African Accountability: What Works And What Doesn't focuses on political and social aspects to assess the current state of governance and accountability in Africa. Rather than choosing an Afro-optimistic or Afro-pessimistic approach, both of which have been prominent since the start of the 21st century, this book tries to adopt a balanced, Afro-realistic view, giving credit where it is due, while also pointing out deficient areas that need improvement.

This edited volume brings to the fore cutting edge analysis on the contemporary African governance and accountability landscape by focusing on both continental institutions (including the African Peer Review Mechanism, African Charter on Democracy Elections and Governance, and the African Union) well as domestic ones (parliaments, ombudsmen and electoral commissions).

Have slums become 'cool'? More and more tourists from across the globe seem to think so as they discover favelas, ghettos, townships and barrios on leisurely visits. But while slum tourism often evokes moral outrage, critics rarely ask about what motivates this tourism, or what wider consequences and effects it initiates.

In this provocative book, Fabian Frenzel investigates the lure that slums exert on their better-off visitors, looking at the many ways in which this curious form of attraction ignites changes both in the slums themselves and on the world stage. Covering slums ranging from Rio de Janeiro to Bangkok, and multiple cities in South Africa, Kenya and India, Slumming It examines the roots and consequences of a growing phenomenon whose effects have ranged from gentrification and urban policy reform to the organization of international development and poverty alleviation.

Controversially, Frenzel argues that the rise of slum tourism has drawn attention to important global justice issues, and is far more complex than we initially acknowledged.

The renowned social scientist, professor, and bestselling author of Predictably Irrational delivers his most urgent and compelling book: an eye-opening exploration of the human side of the misinformation crisis, examining what drives otherwise rational people to adopt deeply irrational beliefs.

Misinformation affects us daily, from social media to politics and even personal relationships. Policing social media alone cannot solve the complex problem shaped by partisan politics and subjective interpretations of truth.

In Misbelief social scientist Dan Ariely explores the behaviour of 'misbelief' that leads people to distrust accepted truths and embrace conspiracy theories. Misinformation taps into something innate in all of us, regardless of political affiliation. By understanding this psychology, we can mitigate its effects. Grounded in research and Ariely's personal experience as a target of disinformation, the book analyses the psychological drivers behind adopting irrational beliefs. Ariely reveals the emotional, cognitive, personality, and social elements that drive people towards false information and mistrust.

Despite advanced AI generating convincing fake news, Ariely offers hope. Awareness of the forces fuelling misbelief makes individuals and society more resilient. Combating misbelief requires empathy, not conflict. Recognising misbelief as a human problem allows us to be part of the solution.

Social science researchers in the global South, and in South Africa particularly, utilise research methods in innovative ways in order to respond to contexts characterised by diversity, racial and political tensions, socioeconomic disparities and gender inequalities. These methods often remain undocumented – a gap that this book starts to address.

Written by experts from various methodological fields, Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences is a comprehensive collation of original essays and cutting-edge research that demonstrates the variety of novel techniques and research methods available to researchers responding to these context-bound issues. It is particularly relevant for study and research in the fields of applied psychology, sociology, ethnography, biography and anthropology. In addition to their unique combination of conceptual and application issues, the chapters also include discussions on ethical considerations relevant to the method in similar global South contexts.

Transforming Research Methods in the Social Sciences has much to offer to researchers, professionals and others involved in social science research both locally and internationally.

Sociopath: A Memoir is at once a jaw-dropping tale of a life lived on the edge of the law, and a moving account of one woman's battle to gain a deeper understanding of people who, like her, are sociopaths.

Ever since she was a small child, Patric Gagne knew she was different. Although she felt intense love for her family and her best friend, David, these connections were never enough to make her be 'good', or to reduce her feelings of apathy and frustration. As she grew older, her behaviour escalated from petty theft through to breaking and entering, stalking, and worse . . .

As an adult, Patric realized that she was a sociopath. Although she instantly connected with the official descriptions of sociopathy, she also knew they didn't tell the full story: she had a plan for her life, had nurtured close relationships and was doing her best (most of the time) to avoid harming others.

While her darker impulses warred against her attempts to live a settled, loving life with her partner, Patric began to wonder - was there a way for sociopaths to integrate happily into society? And could she find it before her own behaviour went a step too far?

South Africa’s social landscape is disfigured by poverty, inequality and mass unemployment. Poverty in South Africa: Past and Present argues that it is impossible to think coherently or constructively about poverty, and the challenge it poses, without a clear understanding of its origins, its long-term development, and it’s changing character over time. This historical overview seeks to show how poverty in the past has shaped poverty in the present. Colin Bundy traces the lasting scars left on the face of South African poverty by colonial dispossession, coerced labour and segregation; and by a capitalist system distinctive for its reliance on cheap, right-less black labour. While the exclusion of the poor occurs in very many countries, in South Africa it has a distinctive extra dimension. Here, poverty has been profoundly racialised by law, by social practice, and by prejudice. He shows that the ‘solution’ to the ‘poor white question’ in the 1920s and ’30s had profound and lasting implications for black poverty. After an analysis of urban and rural poverty prior to 1948, he describes the impact of apartheid policies and social engineering on poverty. Over four decades, apartheid reshaped the geography and demography of poverty. This pocket history concludes with two chapters that assess the policies and thinking of the ANC government in its responses to poverty. One describes the remarkable story of the social security programme developed by the ANC in government since 1994, and finds that cash transfers – pensions and grants – have been the most effective mechanism of redistribution used by the ANC, even though the party remains edgy and anxious about a ‘culture of entitlement’. A final chapter reviews the distribution and dimensions of contemporary poverty, inequality and unemployment, and considers available policy options – and their shortcomings.

"So here I am, at a psychiatric hospital, looking for myself in a building I’ve never been in before. A few nights ago, I was ready to rid myself of myself. I still am, only, in a different way. This time, I want to do away with what I hope will soon be my former self. I don’t know what is wrong with me, I never have. All I know is that my head is clouded with loud voices screaming in different frequencies; none of them making sense. With only a stony face to hide it all behind, and a pained smile to offer my friends and colleagues."

Patient 12A is Lesedi Molefi’s absorbing memoir, reflecting on his time spent in a psychiatric clinic in 2016. With vulnerability and candour, Lesedi reflects on the moments, large and small, that led him here. It is at once a personal history, an observation of how childhood experiences can have a profound effect on the adults we become, and a commentary on how mental illness remains a difficult conversation in black families.

But more than anything, Patient 12A is Lesedi’s attempt to filter out the noise in his head to find the truth, however uncomfortable that may be.

It's time to fight back.

Each day, more South Africans are targeted, labelled, and hounded out of society for expressing their opinions - ordinary opinions that just a few years ago were accepted as rational common sense. Have you been "cancelled" by an online mob that won't stop harassing you until you're fired from your job? Helen Zille almost was - but she survived by fighting back. In #StayWoke: Go Broke, the bestselling author and defining South African political figure explains why the woke Left constitutes a greater threat to South Africa's future than the populist Right does.

Now more than ever, liberals must strengthen their spines and fight for their values - or be eviscerated in the Culture Wars raging across the English-speaking world. If you're looking for an incisive, indispensable survival guide through this tumultuous period of South African history, then #StayWoke: Go Broke is for you.

With three bestselling books published, Khaya Dlanga is one of South Africa’s favourite authors. His ability to write candidly and authentically about himself and his world has resonated with readers from all walks of life.

In March 2020 Khaya found himself bereaved, alone and facing an indefinite lockdown as a result of COVID-19. Like most of us, he turned to social media to maintain some human connection and his followers came through and kept him going. It’s The Answers For Me is the result of Khaya’s ongoing Q&A interactions with his followers on Instagram. It’s evidence of the genuine communities that are formed on social media: intensely human, at times strange and shocking, sometimes touching and often really funny. And it’s a record of a nation going through the most bizarre (and longest) year in recent history.

Khaya’s enviable gift for storytelling makes people want to hear his stories and also to trust him with theirs. From the secrets our parents think they keep from us to the real reasons we stay in relationships, and venturing into many other everyday issues and situations, It’s the answers for me captures our collective mgowo.

In 1973 the trade union movement was both racially and regionally divided. It virtually excluded African workers, and in many cases unions were led by cautious and paternalistic leaders, long schooled in avoiding confrontation with either the state or employers. Then widespread strikes erupted in Durban where hundreds of thousands of workers downed tools in support of wage demands. It was a militant explosion unprecedented since the apartheid government had crushed and outlawed mass demonstrations against segregation and 'whites-only' rule. And it provided the impetus for the next decade and a half of trade union organisation, which succeeded in uniting workers on a largely non-racial basis, dominated by the slogan 'one industry one union'.

Maverick Insider is an anecdotal, insider's account of the transformation during this period in the textile, clothing and leather worker sectors. It focuses on the outlooks of leadership groups in different parts of that industry and their efforts to influence the nature of the amalgamation of six unions to form the Southern African Clothing and Textile Workers' Union (SACTWU), one of the three largest unions of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU). It traces the interaction between union leadership and both political parties and community organisations dedicated to making the country ungovernable, as well as those who were determined to stamp out such calls. It details struggles to unite workers across political divides in the same union organisation and to assert an independent working-class point of view in a period of growing African nationalism. It details the traumatic events on the road to the so-called peaceful miracle that created a rainbow nation but left 22 000 South Africans dead in the process.

And it is the story of a team of people who set out to change the world and formed an unshakeable bond in the process.

Navigating motherhood from the age of 18, Kim Stephens shelved her inner journo and embraced a life of media sales and sports marketing, working with some of the biggest sports brands globally, and locally, whilst pursuing her own ultra-running ambitions.

Arguing vehemently against the possibility that she was running from her own truth, Covid-19 wiped out Kim’s possibilities for continued escape. After three children, two divorces and a gradual sexual awakening, Kim found herself at 40-something virtually unemployed, with all the time in the world to write, sip gin and study a general response to one of the world’s most draconian lockdowns. Her humorous observations of middle-class South African behaviour through the various levels of lockdown earned her a certain notoriety and a degree of viral success, and with that the courage to put it all into a book.

Hold the Line tells the story of teenage pregnancy, the situational blindness of white South Africa, the disappointment of divorce and the deep joy found through true awakening. Stitched together with the lockdown writing that Kim penned for a growing base of followers, she shares a more in-depth life story with her usual candid self-deprecation.

Written to rattle a few truths from within its readers, Hold the Line ends ironically as the world begins to follow a potential third World War via TikTok.

In his first work of nonfiction since The Innocent Man, #1 bestselling author John Grisham and Centurion Ministries Founder Jim McCloskey share ten harrowing true stories of wrongful convictions. Impeccably researched and grippingly told, Framed offers an inside look at the victims of the United States criminal justice system

In the aftermath of terrible crimes, the public demand immediate justice. Police and prosecutors rush to quickly close the case. But in Framed, John Grisham and Jim McCloskey unpick the reality. Ten wrongful conviction cases. Twenty-one innocent people. Ten stories with a truth more shocking than fiction.

Joe Bryan suffered the unbearable tragedy of his wife's murder, only to be tried and found guilty of the crime himself - despite being 120 miles away at the time it was committed. Clarence Brandley spent nine years on Death Row, coming to within six days of execution, before new evidence cleared him of all charges. And in the case of the Norfolk Four, police and prosecutors continued to arrest innocent people until not one but four men were behind bars.

Impeccably researched and told with page-turning conviction, in Framed, these cases are finally laid bare. John Grisham, the master of the legal thriller, teams up with Jim McCloskey, the founder of the first US organisation dedicated to exonerating innocent people, to tell ten gripping and shocking true stories that shine an astonishing light on miscarriages of justice.

Framed is the story of how truth can prevail and how freedom can be won when all seems lost and the deck is stacked against you.

All the cases in this book are simply extraordinary. And all are true.

Despite two-and-a-half decades of black majority rule after 1994, much of South African higher education in the area of humanities continues to embrace European models and paradigms. This is despite concepts such as Africanisation, indigenisation and decolonisation of the curriculum having become buzzwords, especially after the #MustFall campaigns, student-led protests from 2015.

This book argues that, beyond the use of internally constructed strategies to foster curriculum transformation in South Africa, it is important to draw lessons from the curriculum transformation efforts of other African countries and African-American studies in the United States (US).

The end of colonialism in Africa from the 1950s marked the most important era in curriculum transformation efforts in African higher education, evident in the rise of leading decolonial schools: the Ibadan School of History, the Dar es Salaam School of Political Economy and the Dakar School of Culture. These centres used rigorous research methods such as nationalist historiography and oral sources to challenge Eurocentric epistemologies. African-American studies emerged in the US from the 1920s to debunk notions of white superiority and challenge racist ideas and structures in international relations. The two important schools of this scholarship were the Atlanta School of Sociology and the Howard School of International Affairs.

Holding My Breath is a candid, heart-breaking and very funny memoir of life in one of Johannesburg’s busiest emergency rooms. Biccard’s warmth and humanity shine through the often harrowing tale, creating an unputdownable, uplifting and inspiring book.

The first customer today reports that, the previous night, his right nipple had moved away from its usual location. He noticed its absence when he looked in the mirror and later found it in his armpit.

‘Wow,’ I say with a slight frown. I have never heard of a migrating nipple before. ‘Let’s have a look.’ I slide the door shut and motion to him to pull his T-shirt off.

‘Oh, it has moved back now,’ he says.

A watercolour journey through the experiences of the forest folk during the pandemic.

This book introduces a series of characters, each with a personal struggle, often presented with a humoristic twist, and how they have dealt with it during a particularly trying time. The characters, although fictional, capture the struggles of many, even those who attempt to conceal theirs.

The overall theme is that we are all united in our struggles and challenges. The artworks are authentic, and although the pages were edited to blend with the text, the watercolour is unedited. The various textures and techniques match the characters’ personalities. The book has a distinctly South African flavour with international appeal.

George Bizos is one of a distinguished group of human rights lawyers who in the dark days of apartheid sought to uncover the state's role in eliminating its opponents.

Some, like Biko, Timol and Aggett, were arrested and died in detention, while others, like Matthew Goniwe, were abducted and killed. As counsel for the families of the deceased, George Bizos was centrally involved in many of the inquests following these high-profile deaths.

He is thus well placed to tell the story of the great courtroom dramas in which, with devastating skill, he and his colleagues pared away the tissue of lies protecting the security forces and the state functionaries—only to be rewarded with the invariable finding that there was 'no one to blame'.

The perfect match. Or so she thinks. Her warmth and empathy. His charisma and ambition. Yet, Cathy feels safer teaching battle-scarred gangsters in a prison classroom than at home with her own partner.

By day she walks on eggshells. At night she sleeps on the backseat of her car. Her safe place is an all-night roadhouse; her best friend, her journal. The slow boil intensifies until, one day, Cathy finds her grandmother’s armoire smashed to pieces in her bedroom, a hammer on the floor, her life in splinters beside it.

Part memoir, part inspiration, Boiling A Frog Slowly is unflinching in its confrontation of abuse and utterly courageous in its portrayal of redemption.

Black tax is not so much about money as it is about boundaries: there is a mental and emotional price we pay when dealing with the complex issues relating to black tax and its effect on our relationships with our families and with money itself. Helping others is commendable, but where does one draw the line between healthy helping and standing in the way of the financial independence of those on the receiving end of black tax?

In ten relatable stories that range from absent fathers to siblings’ expectations, self-leadership coach Ndumi Hadebe explores the boundary issues that lead to financial and emotional burdens for those struggling with black tax, as well as the normalised behaviours, notions and societal constructs that will keep you spinning in the washing machine of black tax if you don’t explore solutions to it.

Drawing on particular themes in each story, Ndumi will show you how to tackle your black tax in a way that is peaceful and non-threatening to your relationships with loved ones. She also opens up about her own struggle with boundaries and reflects on the ways that this has impacted her life.

Handle Black Tax Like a Pro is a helpful guide that will provide you with a roadmap to stronger relatiovnships, better finances and overall well-being.

The gripping and shocking story of three generations of the Sackler family and their roles in the stories of Valium and Oxycontin, by the prize-winning, bestselling author of Say Nothing.

The Sackler name adorns the walls of many storied institutions – Harvard; the Metropolitan Museum of Art; Oxford; the Louvre. They are one of the richest families in the world, known for their lavish donations in the arts and the sciences. The source of the family fortune was vague, however, until it emerged that the Sacklers were responsible for making and marketing Oxycontin, a blockbuster painkiller that was a catalyst for the opioid crisis-an international epidemic of drug addiction which has killed nearly half a million people.

In this masterpiece of narrative reporting and writing, Patrick Radden Keefe exhaustively documents the jaw-dropping and ferociously compelling reality. Empire of Pain is the story of a dynasty: a parable of 21st century greed.

Die daggaplant (Cannabis sativa) word al vir duisende jare gebruik. Dit is, inderdaad, ’n baie nuttige plant om materiaal en toue mee te vervaardig. Dit is egter die bekendste vir die psigotropiese effekte van dagga se aktiewe bestanddeel, tetrahidrokannabinol (THC).

Die kwessie oor of dagga verslawend is, is nog nie heeltemal duidelik nie. Baie navorsing word gedoen om korrekte en interessante inligting vir gebruikers, hul naasbestaandes, handelaars en almal wat oor dagga wonder, beskikbaar te stel.

Hierdie handleiding bring die leser op datum met alles wat ons weet aangaande dagga. Slegs wanneer al die feite op die tafel is, is dit sinvol om ’n opinie oor hierdie wonderlike plant te waag.

Reflecting Rogue is the much anticipated and brilliant collection of experimental autobiographical essays on power, pleasure and South African culture by Professor Pumla Dineo Gqola, author of the bestelling Rape: A South African Nightmare.

In her most personal book to date, written from classic Gqola anti-racist, feminist perspectives, Reflecting Rogue delivers fourteen essays of deliciously incisive brain food, all extremely accessible to a general critical readership, without sacrificing intellectual rigour.

Lebogang Seale has written a personal and poignant account of the impact of South Africa’s failing and flailing land reform policy on ordinary people desperate for restorative justice.

One Hundred Years of Dispossession shows not only that land reform in South Africa is a criminal failure and monumental disappointment, but more than that, it is a betrayal that punishes the affected communities whose quest for justice remains denied.

Zamantungwa Khumalo is a rising star on the South African property scene. An award-winning media and content specialist, she is also a property entrepreneur who bought her first properties at age 27. Now, she wants other people to follow in her footsteps, climbing the property ladder on their way to building wealth and security.

All her passion and expertise is concentrated in this volume, which covers a range of topics vital to property ownership. She also includes interviews with leading property industry experts like Gil Sperling, Michelle Dickens, and Silindile Leseyane who is the chairperson of Sakhisizwe Property Stokvel.

This book is aimed at helping a wide range of people – women, young professionals, and also men who want to buy property but don’t quite know how to go about it – to take that first step.

As she says in her introduction: ‘My hope is that this book will help to make your property dreams come true.’

Ferial Haffajee is highly respected as one of South Africa's thought leaders and commentators. She effectively uses her media platform to raise and discuss issues pertinent to the state of the nation. In What If There Were No Whites In South Africa?, Haffajee examines our history and our present in the light of a provocative question that yields some thought-provoking analysis for the country.

From roundtable discussions with influential as well as ordinary South Africans, to research, personal thoughts and powerful anecdotes, Haffajee takes the reader through the rocky terrain of race relations in our country and grapples towards a possible way forward in terms of what it means to be South African in 2015.

Amid evictions, raids, killings, the drug trade, and fire, inner-city Johannesburg residents seek safety and a home. A grandmother struggles to keep her granddaughter as she is torn away from her. A mother seeks healing in the wake of her son’s murder. And displaced by a city’s drive for urban regeneration, a group of blind migrants try to carve out an existence.

The Blinded City recounts the history of inner-city Johannesburg from 2010 to 2019, primarily from the perspectives of the unlawful occupiers of spaces known as hijacked buildings, bad buildings or dark buildings. Tens of thousands of residents, both South African and foreign national, live in these buildings in dire conditions. This book tells the story of these sites, and the court cases around them, ones that strike at the centre of who has the right to occupy the city.

In February 2010, while Johannesburg prepared for the FIFA World Cup, the South Gauteng High Court ordered the eviction of the unlawful occupiers of an abandoned carpet factory on Saratoga Avenue and that the city’s Metropolitan Municipality provide temporary emergency accommodation for the evicted. The case, which became known as Blue Moonlight and went to the Constitutional Court, catalysed a decade of struggles over housing and eviction in Johannesburg.

The Blinded City chronicles this case, among others, and the aftermath – a tumultuous period in the city characterised by recurrent dispossessions, police and immigration operations, outbursts of xenophobic violence, and political and legal change. All through the decade, there is the backdrop of successive mayors and their attempts to ‘clean up’ the city, and the struggles of residents and urban housing activists for homes and a better life.

The interwoven narratives present a compelling mosaic of life in post-apartheid Johannesburg, one of the globe’s most infamous and vital cities.