The redistributive and regulatory role of the state

Join Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) & Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) for the redistributive and regulatory role of the state webinar on 15 Nov

Please join our panel of distinguished speakers Prof Sarah Cook (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies), Dr Abigail Osiki (University of the Western Cape), Ms Mery Laura Perdomo Ospina (ILAW Network), and  Dr Ruth Caste-Branco (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies) as they discuss among others: 

• How social policy can respond to the changing world of work(ers)?
• How the state can extend public services and social protections to historically marginalized sectors?
• What are the possibilities and limitations of the redistributive role of the state?

Ms Seipati Mokhema (Southern Centre for Inequality Studies) will chair what promises to be a robust engagement

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Wealth Inequality & Elites International Workshop

Join the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at this workshop.

Virtual click to register >>

In-person click to RSVP | Venue: Wits Club

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Book launch: Capital Order, How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism

SCIS invites you to a launch of Professor Clara E. Mattei's book, Capital Order, How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism on 23 March 2023

Clara E. Mattei is an Associate Professor in Economics at The New School for Social Research of New York City and was a member of the Institute for Advanced Studies at Princeton in 2018-2019.

Her research focuses on the relationship between fiscal, monetary, and industrial policies in contemporary capitalism. In particular, she studies the logic of austerity policies and how they shape our society.

Her recent book, Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism (University of Chicago Press, November 2022) has received widespread acclamation: A Financial Times Best Book of the Year “A must-read, with key lessons for the future.”—Thomas Piketty

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Post-Covid Economic Recovery Learning Series

Dismantling power asymmetries in the global financial infrastructure: Pathways towards a democratic and economically just recovery

SCIS invites you to the Dismantling power asymmetries in the global financial infrastructure: Pathways towards a democratic and economically just recovery webinar on 20 April, 14:00-15:30 (SAST). 

This is the first of three learning sessions in the Post-Covid Economic Recovery Learning Series. The overarching objective of this learning series is to influence the international development policy discourse based on the experiences of economies and countries in the global South and to dismantle narratives that have historically deprived communities of the necessary resources for addressing the multiple social and economic challenges that they face. 

The learning series will attempt to answer some of the following questions:

1. How has the COVID-19 pandemic affected the social and economic landscape of countries in the global South (e.g. economic growth, public finance, poverty and inequality, gender equality, and employment)?
2. What are the gaps between what is being discussed at the international level and the reality of what communities are experiencing on the ground?
3. What policies are required for protecting livelihoods and building resilient economies in a post-Covid-19 economic recovery?

The Post-Covid Economic Recovery Learning Series is a collaboration of the Ford Foundation Plus Fund Initiative for Economic and the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies. 

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International Conference on New Technologies and the Future of Work in the Global South

The three-day New Technologies & the Future of Work in the Global South International Conference will take place from 17-19 July 2023, in New Delhi.

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies at Wits, in partnership with the Institute for Human Development and the International Labour Organisation, are organising a three-day international conference themed New Technologies and the Future of Work in the Global South. The conference is scheduled for 17-19 July 2023, in New Delhi. Click this link for more information. Enquiries: Robin.Drennan@wits.ac.za.

The conference aims to address some important issues and concerns in the wake of technological change and emerging forms of work which have important implications for the future of work and for workers. Apart from academics, scholars and experts from policymaking, civil society, industry, worker's organisations and international organisations will contribute to the deliberations of the three-day Conference.

Research papers related to the conference theme, underpinned by the core question of how to address the issue through the right mix of strategies and policies, are invited from scholars and researchers, from both Global South and North.

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Post-Covid Economic Recovery Learning Series: Towards a Gender Just and Caring Economy

Towards a Gender Just and Caring Economy

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies invites you to the second learning session titled: Towards a Gender Just and Caring Economy. It will focus on the experiences of women and members of the LGBTQIA community and the strategies and opportunities for achieving gender equality in the post-covid recovery.  The webinar will take place on 25 May, 14:00-15:30 (SAST).

This is the second of three learning sessions in the Post-Covid Economic Recovery Learning Series. The session will explore issues around employment, land, and livelihoods. It will also look at the importance of a caring economy and the disproportionate and gendered nature of how care is provided and accessed in the global South.

The overarching objective of the Post-Covid Economic Recovery Learning Series is to influence the international development policy discourse based on the experiences of economies and countries in the global South and to dismantle narratives that have historically deprived communities of the necessary resources for addressing the multiple social and economic challenges that they face. 

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Professor Keith Hart: Africa and Europe at the Crossroads

SCIS invites you to a hybrid Lunchtime Seminar: Africa and Europe at the Crossroads to be presented by Professor Keith Hart on 16 May, 13:00 - 14:30 (SAST).

Africa and Europe at the Crossroads 

https://www.academia.edu/99925313/Africa_and_Europe_at_the_Crossroads

Africa and Europe are actors in a three-act drama: the 19th, 20th and 21st centuries. In 1900 Europe had 25% of the world’s population, Africa 7.5%. In 2100 Africa will have 40%, Europe 6%. The EU’s institutional defects -- its inability to resolve its monetary, economic and political problems -- point to inevitable decline, while Africa’s prospects in an aging world have never been more promising. Africa doubled its population since 1900 in an urban revolution. Its disparate regions now converge on the model of the Old Regime and are ripe for liberal revolution. Fragmented nation-states need to build more effective regional trade federations. African exports, apart from minerals, should focus on supplying the rapidly expanding world market for cultural services. A recent World Bank/IMF conference focused on global demographic change: India now surpasses China, and in 2100 half the world’s children will be African. The Asian exporters already plan for this future, but the West is nostalgic for the world its racist empires once made.

Professor Keith Hart

Keith Hart is Professor of Anthropology Emeritus, Goldsmiths, University of London. He is a full-time writer who has lived and worked in 24 countries on four continents. He has homes in Paris and Durban. Keith believes that engaged intellectuals should try to understand and shape emergent world society. He was Distinguished Visiting Professor at Wits School of Social Sciences (2007); Honorary Professor in the School of Social Development, UKZN (2008-13); and Co-founder and International Director of the Human Economy Programme, University of Pretoria (2011-18).

Self in the World https://www.berghahnbooks.com/title/HartSelf can be purchased through Ike’s Books, Durban https://ikesbooks.com/.  An inspection copy is available in the Department of Anthropology.  A colourful Lagos interview with an African slant is at https://bordersliteratureonline.net/globaldetails/keith_hart. For more information, see his website at https://keithhart.academia.edu/.

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Green Transition for Whom? Strategies for achieving climate-resilient economies in the global South

Green Transition for Whom? Strategies for achieving climate-resilient economies in the global South

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies invites you to the third and final learning session titled:  Green Transition for Whom? Strategies for achieving climate-resilient economies in the global South. 

The webinar will take place on 22 June, 14:00 - 15:30 (SAST). It will be available in English, Spanish, and French languages.

This learning session will reflect on the impacts of the Covid-19 pandemic on efforts towards sustainable development in the global South, and the key strategies for achieving a green transition based on the multiple challenges currently facing individuals and communities in these regions. By centering the experiences of women, youth, and communities in the global South, the session takes an alternative approach from the top-down policy recommendations which have dominated the sustainable development discourse.

The session seeks to answer the following question: What would a green, just and inclusive recovery look like based on the experiences of communities and economies in the global South?

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South Africa's Spending Choices

UNICEF and SCIS' Public Economy Project (PEP) invite you to a public seminar titled South Africa's Spending Choices on 27 June from 09:30 to 13:00

The United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF) and the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) Public Economy Project (PEP) invite you to a public seminar reflecting on “South Africa’s Spending Choices: a review of the 2023 Budget”.

The overall objective of the seminar is to explore and debate South Africa’s 2023 macro-fiscal framework and spending choices to address poverty, inequality, and socio-economic rights ahead of the Medium-Term Budget Policy Statement in October.

The seminar will provide a forum for participants to share the main trends in the expenditure of the South African budget and their implications for public services and the realisation of socio-economic rights.

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Is Inequality Causing Pandemics and, If So, How?

SCIS invites you to a seminar by Dr Matthew Kavanagh titled Is Inequality Causing Pandemics and, If So, How? on 4 July (15:00 - 16:30)

About the seminar:

We are living through multi-pandemic era with rising inequality. Outbreaks from COVID-19 to MPox quickly spread around the world, HIV remains a pandemic we seem not to be able to shake. This comes at a time of mounting inequality within countries and very specific forms of geopolitical inequality between countries. Are these two realities linked?  Exploring the economic, social, and political drivers of pandemics, this talk lays out what we know, what we're struggling to know, and the urgency of an inequality-busting rather than inequality-reinforcing approach to pandemic preparedness. 

About the speaker: 

Matthew Kavanagh, PhD, is the Director of the UNAIDS-Georgetown University Collaborating Centre on HIV Policy and Inequality and special advisor to the Executive Director of UNAIDS. A political scientist by training, he also leads the HIV Policy Lab working to empirically understand and politically shift the policy environment for tackling pandemics. 

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Recasting Workers’ Power: Work and Inequality In the Shadow of the Digital Age

SCIS and FES invite you to the launch of Edward Webster and Lynford Dor's book - Recasting Workers’ Power; Work and Inequality in the Shadow of the Digital Age

Join the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies and Friedrich Ebert Stiftung for a hybrid book launch of Emeritus Professor Edward Webster and Lynford Dor's recently published book:  Recasting Workers' Power: Work and Inequality in the Shadow of the Digital Age (Bristol University Press / Wits University Press)

There is a widespread view that labour as a counter-hegemonic force has come to an end. This theoretically innovative book based on ground-breaking field work challenges this pessimistic “End of Labour Thesis”. Drawing on labour process theory and the power resources approach the book shows how the power of  workers’ is recast as work is restructured. As capital overcomes obstacles to accumulation through various fixes, the working class and its organisations are restructured . By highlighting the struggles of largely precarious and informal workers in sub-Saharan Africa, the book clearly articulates the challenges workers face but suggests some grounds for optimism in the new and hybrid forms of organisation emerging on the shadows of the digital age.

The question raised by these findings is whether these embryonic forms of worker organisation – what the authors call the “Southern trend” – are sustainable and could become the foundations for a new cycle of worker solidarity and union growth. Despite the changes brought about by globalisation and digitalisation, the book shows how informal solidaristic groups among workers continue.

The authors conclude that if traditional unions continue to focus on those workers in stable jobs the growing number of precarious workers will be left without a voice and will have to build their power afresh.  The result will be deepening inequality and a diverging labour movement. What has been called “dualization” will shape Southern labour’s future

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Annual Lecture: Recent changes in the global income distribution and their political implications

SCIS invites you to the 2023 Annual Inequality Lecture to be presented by Professor Branko Milanovic

Professor Branko Milanovic will present the 2023 lecture titled Recent changes in the global income distribution and their political implications. The online lecture will take place on September 19th, 16:30 - 18:00 (SAST)

Professor Milanovic will discuss the evolution in global inequality over the past two centuries, with a focus on the most recent 2008-2018 estimates, and will draw political implications of the important changes that are taking place in the global distribution of income. In particular, it will focus on the rise of the middle class in Asia, income stagnation of the rich countries’ middle classes, reshuffling of global income positions, and the emergence of the global plutocracy. It will discuss possible future evolution of global inequality in which the roles of India and large African countries will become increasingly important.

Branko Milanovic is a Research Professor at the Graduate Center, City University of New York (CUNY), Senior Scholar at the Stone Center on Socio-economic Inequality at CUNY, and Visiting Professor at the Institute for International Inequalities at the London School of Economics. His main area of work is income inequality, in individual countries and globally, including in pre-industrial societies.

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Renewable energy, the just transition and inequality: insights from SA’s renewables procurement

SCIS & ACF invite you to a webinar on Renewable energy, the just transition and inequality: insights from South Africa’s renewables procurement

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) in partnership with African Climate Foundation (ACF) will be hosting an online roundtable discussion on  Renewable energy, the just transition and inequality: insights from South Africa’s renewables procurement on 30 October 2023, 17:00 -18:30 (SAST)

Low- and middle-income countries across the world are facing the dilemma of needing to decarbonise and industrialise in the context of an electricity supply crisis. The transition from fossil fuels to renewable sources of energy is one of the first steps taken in any process of decarbonisation to address climate change. The energy transition is complex and holds significant economic risk. It requires strong governance and a capable state as well as coordination across government, community organisations and the private sector. This mammoth task requires the State to adopt policies that balance social, economic and climate objectives while reviewing past policies that may no longer be appropriate. This paper discusses the de-risking approach and the investment-centred approach to an energy transition, and using the case study of South Africa, argues for the necessity of an investment-centred approach to achieve a transition which supports local development and energy security. In analysing the example of South Africa’s Renewable Energy Independent Power Producers Procurement Programme (REI4P), we highlight important learnings for the energy transition, which provide a useful window into the wider carbon transition.

To hear more, register here.

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Book Launch: Paperless

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies in partnership with Jacana Media invite you to the launch of Paperless - a novel by Buntu Siwisa on 21 Nov '23

Paperless is an émigré, coming-of-age, campus novel with a dash of espionage. It centres on Luzuko Goba, a South African doctoral student at Oxford University. Set almost entirely in Oxford at the turn of the twenty-first century, Luzuko rides three Oxfords – white Oxford, black Oxford, and the underbelly of illegal Oxford.

He navigates the worlds of Africans in Oxford – the illegal immigrants, the undocumented, and the students. Mired in these worlds, he also grapples with his own personal struggles. The writing of his debut novel is a failure. His thesis is not taking shape. His romantic relationship has ended. And then he must also figure out the meaning of his relationship with his political exile father who has just died, a man he had only seen once in his life.

Siwisa captures the tensions between the relentless immigrants’ pursuit of a secure and comfortable livelihood, the complexities of migration, and how you find home in a place set on highlighting why you don’t belong. The novel explores identity and belonging against the canvass of racism and class. It delves deeper into finding oneself in personal and political spaces that collapse into one. It also takes up on the meaning of exile and exilic consciousness against shifting interpretations of African democracies.

This is a book about migrants, legal and illegal, out of time, out of place, on the wrong side of the UK’s department of immigration. Embark on a journey that is anything but straight through these individuals united by their 'paperless' status.

Dr Buntu Siwisa is a Senior Researcher at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies. With a D. Phil. In Politics and International Relations from the University of Oxford (St. Peter’s College), he has varied work experiences in academia (Politics and International relations), civil service (Foreign relations in southern Africa), and civil society (Peace and Security in Africa; conflict analysis and management).

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The JET P, JET IP and Implementation Plan in South Africa: Implications for inequality and workers

The JET P, JET IP and Implementation Plan in South Africa: Implications for inequality and workers session will take place on the sidelines of COP28. 

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) at Wits University and the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) invite you to their co-hosted session titled The JET P, JET IP and Implementation Plan in South Africa: Implications for inequality and workers happening on the sidelines of COP28. Join researchers Katrina Lehmann-Grube (SCIS), Boitumelo Molete (COSATU), Brian Kamanzi, Trade Unions for Energy Democracy (TUED) and Lebogang Mulaisi, Presidential Climate Commission (PCC) who will be in conversation.

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Sovereign Debt Seminar

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies' Public Economy Project (PEP) invite you to a webinar on Sovereign Debt on 7 Dec '23, 14:30 - 16:30 (SAST)

Join our upcoming seminar to learn about Sub-Saharan Africa's escalating public debt crisis. Explore the impact of global economic shifts and the COVID-19 pandemic on the
region's debt levels, now nearing 60% of GDP. Discover how African nations are navigating these challenges amidst limited revenue-generating capabilities, rising debt service
costs, and volatile commodity markets. Engage in critical discussions on strategies for sustainable debt management and economic resilience. In conversation will be Leslie Mensah, Economist/Research Fellow, Institute for Fiscal Studies (Ghana),  Bernard Njiri, Senior Research Analyst, Institute of Public Finance (Kenya) and Rashaad Amra, Visiting Researcher, Public Economy Project (South Africa).

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Intersectional Development Research Learning Series

SCIS invites you to a webinar, Promoting Intersectional Development Research Learning Series, on 25 April '24 at 2 pm SAST

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) invites you to the first of three sessions in the Intersectional Development Research Learning Series. The first session, Promoting Intersectional Development Research, will take place on 25 April 2024.  The webinar will start at 2 pm SAST/8 am ET. 

The main aim of the session is to understand intersectionality, its origins, and its relevance for addressing the challenges that developing countries in the global South face. 

Background
In 2023, SCIS in collaboration with Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), undertook research to understand intersectionality and its relevance in global South contexts. The project resulted in eight case study reports that illustrated the diverse application of intersectional approaches in multiple countries across the global South.

Promoting Intersectional Development Research Learning Series is an opportunity to learn and share knowledge about the opportunities and challenges of integrating intersectionality in development research to address persistent inequalities around the world. 

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Gaza as Epicenter: An Alternative Reading

SCIS & WISER invite you to join us for a special online seminar of the African Political Economy Seminar with Tareq Baconi on 14 May, 18:00 - 19:30 (SAST)

Tareq Baconi will present an online seminar titled Gaza as Epicenter: An Alternative Reading. Baconi is Board President of Al-Shabaka: The Palestinian Policy Network. He serves as book review editor for the Journal of Palestine Studies. Currently, Tareq is working on a book about decolonization in the 21st century. He is also the author of Hamas Contained: The Rise and Pacification of Palestinian Resistance (Stanford University Press, 2018). His writing has appeared in the London Review of Books, the New York Review of Books, the New York Times, the Washington Post, among others. Previously, Tareq served as a senior analyst for Israel/ Palestine at the International Crisis Group based in Ramallah.

The seminar will proceed on the basis that all participants have read the articles hyperlinked below:

• An Inevitable Rupture: Al-Aqsa Flood and the End of Partition | https://al-shabaka.org/commentaries/an-inevitable-rupture-al-aqsa-flood-and-the-end-of-partition/
• What Was Hamas Thinking? | https://foreignpolicy.com/2023/11/22/hamas-gaza-israel-netanyahu-palestine-apartheid-containment-resistance
• Gaza Without Pretenses | https://www.nybooks.com/online/2023/10/11/gaza-without-pretenses/

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Technological Upgrading and Educational Composition of the Workforce

SCIS invites you to a hybrid seminar with Dev Nathan titled Technological Upgrading and Educational Composition of the Workforce on 17 May, 09:00 -10:30 (SAST)

In the global production system, there is a division of labour, based on a division of knowledge between lead (headquarter) firms and contract suppliers. While lead firms have, so far, largely been located in the Global North, some countries of the Global South have advanced along to progress from supplier to headquarter firms. This paper studies the manner in which the skill requirement or educational composition of the workforce changes in this process of technological advancement. The countries studied are China, India, and South Korea with the USA taken as the comparator country. The paper starts with the overall trajectory of technological development in these countries. It then analyses the ways in which firm-level R&D, taken as the indicator and driver of firms’ technology development strategies, is related to changes in productivity and the educational composition of the workforce. The paper shows that there is a broad positive correlation between the three variables, R&D investment, labour productivity and educational composition of the workforce. It points to the need to advance this analysis to look at other workforce indicators, such as the gender composition, wages, the quality of employment and the nature of supervision. At a methodological level, the paper argues that it is necessary to look at the role of a firm within a GVC to understand the composition of its workforce.   

Professor Dev Nathan is a 2023/2024 Cameron Schrier Equality Fellow at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS). He is also with the Institute for Human Development, Delhi, and a Visiting Scholar, The New School for Social Research, New York. Research Director at GenDev Centre, Gurgaon, he is  Series Co-editor of Development Trajectories in Global Value Chains, Cambridge University Press.

Just Out: Reverse Subsidies in Global Monopsony Capitalism. 2022 
Witch Hunts: Culture, Patriarchy and Structural Transformation,  2020 
GVCs and Development in Asia: Challenges of Upgrading and Innovation, 2018
Labour in Global Value Chains in Asia, 2016

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The Role of Fiscal Think Tanks

The Public Economy Project at SCIS invites you to The Role of Fiscal Think Tanks seminar on 16 May, 15:00 - 17:00 (SAST).

The Public Economy Project at the Southern Centre for Inequality Studies invites you to the launch of their Working Paper, The Role of Fiscal Think Tanks in Fiscal Policy: Global patterns and lessons for South Africa. The launch seminar titled the Role of Fiscal Think Tanks, will be looking at the vital role of fiscal think tanks in today's turbulent fiscal and democratic landscapes. Drawing from Philipp Krause's paper on Fiscal Institutions, we will discuss some important institutional differences that shape fiscal policymaking and how those differences affect a think tank’s role. Lastly, we will consider the most important types of fiscal think tanks that have emerged, with reference to some country examples, and make some suggestions for implications for South Africa. 

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Seminar: Digital Technologies Reshaping Inequalities in the Post-Apartheid Housing Market

SCIS invites you to Julien Migozzi's seminar, Segregation “bit by bit”: Digital Technologies Reshaping Inequalities in the Post-Apartheid Housing Market

Urban Studies Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Oxford University, Julien Migozzi, will present a seminar titled Segregation “bit by bit”: Digital Technologies Reshaping Inequalities in the Post-Apartheid Housing Market on 24 May 2024, 09:00 10:30 (SAST). 

Migozzi will discuss how the digitalisation of the housing market reshapes urban segregation and social stratification in post-apartheid South Africa. I use a mixed-method framework that weaves in-depth fieldwork with the analysis of property sales and census data in the Cape Town metro area. I first unpack how the housing market, previously structured upon the racial categorization of people and places, was reconfigured as a flow of data through the adoption of digital technologies, especially credit scoring, allowing the real-time and automated classification of home seekers. I then explore how the spatial evolution of housing prices and mortgage lending intersect with and affect patterns of urban segregation. Finally, I demonstrate how in the context of racialized indebtedness and enduring segregation, the roll-out of digital technologies enabled a selective financialization of housing that operates “bit by bit” through the use of credit scores: on the one hand, I examine how lending practises remain highly selective, tracing mortgage securitization at the neighbourhood level; on the other, I situate how digital platforms allowed the unprecedented rise of institutional investors and enabled the surge of the rental market. This market shift shapes contemporary patterns of urban change while consolidating housing wealth inequalities engineered by racial capitalism. Finally, I discuss how the digital re-mediation of the market encourages us to re-think the contemporary mechanisms of segregation in the era of algorithmic sorting and rentier capitalism

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Onward To Liberation: Samir Amin and the Study of World Historical Capitalism

SCIS invites you to a seminar titled Onward To Liberation: Samir Amin and the Study of World Historical Capitalism on 31 May 2024, 09:00 - 10:30 (SAST).

You are warmly invited to a seminar by Dr Salimah Valiani titled Onward To Liberation: Samir Amin and the Study of World Historical Capitalism.

Samir Amin (1931-2018 ), Africa's preeminent radical economist, did pioneering work on a question still relevant: How to understand the world as an interconnected whole. Trade and financial liberalisation,
migration, and borderless ecological destruction have made this question increasingly apparent to the global majority in the 21st century. But as early as 1957, Samir Amin began tracing the dynamics of
world inequality in what he called accumulation on a world scale. Often referred to as a Marxist, Amin’s thinking sparked much of what would come to be known as world-systems analysis. World-systems
analysis draws from Marx’s historical materialism, and other concepts, without reifying Marx’s thought as a reading of world history.

In her paper, Valiani demonstrates that passing through Marx, eurocentric economic history, historical sociology, and international relations, the collective oeuvre of Samir Amin and his world systems interlocuteurs is eclectic theoretically and methodologically. Working through multiple disciplines, world-systems analysis employs class, surplus, race, coloniality, hegemony, and other concepts to trace world inequality from 1492, thus contributing to understanding long term social change in the service of the ongoing task of human liberation

Dr Salimah Valiani is a senior researcher at SCIS on the Climate and Inequity Research Project.

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Seminar: Older Persons, Care Needs and Social Grants

SCIS warmly invites you to a seminar with Prof Elana Moore titled Older Persons, Care Needs and Social Grants on 11 June 2024, 14:00 - 15:00 (SAST)

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) is pleased to welcome Professor Elena Moore who will discuss her latest research on Older Persons, Care Needs, and Social Grants. 

Older persons in South Africa are aided by government-funded non-contributory pensions. The seminar will draw on a recent report that tells the story of the financial lives of older person grant beneficiaries and raises questions for reviewing ageing policy and better meeting the needs of older persons. A lot of the research on the Older Persons Grant focuses on the poverty-alleviating aspects of the grant, especially at a household level. There has been little attention paid to the outcomes for older persons at an individual level, particularly in relation to their needs such as their care needs, access to health, nutrition, assistive devices etc. Policy makes the assumptions that older persons get the grant, therefore they don’t invest more on funding services, even though it is widely known that the grant is used for households not older persons alone. The report therefore examines how the older persons’ needs are being met especially in relation to the actual outcomes that are possible given the amount of money that is available. For a more detailed understanding of state financing of elder care, please read the Funding Elder Care in South Africa report alongside this report. 

About the speaker:
Professor Elena Moore is with the Department of Sociology at the University of Cape Town. She is author of Generation, Gender and Negotiating Custom in South Africa (Routledge, 2022), Divorce, Families and Emotion Work (Palgrave, 2017) and (with Chuma Himonga) Reform of Customary Marriage, Divorce and Succession in South Africa (Juta & Co. 2015), as well as numerous journal articles and book chapters. She is also a recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award 2021, University of Cape Town. Moore obtained a Wellcome Career Award, 2023-2028 to develop and grow a research programme in Family Caregiving of Older Persons In Southern Africa (www.familycaregiving.org.za) 

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Intersectionality and Grantmaking: Transforming Global Development Research

SCIS invites you to the Intersectional Development Research Learning Session titled Towards Intersectional Grantmaking, on 27 June 2024, 2:00 -3:30 pm SAST

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies warmly invites you to the second Intersectional Learning Session - Intersectionality and Grantmaking: Transforming Global Development Research. The webinar is the second in a three-part Intersectional Development Research Learning Series. The Learning Series provides an opportunity to learn and share knowledge about the opportunities and challenges of integrating intersectionality in development research to address persistent inequalities around the world.

This second Intersectional Learning Session will explore:

• The developments in development research that have led to increased interest in intersectionality
• The role of intersectionality in grantmaking 
• Best practices 
• Considerations for applying intersectional approaches at the programmatic level 
• Challenges and potential opportunities for addressing inequality and persistent power asymmetries in the global development architecture

Background
In 2023, SCIS in collaboration with Canada's International Development Research Centre (IDRC), undertook research to understand intersectionality and its relevance in global South contexts. The project resulted in eight case study reports that illustrated the diverse application of intersectional approaches in multiple countries across the global South.

Promoting Intersectional Development Research Learning Series is an opportunity to learn and share knowledge about the opportunities and challenges of integrating intersectionality in development research to address persistent inequalities around the world. 

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Sweetening the Deal: The Political Economy of Land Redistribution in South Africa’s Sugar Sector

SCIS invites you to a seminar by Alex Dyzenhaus titled Sweetening the Deal: The Political Economy of Land Redistribution in South Africa’s Sugar Sector

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) invites you to a seminar presented by Alex Dyzenhaus titled Sweetening the Deal: The Political Economy of Land Redistribution in South Africa’s Sugar Sector on 26 July 2024, 13:00 - 14:30 (SAST).  

Abstract:
Under what conditions do land transfers occur under land reform? Theories of land redistribution focus on demand-side explanations for land transfers where the state allocates land in exchange for support from voters or rural elites. In this article, I argue that land transfers under market land redistribution are driven by supply-side characteristics of landholders. Using the case of South Africa’s sugar sector, I show that landholders chose to sell their land via redistribution when they had the economic incentive to preserve existing state-support frameworks and had collective capacity from centralized institutions. To understand when and why land redistribution occurs, one must pay attention to the landholders’ relationship to the state and their internal sectoral organization. In some cases, landholders may have an incentive to redistribute their land.

About the speaker:
Alex Dyzenhaus is a SSHRC Postdoctoral Fellow in Political Science at the University of Toronto and a Fellow in Democracy and Development at the Mandela School at the University of Cape Town. His research focuses on the political economy of land reform in South Africa and Kenya. His current project looks at how market forces interact with political imperatives to redistribute land and how existing institutions and firms that govern agriculture set parameters that dictate how and when land redistribution occurs. 

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SCIS Annual Inequality Lecture | The Political Economy of Global Inequality: A Drama in Three Parts

SCIS invites you to the Inequality Lecture to be presented by Prof Sanjay G. Reddy titled The Political Economy of Global Inequality: A Drama in Three Parts

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies invites you to its Annual Inequality Lecture. Professor Sanjay G. Reddy will present the 2024 lecture titled The Political Economy of Global Inequality: A Drama in Three Parts. This hybrid event will occur on 15 August 2024, 16:30 - 18:00 (SAST), at the Parktown Management Campus, 2 St David's Place, Parktown, Johannesburg, 2193

More details to follow! 

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The Problem of Climate Change and The Analogy of Development

SCIS invites you to a seminar with Benjamin H. Bradlow titled The Problem of Climate Change and the Analogy of Development on 30 July 2024, 12:30 - 14:00 (SAST)

The Southern Centre for Inequality Studies (SCIS) invites you to a seminar with Benjamin H. Bradlow titled The Problem of Climate Change and the Analogy of Development on 30 July 2024, 12:30 - 14:00 (SAST).  

Abstract:
A comparative sociological approach to the problem of mitigating climate change requires reaching for historical analogy of comparison cases that highlight the social basis for switching points in large scale development trajectories. I argue that late industrializing developmental “catch-up” is such an analogy that can help illustrate the sociological foundations of when and why these switching points yield dramatic shifts in developmental outcomes. I proceed to analyze what carbon-based economic growth in the authoritarian East Asian “tigers” (South Korea, Taiwan, Japan) and democratic cases in Brazil and India over the past half century tell us about the possibilities for a transition away from carbon-based economic growth. In doing so, I present tentative findings from ongoing field-based research in the automotive sector in Brazil and South Africa, and each country’s efforts to transition from gas-powered to electric battery-powered vehicles.

About the speaker:
Benjamin H. Bradlow is an Assistant Professor of Sociology and International Affairs at Princeton University, jointly appointed in the School of Public and International Affairs and Department of Sociology. He is a CIFAR Global Azrieli Scholar (2024-2026), in the research program on "Humanity's Urban Future." Bradlow's research makes connections between climate change, urbanization, industrial change, and the political challenges to democracy that confront societies across the globe.

His first book, Urban Power: Democracy and Inequality in São Paulo and Johannesburg, will be published in October 2024 with Princeton University Press (Princeton Studies in Global and Comparative Sociology). Bradlow compares the divergent politics of distributing urban public goods — housing, sanitation, and transportation — in two mega-cities after transitions to democracy: São Paulo, Brazil, and Johannesburg, South Africa. He is currently researching a new comparative book project that examines industrial transitions from carbon in the Global South. This work explores how middle-income countries with export-oriented, internal combustion engine automobile manufacturing sectors are navigating a rich world transition to electric vehicles.

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