Social capital theorists have shown that inequality arises in part because some people enjoy larger, more supportive or otherwise more useful networks. But why do some people have better networks than others? Unanticipated Gains argues that the answer lies less in people's deliberate "networking" than in the institutional conditions of the colleges, firms, gyms, and other organizations in which they happen to participate routinely. The book introduces a model of social inequality that takes seriously the embeddedness of networks in formal organizations, proposing that what people gain from their connections depends on where those connections are formed and sustained. It studies an unlikely case: the experiences of mothers whose children were enrolled in New York City childcare centers. As a result of the routine practices and institutional conditions of the centers-from the structure of their parents' associations, to apparently innocuous rules such as pick-up and drop-off times--many of these mothers dramatically increased their social capital and measurably improved their wellbeing. Yet how much they gained depended on how their centers were organized. The daycare centers also brokered connections to other people and organizations, affecting not only the size of mothers' networks but also the resources available through them. Social inequality then arises not merely out of differences in skills or deliberate investments - as the conventional social scientific and political wisdom would have it - but also out of the differences in the routine organizations in which people belong. In addition to childcare centers, Small also identifies the social forces at work in many other organizations, including beauty salons, bath houses, gyms, and churches.

Cognisant of the globalising context in which we find ourselves, as intellectuals we ought to ensure relevance in what we teach. This orientation, that prizes pedagogic relevance, has been raised as an objection to the decolonial call, being – at times – used to resist democratic change in the South African University. The contributions in this volume highlight the implications of the global relevance discourse through revealing the impact of decontextualised curricula.

Similarly, institutional democratisation and decolonisation ought not to be a turn to fundamentalist positions that recreate the essentialisms resisted through calls for decolonisation. As a critical response to such resistance to democratisation, this book showcases how decolonisation protects the constitutionally enshrined ideal of academic freedom and the freedom of scientific research. We argue that this framing of decoloniality should not be used to protect interests that seek to undermine the transformation of higher education. Concurrently, however, it is critical of decolonial positions that are essentialist and narrow in their manifestation and articulation.

Decolonisation as Democratisation suggests what is intended by a curriculum revisionist agenda that prizes decolonisation through bringing together academics working in South Africa and the global academy. This collaborative approach aims to facilitate critical reflexivity in our curriculum reform strategies while developing pragmatic solutions to current calls for decolonisation.

South Africa is a rapidly urbanising society. Over 60% of the population lives in urban areas and this will rise to more than 70% by 2030. However, it is also a society with a long history of labour migration, rural home-making and urban economic and residential insecurity. Thus, while the formal institutional systems of migrant labour and the hated pass laws were dismantled after apartheid, a large portion of the South African population remains double-rooted in the sense that they have an urban place of residence and access to a rural homestead to which they periodically return and often eventually retire. This reality, which continues to have profound impacts on social cohesion, family life, gender relations, household investment, settlement dynamic and political identity formation, is the main focus of this book.

Migrant Labour after Apartheid focuses on internal migrants and migration, rather than cross border migration into South Africa. It cautions against a linear narrative of change and urban transition.

The book is divided into two parts. The first half investigates urbanisation processes from the perspective of internal migration. Several of the chapters make use of recently available survey data collected in a national longitudinal study to describe patterns and trends in labour migration, the economic returns to migration, and the links between the migration of adults and the often-ignored migration of children. The last three chapters of this section shine a spotlight on conditions of migrant workers in destination areas by focusing on Marikana and mining on the platinum belt. The second half of the book explores the double rootedness of migrants through the lens of the rural hinterland from which migration often occurs. The chapters here focus on the Eastern Cape as a case study of a region from which (particularly longer-distance) labour migration has been very common.

The contributions describe the limited opportunities for livelihood strategies in the countryside, which encourage outmigration, but also note the accelerated rates of household investment, especially in the built environment in the former homelands.

Poverty isn’t always a jumble of appalling statistics. Sometimes there are names, faces and stories to the numbers. It’s a cousin who’s finished high school but doesn’t have enough money to job hunt. It’s a colleague whose hand to mouth living still only gets her through half the month because her salary is just not enough. It’s a grandfather who worked for decades and got a retirement package so paltry he can’t pay his monthly bills.

When people you know and love are behind the data of impoverishment, it can be hard to determine how to help. It can be even harder to settle on how much to help without compromising on your own quality of life.

In We Need More Tables, Norma Young provides guidance on how to find a balance between alleviating poverty and yet maintaining a measure of the privilege one may have been born with. By exploring assumptions such as the myth of hard work and the fallacy of meritocracy, as well as historical methodologies of philanthropy in Africa, and suggesting the practice of impactful altruism – such as paying a living wage, building a solidarity economy or choosing regenerative investing – she shares an outline of how those with privilege can play a role in social justice.

Drawing on indigenous knowledge – fables, proverbs and learnings from African academics – We Need More Tables presents a framework of what is required to bring more of our communities to participate at the tables where decisions are made.

Norma Young’s insightful book provides us with realistic and practical ways of moving towards eradicating poverty in South Africa.

Is globalization making our world more equal, or less? Proponents of globalization argue that it is helping and that in a competitive world, no one can afford to discriminate except on the basis of skills. Opponents counter that globalization does nothing but provide a meritocratic patina on a consistently unequal distribution of opportunity. Yet, despite the often deafening volume of the debate, there is surprisingly little empirical work available on the extent to which the process of globalization over the past quarter century has had any effect on discrimination. Tackling this challenge, Discrimination in an Unequal World explores the relationship between discrimination and unequal outcomes in the appropriate geographical and historical context. Noting how each society tends to see its particular version of discrimination as universal and obvious, the editors expand their set of cases to include a broad variety of social relations and practices. However, since methods differ and are often designed for particular national circumstances, they set the much more ambitious and practical goal of establishing a base with which different forms of discrimination across the world can be compared. Deriving from a broad array of methods, including statistical analyses, role-playing games, and audit studies, the book draws many important lessons on the new means by which the world creates social hierarchies, the democratization of inequality, and the disappearance of traditional categories.

At 7:30 a.m. on June 16, 1944, George Junius Stinney Jr. was escorted by four guards to the death chamber. Wearing socks but no shoes, the 14-year-old Black boy walked with his Bible tucked under his arm. The guards strapped his slight, five-foot-one-inch frame into the electric chair. His small size made it difficult to affix the electrode to his right leg and the face mask, which was clearly too large, fell to the floor when the executioner flipped the switch. That day, George Stinney became, and today remains, the youngest person executed in the United States during the twentieth century.How was it possible, even in Jim Crow South Carolina, for a child to be convicted, sentenced to death, and executed based on circumstantial evidence in a trial that lasted only a few hours? Through extensive archival research and interviews with Stinney's contemporaries-men and women alive today who still carry distinctive memories of the events that rocked the small town of Alcolu and the entire state-Eli Faber pieces together the chain of events that led to this tragic injustice. The first book to fully explore the events leading to Stinney's death, The Child in the Electric Chair offers a compelling narrative with a meticulously researched analysis of the world in which Stinney lived-the era of lynching, segregation, and racist assumptions about Black Americans. Faber explains how a systemically racist system, paired with the personal ambitions of powerful individuals, turned a blind eye to human decency and one of the basic tenets of the American legal system that individuals are innocent until proven guilty. As society continues to grapple with the legacies of racial injustice, the story of George Stinney remains one that can teach us lessons about our collective past and present. By ably placing the Stinney case into a larger context, Faber reveals how this case is not just a travesty of justice locked in the era of the Jim Crow South but rather one that continues to resonate in our own time. A foreword is provided by Carol Berkin, Presidential Professor of History Emerita at Baruch College at the City University of New York and author of several books including Civil War Wives: The Lives and Times of Angelina Grimke Weld, Varina Howell Davis, and Julia Dent Grant.

From a star astrophysicist, a journey into the world of particle physics and the cosmos -- and a call for more just, inclusive practice of science.

Science, like most fields, is set up for men to succeed, and is rife with racism, sexism, and shortsightedness as a result. But as Dr. Chanda Prescod-Weinstein makes brilliantly clear, we all have a right to know the night sky. One of the leading physicists of her generation, she is also one of the fewer than one hundred Black women to earn a PhD in physics. You will enjoy -- and share -- her love for physics, from the Standard Model of Particle Physics and what lies beyond it, to the physics of melanin in skin, to the latest theories of dark matter -- all with a new spin and rhythm informed by pop culture, hip hop, politics, and Star Trek.

This vision of the cosmos is vibrant, inclusive and buoyantly non-traditional. By welcoming the insights of those who have been left out for too long, we expand our understanding of the universe and our place in it.

The Disordered Cosmos is a vision for a world without prejudice that allows everyone to view the wonders of the universe through the same starry eyes.

“A brilliant biography that will transform your understanding of this young, charismatic leader” — Joseph Nhini, BooksLive, Sunday Times

“Deeply thought-provoking” — Tyrone August, Cape Times

“Makes a good job of weaving together a number of strands that make the totality of the powerful persona Biko became ... Sheds new light on more than just Biko” — Sam Mkokeli, Business Day

Interest in the iconic Steve Biko has strongly revived, as the current generation of activists calls on his legacy and thoughts. Biko is cited and disputed particularly in the #RhodesMustFall and decolonisation movements. This comprehensive biography, shortlisted for the Alan Paton award, explores Biko's life, the people and ideas that shaped him, and his part in Black Consciousness and the struggle. Updated in an affordable new edition, Biko: A Biography presents a new generation with nuanced insights into the life and thought of a South African hero.

Dana Snyman sien dinge op sy eiesoortige, aweregse manier. In deel een is hy op pad saam met die TV-span van Op pad met Dana. Soos hulle die land deurkruis op soek na stories, beleef Dana nie net die lief en leed van die mense met wie hy gesels nie, maar ook sy eie innerlike reis. Hy kom huistoe met 'n optelhond -- en met 'n nuwe manier van kyk. In deel twee kyk hy rugby. In kroee, township-huisies, saam met oom Frik du Preez en Joost van der Westhuizen. Snaaks, skerp en onthutsend eerlik.

Until she was seven years old, Anna Rosenburg was happy. She lived a simple life in a two-room flat with her devoted father. In Anna's world, there was very little to worry about - until a wealthy, highminded 'pillar of society' across the road decided that it really wasn't right for a little girl to be brought up by a poor father on his own. Telling Anna that they were going for a drive in the country, she took her away to live in a children's home. The devastation of this betrayal and the loss of regular contact with her father destroyed Anna's young world. Her unhappiness was compounded by her confusion over her own identity. What did her black skin mean? Why wasn't it the same colour as her father's? Where did she come from? Who was she really?

As negentienjarige ryloper in Spanje beland Frank Westerman toevallig in die dorpie Banyoles, waar ’n opgestopte “Kalahari-Boesman”, slegs bekend as El Negro, uitgestal word. Sy indrukke bly hom by – en wanneer hy dekades later weer van El Negro lees, die keer in ’n Franse koerant, is dit die begin van ’n ondersoeksreis wat belangrike vrae oor rasopvattings en die Westerse beskawing na vore bring. Wie was hierdie naamlose man? Wat se sy opgestopte “museumteenwoordigheid” oor Europese denke oor slawerny, rassisme en kolonialisme – en bied hy slegs ’n spieel op ’n vergange tyd, of ook op die hede?

What do Walter Sisulu, Paul Xiniwe, Bertha Mkhize and John Tengo Jabavu have in common? They were all Black South African business people, and only a few of the names of the elite who were able to build successful enterprises against all odds in industries such as agriculture, media, financial services, retail, real estate, transport, hoteliering and more during the colonial and apartheid eras.

In many cases, they were also political activists as necessitated by the oppressive conditions of the time in order to fight for equal rights to enterprise and markets. Here their stories as entrepreneurs as well as political actors are profiled, showing the inexplicable relationship between the two.

The history of Black South African enterprise pre- and post-colonially in areas like mining is also explored, showing that this was nothing alien or unexpected and instead, that oppression curtailed the majority of enterprise that was possible and blocked out competition through dispossession.