Our Seminar Series has moved online – please join us for webinar discussions on the theme of Covid-19 related to political leadership, health, education, the environment, constitutional & social rights, spatial planning and civil society. We will be engaging with scholar and student activists as well as activists from the TAC, R2K and groundWork.
Facilitators: Danford Chibvongodze & Andries Motau
Topic: South Africa’s Covid-19 Response and Political Leadership
Speaker: Lubna Nadvi
Date & Time: Wednesday 3 June, 2020 01:20 PM
Topic: The response by the South African government to the challenge of Covid 19, has received mixed and varied responses. While President Ramaphosa and his cabinet have been largely commended for their swift action in putting various measures in place to address the issue of the spread of the Corona virus, the consequences of some of these measures and the decisions taken by the Corona Virus Command Council have drawn sharp criticism from broader civil society. This presentation seeks to explore some of these measures as well as the criticisms that have been levelled against them.
Speaker Bio: Lubna Nadvi teaches and researches in the field of Political Science and International Relations in the School of Social Sciences, UKZN. She is also a community activist and comments frequently on current affairs in the mainstream media.
Topic: The South African Civil Society Response to Covid-19: The good, the bad, the ugly
Speaker: Mark Heywood
Date & Time: Wednesday 10 June 2020, 01:20 PM Johannesburg
Topic: The discussion will look at how civil society has responded to the Covid-19 crisis and particularly the lessons learnt, or not, from the HIV epidemic. Just as Covid-19 has exposed the fault lines of inequality and revealed a state unable to rise to the social crisis catalysed by Covid-19, it has also exposed the fault lines within civil society. What are they? We are still in the early days of the crisis. The question is will civil society rise to the challenge and is it strong enough to shape the post-Covid-19 reconstruction?
Speaker Bio: Mark Heywood is editor of Maverick Citizen, a section of the Daily Maverick that focusses on social justice and activism. He is a socialist political activist, one of the founders of the TAC and a co-founder of SECTION27.
Topic: Funding the Basic Income Grant (BIG) in SA Post Covid-19
Speaker: Dominic Brown
Date & Time: Wednesday 17 June 2020, 01:20 PM Johannesburg
Topic: The discussion will cover the history of the demand for a Basic Income Grant (BIG) in South Africa and particularly why we need to consider the BIG beyond the pandemic given permanent unemployment and deep inequalities. The discussion will also highlight why the BIG itself is not a panacea and needs to be coupled with additional reforms. The webinar will consider some of the potential pitfalls of the BIG, before turning to how to finance the grant.
Speaker Bio: Dominic Brown is the economic justice programme manager at the Alternative Information & Development Centre (AIDC).
Topic: Covid-19 Challenges in Higher Education – A Student’s Perspective
Speaker: Thobani Zikalala
Date & Time: Wednesday 24 June 2020, 01:20 PM Johannesburg
Topic: The Covid-19 pandemic has resulted in a number of challenges to Higher Education. This webinar considers some of these challenges from the point of view of a student and includes discussions on data poverty, registration challenges and criteria for academic exclusions.
Speaker Bio: Thobani Zikalala has completed his undergraduate studies in Industrial Organisational Labour Studies and Political Science at UKZN with a view to registering for an Honours degree. Thobani is an activist focused on social and economic justice specifically food and land issues – he is an Andrew Mellon Foundation Fellow in Critical Food Studies.
Topic: The Spatial Distribution of Risks and Vulnerabilities: GCRO Covid-19 Gauteng Map
Speaker: Gillian Maree
Date & Time: Wednesday 1 July, 2020 01:20 PM
Topic: In light of the COVID-19 outbreak, the Gauteng City Region Observatory (GCRO) opened up an area of research compiling data and visualisations to inform disaster response planning. The work has focused on the spatial distribution of some key risks and vulnerabilities in communities at a ward level. As an initial response GCRO dedicated its March 2020 Map of the Month to understanding the localised risk factors that might contribute to the spread of COVID-19, and might amplify its health and socio-economic impact in Gauteng communities. The work continues beyond this Map of the Month publication and we hope to deepen our analysis by exploring aspects of the socio-economic impact of COVID-19. A key part of this project is to collaborate with our government partners and other key stakeholders in Gauteng.
Speaker Bio: Gillian Maree is a Senior Researcher with the GCRO. Her research interests lie at the intersection of research and policy making, and her current research focuses on water security and governance as well as urban environmental planning. Gillian is project managing the COVID-19 research work within the GCRO.
Topic: A Global Political Economy of Covid-19 Social Struggles
Speaker: Patrick Bond
Date & Time: Wednesday 8 July, 2020 1:20 PM
Topic: There are economic, ecological and social crises that affect how Covid-19 has played out, and how social resistance has emerged. The main considerations are three very different logics – state authoritarianism, profits and mutual aid – which are playing out in sites of conflict around the world. Whether a barbaric-neoliberal or an eco-social outcome results will depend increasingly on social activism from progressive civil and uncivil society.
Speaker Bio: Patrick Bond is former CCS director (2004-16), a professor at the University of the Western Cape School of Government and honorary professor at Wits Department of Geography. His latest co-edited book is BRICS and Resistance in Africa (Zed Books 2019).
Topic: The Impact of Covid-19 on the South African Health System
Speaker: Vuyiseka Dubula
Date & Time: Wednesday 15 July, 2020 1:20 PM
Topic: Covid-19 has had a severe impact on health systems from the perspective of access by those who are already marginalised but also those who live with chronic conditions and are more susceptible to the virus. Worsening socioeconomic conditions have exacerbated this. Going forward a foundation needs to be laid for equitable access to a vaccine when it becomes available.
Speaker Bio: Vuyiseka Dubula is an HIV/AIDS and gender activist. She served as General Secretary of the Treatment Action Campaign and held various leadership roles at Sonke Gender Justice.
Topic: Covid-19 and Environmental Regulations in South Africa: Curtailing Public Participation
Speaker: Avena Jacklin
Date & Time: Wednesday 22 July 2020, 01:20 PM
Topic: How has Covid-19 impacted on South African regulations and environmental authorisations? This webinar considers how public participation and citizens voices are becoming marginalised. It also considers how the State of Disaster seems to be delaying the transition to renewables and facilitating the push for petroleum and nuclear.
Speaker Bio: Avena Jacklin is groundWork’s Climate and Energy Justice Campaign Manager. She is the winner of the Mpumalanga Female Farmer Award (2007, 2009) and runner up in the 2008 Grassland Society of Southern Africa’s Peter Edward Award for Best Conservation Farming. She has 25 years’ experience in environmental consultation including compliance, mine closure, rehabilitation and public participation. She was the Project Coordinator for the SDCEA- DN Air Quality Project in 2002 and in 2018 worked on the Just Energy Transition Exchange with groundWork and SSNC.
Topic: Curbing Covid-19: Restrictions on Civil and Political Rights
Speaker: Thami Nkosi
Date & Time: Wednesday 29 July, 2020 01:20 PM
Topic: In seeking to curb the corona pandemic, the government has placed various restrictions on civil and political rights – including freedom of movement and the right to protest (gatherings). We need to be careful however, when restricting these hard-won Constitutional rights. With the rapid spread of the coronavirus, there has also been the rapid spread of fake news, misinformation and disinformation. Instead of the clampdown and centralisation of information flow however, our government should to be encouraging greater debate and dissemination of information in the media, especially the community media about the disease, protective measures against it, and the impact that the disease will have on our social and economic activity.
Speaker Bio: Thami is a social justice activist, passionate about building vibrant social movements. He currently works at Right2Know (R2K) as the Countering Repression Organizer advancing public interest in areas including surveillance, protest to rights and securocrats.