agency over the other stakeholders, is rooted in its understanding of ‘rights and sovereignty’ over land and mineral resource ownership in South Africa. This strikes at the centre of a developing conflict among the stakeholders in the uranium-rich community. Therefore, the disaggregation of the current unconstructive policy space dominated by the hierarchic state to one which accommodates diverse views and voices of other stakeholders will create a multi-metric, pluralistic and democratic environment where the ‘public-use principle’ in essence does not exclude the public.
Inclusive education pandemic : learning barriers for children with disabilities in South Africa
(AOSIS, 2024-12-06) Chirowamhangu, Raymond
BACKGROUND: Children with disabilities encounter obstacles attaining basic education. Significantly, previous studies on South Africa have shown that up to 70% of the children with disabilities are out of school. Despite efforts to support inclusive education through White Paper 6 policy, the deployment of resources and transformation of the education sector has been a slower process. Objectives: The main objective of the article is to explore the challenges of basic education faced by children with disabilities in South Africa. METHOD: The study was conducted during the COVID-19 pandemic using a qualitative research methodology. The data were collected using key informant interviews through online media platforms. The data analysis was conducted using computer-aided software in the form of ATLAS.ti 8. RESULTS: This study established several challenges faced by special needs schools, especially in the rural areas. These include a limited number of special needs schools, scholar transport, enrolment, lack of psychosocial and expert support, sanitation and infrastructure and the impact of COVID-19 pandemic on children with disabilities. CONCLUSION: The article concludes that even though White Paper 6 focusses on Special Needs Education in South Africa, there remains poor policy implementation to ensure inclusivity for learners with disabilities. CONTRIBUTION: The research provides an understanding of the challenges faced by children with disabilities to assist policy makers with recommendations and areas of concern to improve policy implementation of the White Paper 6 in South Africa.
Policing the police : why it is so hard to reform police departments in the United States?
(Sage, 2025-02) Banerjee, Vasabjit; Willison, Charley; Greer, Scott L.
Why has it been so difficult to reform U.S. policing? We provide a theoretical argument that understanding of the entrenched militarisation and accountability problems of U.S. police departments would benefit from using theory in comparative research on civil–military relations. American police forces undermine local democracy by encroaching upon the decision-making powers of city officials in ways that resemble militaries in fragile democracies. Applying historical and contemporary evidence and existing scholarly research on policing, we explain police militarisation was initiated by civilian leaders of city governments to garner governmental legitimacy, and by-proxy police support, in racialised contexts. Trading off city governments’ institutional strength in order to maintain legitimacy produced opportunities for police insubordination or subversion of city government oversight of police activity. Consequently, cities with low public legitimacy and/or weak municipal institutions, faced with high demands by militarised police departments, may be more likely to experience police subversion of democratic accountability over police activity.
Accountability, bureaucratic discretion, and civil-military relations
(Sage, 2025) Webeck, Sean P.; Banerjee, Vasabjit
All democracies wrestle with the problem of representation. Most people intuitively understand this through electoral politics, but this connection is less clear when we consider bureaucracy. And when it comes to civil-military relations, many think about this problem in terms of “civilian control.” We present a different approach and contribute to this literature in three ways. First, we critique assumptions often used in thinking about civilian control. Second, we offer a classification system with three schools of thought on the problem of bureaucratic accountability. These are the (a) political control school (representation through the politics-administration dichotomy and compliance model), (b) responsiveness through institutional design school (representation through formal institutions), and (c) responsibility through values school (representation through informal institutions). We provide examples from scholarship and cinema for each school to aid in understanding and to facilitate teaching and learning. Third, using bureaucratic accountability as an organizing concept, we propose bureaucratic discretion as a different organizing problem or puzzle for civil-military relations scholars to consider. Furthermore, by providing an organizing concept for civil-military relations using insights from the field of public administration, we additionally lay the groundwork to encourage public administration scholars to conduct research on civil-military relations.
Mobilising in the face of large-scale urban change : a conversation between two community organisers from Johannesburg and London
(Routledge, 2024) Makwela, Mike; Hayward, Sharon; Dittgen, Romain
Large-scale and long-term urban development projects often cause sizeable transformations in the built and social fabric, raising questions about the impacts on existing neighbourhoods and communities, and how they might try to shape the development. There are significant challenges to achieving community-based engagement at a large scale involving mobilising a wide range of stakeholders with different positionalities, agendas and priorities across multiple and diverse areas of a city. In this interview, two experienced organisers reflect together on their different but resonant experiences in building community networks to engage with large-scale developments. Between 2016 and 2018, the research project ‘Governing the Future City’ explored the governance of large-scale developments in three urban areas—London, Johannesburg and Shanghai. In Johannesburg and London, the research process directly funded and supported community-based organising in relation to the planning and implementation of the developments. The organisers and researchers worked with existing community-based organisations to try to influence the planning process, drawing together a wide range of affected community and neighbourhood groups. During the course of the research project, the two community coordinators, Mike Makwela (Planact, Johannesburg), focusing on the Corridors of Freedom project, and Sharon Hayward (London Tenants Federation and Grand Union Alliance), working on the Old Oak Park Royal development, visited the other city to explore possibilities to learn from each other’s experiences and contexts. In 2017, while Sharon was in Johannesburg, project researcher Romain Dittgen interviewed them together, twice, on 18 and 20 July, about their experiences of organising and mobilising in their respective cities, specifically in relation to large-scale development projects and in the context of highly diverse communities. Key issues that emerged concerned shared values of community self-organising, the benefits of building consensus or working with different views, and different approaches to relations with government officials and elected representatives. In parallel, they also reflected about working and collaborating with academics, as well as about possibilities for critical analysis of the developments and mutual learning across the two cases.
When the rainbow is bittersweet : reflections on being queer and Indian in Durban
(Lectito, 2024) O’Connell, Siona; Ghosh, Debjyoti; Reddy, Vasu; siona.oconnell@up.ac.za
South Africa is one of the few countries in Africa that no longer criminalises same-sex sexual activity, and the only one to recognise same-sex marriage under the legal system. Yet, at the same time, several groups in the country practice a conservatism that discourages people from being themselves, be it in professing their gender or their sexuality. This article explores the trials and tribulations of making a documentary film with a minority population within one such minority population – Queer and Indian – in Durban, the site of the largest number of Indians outside India. Written in a reflective style that frames the positioning of the authors, a key question posed is: what are the daily issues that queer South African people deal with? Battling with conservatism while trying to find one’s queer voice is just one of them. The film engages with a few people who were generous to allow us to use their experiences with the state, the society, and healthcare. How does one reconcile the Rainbow Nation, the promise of constitutional equality with the insularity that people face on a regular basis? This article aims to be the start of a much larger conversation that needs to be had.
Job satisfaction in South Africa : the quest for job quality
(Unisa Press, 2023-12) Mncwango, Bongiwe; Masenge, Andries; Puttergill, Charles
Job satisfaction is a key determinant in ensuring and maintaining a productive workforce. It is an outcome of the interaction between individual personal characteristics, work values, needs and expectations on one hand and work rewards or outcomes on the other hand. Job quality, in turn, ensures decent working conditions and livelihoods for workers. In this study, we investigated the distribution and determinants of job satisfaction of employed workers in South Africa, drawing on data collected through nationally representative surveys on social attitudes conducted in 2005 and 2015. The findings indicate that what workers seek (value) in a job exceeds their actual experience (outcomes), although the gap between expectation and outcome in the baseline survey has narrowed in the end-point survey. Furthermore, workers tend to favour job outcomes and rewards that are extrinsic in nature over intrinsic ones in current labour market conditions, yet shifts are discernible over time. Where extrinsic needs are satisfied, the importance of intrinsic ones increases.
Labour market in peril : interference of influential individuals in the integration of Congolese workers into the labour market
(Sage, 2024) Inaka, Saint Jose
The encroachment of certain influential individuals who employ cronyism, patronage, and networking into the recruitment and hiring processes of employees in the Democratic Republic of the Congo is a widely discussed issue in media and public discourse. However, it remains an underexplored subject within scholarly research. This paper seeks to address this gap by providing a comprehensive overview of this phenomenon over time. Drawing upon Jamie Peck’s concepts of labour incorporation and labour allocation, while also examining the prevalence of illegality and informality, this study argues that these ‘influential individuals’ or ‘well-connected actors’ have assumed the roles and responsibilities traditionally held by labour market actors and institutions. Consequently, this has exacerbated long-standing malpractices within the Congolese labour market. The interference of these ‘influential individuals’ disrupts the normal functioning of the Congolese labour market, even as proponents of these practices offer justifications for their actions. Employing qualitative interviews and documentary research, this study traces the historical origins of such interference, dating back to the colonial era.
COVID-19 experience and student wellbeing amongst publicly funded higher education students in South Africa after the first, and second waves
(Springer, 2024-08) Wildschut, Angelique; Wilson-Fadiji, Angelina
Although higher education students have been identified as one of the social groups most affected by the impact of COVID-19, higher education literature appears to focus more on documenting implications for teaching and learning, curriculum and institutions, than student wellbeing. This has resulted in gaps to our understanding and approaches to intervene positively in, student wellbeing within the higher education space ‘post-COVID-19’. Drawing on a novel survey data set administered in November 2021, of the 6877 higher education (University and TVET College) students in South Africa, this paper aims to contribute through cross-sectional data that allows analysis of student experience of COVID-19 and its relationship to student wellbeing. As expected, our findings confirm COVID-19 experience as a significant predictor of student wellbeing. We also identify satisfaction with interventions from higher education stakeholders in response to COVID-19 as the strongest, and the extent to which students felt impacted by changes to their routine behaviours as the weakest, predictors of wellbeing. The paper adds to existing international literature, the South African context with a large sample. Secondly, the analysis provides a more comprehensive view of the link between COVID-19 and higher education student wellbeing, as TVET College students are included. The composite measurement of COVID-19 experience is a further contribution. Finally, the findings add to the literature on COVID-19 and higher education student wellbeing, the experience of disadvantaged students. The findings underscore the emotional health of students as a critical area for higher education policy and intervention during times of uncertainty or disruption.
Ke mosali oa Mosotho : reflecting on indigenous conceptions of womanhood in Lesotho
(Routledge, 2023) Mohlabane, Neo; neo.mohlabane@up.ac.za
This paper challenges the invisibilisation and silencing of indigenous conceptions of womanhood in feminist scholarly work. It argues that “Mosotho woman,” as we know it today, is a colonial construct for it is located within and fixed to hetero-patriarchal binarised hierarchies. It further argues for the reflection on historical narratives of women the likes of ‘Manthatisi of the Batlokoa as exceptional representations of precolonial conceptions of womanhood in Lesotho. As we interrogate the current invocations of “woman” in Lesotho, we ought to use these herstories as springboards to understand the silenced indigenous conceptions of bosali (womanhoods) that are not only complex but multifarious and beyond the confines of binarised hetero-patriarchal constructions. Drawing on the narrated life stories of 20 “never-married” women – methepa – the paper discusses boithlompho (self-respect), mosali oa ‘mankhonthe (perseverance), sexual empowerment, and botho (personhood) as underpinning the indigenous definitions of bosali. This paper argues for retrieval, elevation, and continuation of indigenous languages, rituals, and spaces as sources of knowledge and theory on womanhoods in local contexts.
‘Brandsluts’ : Instagram influencers and conspicuous consumption in post-apartheid South Africa
(Routledge, 2024) Sana, Vidhya
Post-Apartheid South Africa shifted to a culture of consumption, originating with a transition to a neoliberal society [Sana, V. (2022). Bits of bytes and bites of bits: Instagram and the gendered performance of food production in the South African Indian community. Agenda, 36(1), 100–108), alongside access to a globalized world. During apartheid, consumption was strictly regulated, and racialized. This culture of consumption has been prevalent since the mid-1990s. As apartheid regulations lifted, the freedom of movement, choice and the ability to consume unreservedly, opened possibilities previously unimagined for much of the population. Consumption in South Africa is largely characterized by the unique contextual and symbolic processes that inform it. Consumption practices have impacted performances of identity and anxieties of belonging in turn [Sana, V. (2022). Bits of bytes and bites of bits: Instagram and the gendered performance of food production in the South African Indian community. Agenda, 36(1), 100–108]. This paper examines the visual representations of consumption practices on Instagram. Using critical consumption studies, an analysis of various Instagram influencers' consumption uncovers how South Africans affirm their place in the neoliberal global stage through acts of consumption. The article considers the consumption of products as a product itself to be consumed, and how this links to debates around conspicuous consumption in South Africa.
Youth in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM) and higher education nexus : diffusion of innovations and knowledge transfer
(Elsevier, 2023-09) Arthur-Holmes, Francis; Yeboah, Thomas; Cobbinah, Isaac Joseph; Busia, Kwaku Abrefa
Research literature has underscored the growing engagement of youth in artisanal and small-scale mining (ASM). However, no published study has explicitly investigated the symbiotic exchanges on how youth in ASM transfer acquired knowledge and practical skills to educational settings and how they in turn transfer their acquired knowledge in higher education institutions to the ASM sector. Based on our inquiry in Ghana, involvement of educated youth in ASM had resulted in a) diffusion of innovations to the ASM sector, b) skills/knowledge transfer on mineral processing, c) knowledge transfer on health and safety in mining, d) provision of equipment repair and maintenance services, and e) transfer of legal knowledge and processes to the sector. With the transfer of mining-related experiences to educational settings, three sub-themes emerged: f) sharing of ASM experience and knowledge with peers and tutors, g) experiential learning and practical understanding of theoretical concepts, and h) enhanced higher education-ASM industry synergies. In relation to these findings, we argue that the future of the ASM sector in Ghana and broadly sub-Saharan Africa concerning cleaner production and environmentally safe mining practices, to a greater degree, relies on educated youth who hold enormous promise to champion innovation and knowledge transfer to the sector.

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