In this posthumously published collection of poems, Michael Wessels' passionate love for and knowledge of the natural world shines through.

The poems are about life's joyful and also painful journeys, whether physical or spiritual or emotional. The poems are about encounter. And discovery. They are testaments to a life lived to the full. A life filled with deep compassion and wisdom.

Michael Wessels was Associate Professor of English at the University of the Western-Cape. His research explored new ways of reading San oral literature and the politics of indigeneity. He published more than thirty accredited articles and chapters in books in his career. He died tragically in 2018.

The Bleek and Lloyd Collection consists of the notebooks in which William Bleek and Lucy Lloyd transcribed and translated the narratives, cultural information and personal histories told to them in the 1870s by a number of /Xam informants. It represents a rare and rich record of an indigenous language and culture that no longer exists, and has exerted a fascination for anthropologists and poets alike. Yet how does one begin reading texts that are at once so compromised and so unique? Bushman Letters is an important book for it examines not only the /Xam archive, but also the critical tradition that has grown up around it and the hermeneutic principles that inform that tradition. Wessels critiques these principles and offers alternative modes of reading. He shows the problems with the approaches employed by previous critics and, in the course of his own detailed and poetic readings of a number of narratives, suggests what their interpretations have left out. The book must be described as metacritical: it is criticism about the critical tradition that has grown up around the /Xam archive and in the fields of folklore and mythology more widely. Bushman Letters addresses a curiously neglected area in the burgeoning literature on the Bleek and Lloyd Collection: the texts themselves. In doing so, the book makes a substantial contribution to the study of oral narratives in general and to the theoretical discourse that informs such studies.

Die Autoren beschreiben, wie Krankenhäuser ein besonderes Augenmerk auf stetige Innovationsprozesse legen müssen, um im zunehmenden Wettbewerb bestehen zu können. Viele Krankenhäuser generieren gezielt Wissen, um entsprechende Prozess- oder Produktinnovationen anzustoßen. Kamen früher fast nur ‚geschlossene‘ Ideenentwicklungen zum Einsatz, so vollziehen sich in der Gesundheitsbranche nun auch ‚offene‘ Innovationsprozesse, die versuchen, vorhandenes Wissen abseits der eigentlichen Krankenhausgrenzen zu erschließen und neue Erkenntnisse zu gewinnen. Ein solches Wissen wird insbesondere bei externen Anspruchsgruppen, die die Leistungen des Krankenhauses gut kennen, vermutet.

The San or Bushmen of southern Africa have exerted a fascination over generations of writers and scholars, from novelists and anarchists to ethnologists and geneticists, and also occupy a special place in the popular imagination as the First People and the contemporary remnant of spiritual and natural man. The ways in which particular groups of people from southern Africa have been traditionally categorised and positioned as objects of scrutiny by a range of academic disciplines is increasingly being contested and questioned. There is a growing awareness of the cultural, economic and genetic entanglement of the peoples of the region. This book examines how San and Khoe people are represented, by others, as well as by those who identify as San or Khoe. It interrogates the ways in which disciplines, through their methodologies and ways of authorising knowledge, not only "discover" or "reveal" knowledge but produce it in ways that involve complex and often ambiguous relationships with power structures and forms of intellectual, symbolic and cultural capital. One major trend that emerges is that the San and Khoe can no longer be seen as people of the past but have to be acknowledged as contemporary and socially situated individuals and communities who are increasingly contesting the representations which others have imposed on them. This book was originally published as two special issues of Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies.

The San or Bushmen of southern Africa have exerted a fascination over generations of writers and scholars, from novelists and anarchists to ethnologists and geneticists, and also occupy a special place in the popular imagination as the First People and the contemporary remnant of spiritual and natural man. The ways in which particular groups of people from southern Africa have been traditionally categorised and positioned as objects of scrutiny by a range of academic disciplines is increasingly being contested and questioned. There is a growing awareness of the cultural, economic and genetic entanglement of the peoples of the region. This book examines how San and Khoe people are represented, by others, as well as by those who identify as San or Khoe. It interrogates the ways in which disciplines, through their methodologies and ways of authorising knowledge, not only "discover" or "reveal" knowledge but produce it in ways that involve complex and often ambiguous relationships with power structures and forms of intellectual, symbolic and cultural capital. One major trend that emerges is that the San and Khoe can no longer be seen as people of the past but have to be acknowledged as contemporary and socially situated individuals and communities who are increasingly contesting the representations which others have imposed on them. This book was originally published as two special issues of Critical Arts: South-North Cultural and Media Studies.

They say we only use ten percent of our brains. Matt Stevennsen is about to find out how right they are as he discovers a world hidden by his own mind. He will make unlikely allies along his journey, but will he lose himself along the way?

Compelling and humane, this book reveals the lives of the 300,000 child soldiers around the world, challenging stereotypes of them as predators or a lost generation. Kidnapped or lured by the promise of food, protection, revenge, or a better life, children serve not only as combatants but as porters, spies, human land mine detectors, and sexual slaves. Nearly one-third are girls, and Michael Wessells movingly reveals the particular dangers they face from pregnancy, childbirth complications, and the rejection they and their babies encounter in their local contexts.

Based mainly on participatory research and interviews with hundreds of former child soldiers worldwide, Wessells allows these ex-soldiers to speak for themselves and reveal the enormous complexity of their experiences and situations. The author argues that despite the social, moral, and psychological wounds of war, a surprising number of former child soldiers enter civilian life, and he describes the healing, livelihood, education, reconciliation, family integration, protection, and cultural supports that make it possible. A passionate call for action, "Child Soldiers" pushes readers to go beyond the horror stories to develop local and global strategies to stop this theft of childhood.