School of Public Leadership

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Advancing resilience assessments : the social dimensions of electricity supply in South Africa
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-04) Van der Merwe, Susara Elizabeth; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Preiser, Rika; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. School of Public Leadership.
ENGLISH SUMMARY : Electricity supply serves as a lifeline, is foundational to the effective functioning of modern society, and powers multiple layers of other critical infrastructure systems. In South Africa, Eskom, the national state-owned electrical utility, generates 95% of the country’s electricity, making the South African economy highly dependent on the utility. Eskom has been caught up in socio-political, technical and financial challenges, including corruption and state capture allegations. Futhermore, owing to supply deficits, Eskom had to resort to national load-shedding from 2007 to 2008 and from 2014 to 2015. Withdrawal of labour and acts of sabotage by employees during a national strike again necessitated load-shedding between June and August 2018. Eskom is described as the biggest risk to the South African economy, by investment bank Goldman Sachs in 2017, as well as the International Monetary Fund at the end of 2018. Resilience is a systems-level outcome that emerges as a result of dynamics within complex adaptive systems. An essential service, such as electricity, is resilient if the complex adaptive socio-technical system, from which it is produced, has the capacity to sustain delivery of the core service amidst disruption and ongoing change. A fundamental departure point for this study is the realisation that a resilient technical infrastructure is not enough to ensure the supply of essential services is resilient. The dynamics of the embedded social component is often overlooked, but contributes both inherent strength and vulnerability to the functioning of the socio-technical system that delivers the essential service. This dissertation uses the implications of complexity thinking and resilience thinking to investigate approaches to assess and build the resilience of the embedded social resources required to ensure resilient essential service delivery. The specific objectives of the study were to: develop a conceptual framework for assessing resilience of essential services; pilot two methods for assessing and building resilience (through a principle-based formative assessment approach and a narrative-based sensemaking approach); and to describe the SenseMaker® methodology, as it is increasingly utilized in academic research. These objectives were addressed through four research papers around which the dissertation is structured: The first paper develops a framework to conceptualise domains of resilience that distinguish between social and technical resilience investments, on the one hand, and between specified and general resilience, on the other. Specified resilience deals with resilience of particular system components to defined threats, whereas general resilience is a generic capacity to adapt and transform amidst unpredictable threats and unforeseen risks. Investments in all four of these domains are required in complex adaptive socio-technical systems to ensure resilient essential services. The paper also distinguishes between summative and formative resilience assessments. The first involves assessments of resilience whose primary aim is to report to a third party what is in place. The second entails assessments for resilience whose primary aim is to establish, through engagement with relevant stakeholders, what resilience is required and agree collectively on how to build it. The second paper develops and pilots a formative resilience assessment approach, using an appreciative inquiry facilitation approach to assess how the seven generic resilience building principles from the field of socio-ecological systems can be utilised to enhance general social resilience within socio-technical systems. Six participatory workshops were conducted that produced assessments situated in the collective experiences and perspectives of the participants. The study operationalised the seven resilience building principles into an assessment process that can be rapidly and repeatedly conducted to involve several members of a community. The study found participants identified opportunities to enhance resilience based on the principles of resilience governance towards adaptive and transformative resilience capabilities. The third paper provides a detailed description of the SenseMaker® method used to perform the sensemaking-based resilience assessment in paper four. Originally developed as a decision-making tool for corporate businesses, SenseMaker® is now increasingly used by researchers, but has not been well documented in the academic literature. This paper describes the SenseMaker® method, how it can be used, and its significance and shortcomings in research settings. The fourth paper develops and pilots a narrative-based sensemaking approach for assessing the strength of social resilience competencies and the relative combinations of specified and general social resilience resources that people draw on in the face of disruption. The approach was piloted in a national emergency exercise conducted in Eskom, which simulated sudden cascading failure across interdependent systems and functions. The study found that employees drew more on specified than general resilience resources. Results were interpreted relative to the quality of cognitive, connective and purposive sensemaking that participants displayed in response to the simulated failure. The key contribution of this dissertation is that it provides conceptual clarity regarding the different domains of resilience that need to be considered in socio-technical systems. Moreover, the study develops and pilots two methods for assessing social resilience. The first assessment approach is formative and uses the seven principles; and, the second is summative, using the narrative-based sensemaking approach. The importance of sensemaking capacities in social resilience is emphasized, and methodological clarity on the use of the SenseMaker method in research settings is provided. The findings from this study advance conceptual and methodological aspects of resilience assessments, in particular assessments of the social dimension of socio-technical systems. This study is especially significant as it was performed in a technical organization with an engineering driven culture, but focused on social aspects that affects systems-level resilience. These insights may also have relevance in advancing the assessment of social dimensions of resilience in social-ecological systems. On a practical note, the findings may assist a wide range of actors seeking to assess and build the resilience of essential service delivery in socio-technical systems.
Exploring food system transformation in the greater Cape Town area
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-03) Zgambo, Olive; Pereira, Laura; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. School of Public Leadership.
ENGLISH SUMMARY : Globally, the food system is plagued by unsustainable food production practices and social injustices that render many of the world’s population vulnerable to food insecurity. Fundamental re-organisation of the food system is key to provide the food insecure access to safe and nutritious food, and reduce the ecological impacts of food production. This entails deep systemic changes towards a more sustainable system, i.e. transformation. Transformation labs (T-labs) help prepare the system for change as specifically designed and facilitated processes that intervene and support multi-stakeholder groups in addressing complex social ecological system (SES) problems. In November 2016, researchers from the Centre for Complex Systems in Transition (CST) in collaboration with the Southern African Food Lab (SAFL) conducted a T-lab process as an intervention in the local food system in the Western Cape. The process, built on principles of transformation and systems thinking, brought together a diverse group of actors that are actively engaged in creating alternatives in the food industry, such as restaurateurs and chefs, producers, informal food traders and academics, in an enabling environment for transformation processes through dialogue, activities and networking. This was an attempt to strengthen the alternative food system and enable it to become more mainstream or exert more influence in the dominant food system. The actors were provoked with realities of the dominant food system and faced with the challenge of envisioning a more sustainable and ideal food future, and what role they can play in bringing that future about. At the end of the T-lab process, actors agreed on several action points as improvements to their work or collaborations with each other. The overall aim of this study is to determine the viability of the T-lab as a “safe enough” space for building relations and strengthening networks within the alternative food system, as a platform for transformative processes through dialogue and addressing the challenges that participants face. The study also tracked the impacts of this process on alternative food networks in the greater Cape Town area. These findings help to understand the effect of T-labs over the short-term and provide insights into a novel way of engaging with the complexity of the food system that results in action. The findings show that T-labs are evolving processes that require skilled facilitation, and can be suitable spaces for building trust and comradery, strengthening existing structures within a system, and as a platform for collaboration. T-labs also have the potential to set things in motion, i.e. prepare for change in a transformation process. However, T-labs alone cannot transform a system as complex as the food system, i.e. one that is characterised by uncertainty, surprise, multiple possible outcomes, and limited predictability. Recommendations for future studies include determining what other processes and activities can be carried out in conjunction with T-labs to serve collectively as an intervention in the food system of the Western Cape, and conducting T-lab processes with actors from large business, civil society, and actors from both the dominant and alternative food systems.
Exploring resilience capacities through the art of storymaking: the case of food innovators in the Western Cape
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2017-12) Lindow, Megan; Preiser, Rika; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Pereira, Laura; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. School of Public Leadership.
ENGLISH SUMMARY : This project explores the potential of storymaking as a novel methodology for developing insight into the ways in which a small selection of social innovators are working to shape change in the food system of the Western Cape, South Africa, and particularly some of the different capacities they are drawing on that may contribute to resilience. Current literature on the Anthropocene, a proposed new geological era in which human agency is seen as a driving force impacting planetary systems, recognises social-ecological resilience theory as an emerging approach to dealing with unexpected change. This thesis brings a narrative and interpretative lens to the experiences of five social innovators who are working towards social-ecological change in the food system of the Western Cape and are part of the international Seeds of the Good Anthropocene project. The Seeds of the Good Anthropocene research seeks to analyse the potential of selected small-scale social-ecological projects to help accelerate transformations towards positive futures for people and planet. In this project, the stories of food innovators are analysed through a ‘storymaking’ process of in-depth interviews, narrative inquiry and interpretative phenomenological analysis. In this process, a richness of experience and meaning that surfaces in the stories shared by research participants is explored, with the aim of understanding whether interpreting these stories through different resilience frames can help to provide insight into the capacities that contribute towards resilience. This work conceptualises the Western Cape as an ‘Anthropocene space’, with a unique historical and geographical context in which multiple food system crises are reflected, thus creating conditions ripe for transformation. Against this backdrop, the work connects the stories of social innovators in food to social-ecological resilience themes of rootedness, resourcefulness and resistance. It also connects these real-life stories and themes to a more theoretical exploration of the complex relationships between stories, resilience, agency and transformation. What emerges is a picture of social innovators experimenting and connecting with one another, guided by rich and emerging value systems, working along the ‘unruly edges’ and the generative niches in between more formal institutions, practices and ways of thinking, transforming these spaces through their alternative narratives of food, culture and community, and in the process deeply exploring questions of how to reconnect with nature and ourselves, and how to live well in the Anthropocene.
Exploring the role of music in fostering resilience in transformative spaces toward improved ecosystem stewardship : a case study of Reforest Fest
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-04) Jardine, Siraj; Preiser, Rika; Jorritsma, Marie; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. School of Public Leadership.
ENGLISH SUMMARY : In the Anthropocene, the inextricable connections between humans and nature are undeniable. The social-ecological systems perspective acknowledges these connections between humans and nature, and the notion of resilience is an emergent property of these systems. Resilience is understood to be a system’s ability to persist, adapt, or transform in the face of change, especially unexpected change, with a goal of improving human wellbeing. The capacity for transformation is increasingly acknowledged as a key aspect of resilience. The resilience concept also acknowledges interactions between smaller and larger scales within a system. An application of these concepts can be found in small-scale, experimental transformative spaces that may encourage large-scale transformations in the wider system. Recent studies suggest that the arts have contributed to fostering transformation in these spaces, but there has been little research on the role of music (as a form of art) in fostering resilience in transformative spaces. Reforest Fest, a reforestation music festival in the Western Cape Province of South Africa, is a transformative space with music at its core. The festival’s goal is to improve ecosystem stewardship, which is an approach to managing social-ecological systems in the face of change to enhance human wellbeing. This thesis uses Reforest Fest as a case study, gathering data through immersive participation, participant observation, and interviews, and analysing the results using Katrina Brown’s framework of “resistance”, “rootedness”, and “resourcefulness” to explore the role of music in fostering resilience. The key finding is that music played a crucial role in fostering rootedness at the festival and, in turn, facilitated resistance and resourcefulness in the space. Through rootedness, music also played a role in fostering the transformative space itself. This has implications for the further use of musical elements in transformative spaces, contributing to the literature on transformative spaces that aim to support sustainability transformations and ecosystem stewardship at multiple interlinked scales.
Investigating land use change in the Eastern Cape as a regime shift, a case study of Amakhala game reserve
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2019-04) Achieng, Therezah; Maciejewski, Kristine; Dyer, Michelle; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. School of Public Leadership.
ENGLISH SUMMARY : Livestock farming in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, has recently undergone a shift to game farming. This research uses a regime shift lens to analyse the change in structure and function of the broader social-ecological system and identify the drivers of the change. The impacts of this land use change and the feedback mechanisms that lock the system into these alternate regimes are also explored. This is important because it has implications for the provision of ecosystem services and human well-being, and the resilience of the system. This research used a case study approach in Amakhala game reserve to understand how the shift from livestock to game farming affects ecosystems and different stakeholders, using participatory mapping and remote sensing approaches. A change in land cover over time indicates a newly vegetated state, which is an indicator of conservation. Results also indicate that the transition from livestock to game farming had different costs and benefits for landowners and farm workers. Social, cultural and even economic structures that held greater value to individuals on livestock farms, a condition that was definable as a community, have been traded off to economic and social structures that hold more value to an external group of people, usually visitors, than the value it holds to individuals on game farms, not definable as a community. The use of a social narrative approach, derived through the participatory methodologies, reveals an important understanding of how the shift of such a social-ecological system impacts differently on various groups of stakeholders.
Learning for change : youth and niche environments in food system transitions
(Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2018-12) Metelerkamp, Luke; Drimie, S.; Biggs, Reinette, 1979-; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Economic and Management Sciences. School of Public Leadership.
ENGLISH SUMMARY : The global food system exists in a state of increasing dysfunction for both people and planet. The need for a deep systemic transition of the food system is increasingly apparent, as is the need for research into understanding how innovations can be fostered to support these transitions. From an employment perspective, the rapid corporatisation of the food system has driven a major restructuring of work opportunities within agriculture and its associated value chains. Moving into the future, this agricultural restructuring will have major implications for Africa, where the working lives of the majority of the 800 million youth predicted enter the workforce by 2050 will be directly affected by the form the food system takes. Within the South African context, which is the focus of this study, 50 percent of youth are ensnared in a complex and intractable unemployment crisis that is being driven, in part, by a transition toward a highly corporatised food regime. This is particularly true for the formal agricultural sector which, despite being identified as a powerful engine for job creation, is amassing considerable profits while shedding jobs. Concurrently, in the informal sector, many youth are turning their backs on traditional subsistence and small-scale farming livelihoods in spite of high unemployment. Against this backdrop, this study set out on a dual line of enquiry: One, to probe this paradoxical turn away from small-scale agriculture - trying to understand what a sustainable, employment intensive agricultural future would look like in the eyes of South African youth. The second, to understand where the new knowledge and competencies for such a system could come from, as well as how to improve youth access to this. In doing so, the research aimed to enable food system change by offering practical tools and insights to youth and other food systems actors seeking to transgress the systemic limitations of the current food regime. The thesis is divided into three distinct but complementary journal articles that applied a mix of narrative and social network-based approaches. Literature on systemic transitions, food systems, youth employment and learning were drawn together to provide a theoretical grounding for these papers. Paper One reports on a narrative based enquiry into youth attitudes and aspirations towards careers in agriculture. What emerged was that in spite of the intense social stigma attached to agricultural careers, around 30 percent of the 573 youth surveyed harbored positive attitudes towards careers in the sector. Encouragingly, many of these youth demonstrated a clear interest and passion for socially orientated micro-entrepreneurship in agriculture. However, in the current food system, the careers these youth aspired to were unattainable and the work available to them was seen as demeaning and unrewarding. In considering these youth aspirations, the research suggests that fertile ground exists for change in the food system. Transitioning to a socially and ecologically just food system, however, is a knowledge intensive undertaking. Currently, prospects for this transition are hamstrung by economic power imbalances, discordant food policy and a failing education system. Papers Two and Three suggest that achieving a transition towards a just and sustainable food system will require training that breaks current systemic lock-in and builds the skills needed to disrupt the current unsustainable trajectory of the food system. Due to the significant numbers of people in search of employment, and the shortage of trainers with the necessary transitional competencies, radical new models of capacity development are required. These models need to be able to amplify and transfer tiny (niche) pockets of place-based experience to very large audiences at low cost. To do this, new capacity building models will need to be able to operate both within the struggling formal training and extension sectors as well as beyond them in new formations. These papers further demonstrate that the social networks within grassroots food system niches are under-recognised nurseries of socio-ecological innovation. These networks demonstrated a tenacious appetite for learning that played out in complete isolation from any formal training and extension institutions. In doing so, these networks displayed remarkable pedagogic sophistication while operating at very low cost - largely due to the culture of reciprocity in which they were grounded. The research also confirmed what other transition theorists have suggested: that competency for transitions in complex, socio-ecological systems is a network outcome and not an individual characteristic. The unique contribution of this thesis to the broader debate around food system transitions and the role of youth is threefold. Firstly, presents youth narratives on agricultural careers that constitute a politically resonant youth mandate for food system transformation. Secondly, it provided new insights into how the informal and fragmented knowledge that is generated within sustainability niches can be wielded more effectively to support youth in acquiring the competencies they need to accelerate systemic change. Finally, it proposes a preliminary method for supporting educators, curriculum designers and social activists to harness the power of niche knowledge networks. This thesis highlights that the needs and aspirations of youth present an opportunity for transformation in the food system. To achieve this, local civil society, alternative food retail cooperatives and aspirant farming communities will need to be equipped with new tools for amplifying latent and fragmented knowledge resources in their specific contexts. Niche networks will also need a ramping up of support and investment.

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