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04 April 2018 Photo Moeketsi Mogotsi
2018 2019 KovsieCyberSta Search
2017/2018 #KovsieCyberSta’s Thuli Molebalwa and Amu Mathebula.

The search for the next #KovsieCyberSta is on. We are looking for two vibrant presenters to  take over the reins from Thuli and Amu as the official UFS Social Media ambassadors.
 
The two outstanding candidates will hold the title of #KovsieCyberSta for a period of 12 months. As #KovsieCyberStas, they will cover events on and around campus, while filming and presenting short video clips to give fellow Kovsies some insight into these events on the UFS Social Media platforms.

At the end of their term, they will receive a recommendation letter and portfolio of their work to add to their show-reel.

The #KovsieCyberSta search will work according to the following simple steps: 

1. Candidates upload a 45-60-second audition video on Instagram, Twitter or Facebook and tag the UFS while using #KovsieCyberSta. In your video, you must tell us why you should be the next #KovsieCyberSta.
2. You can also send your audition videos to socialmedia@ufs.ac.za. 
3. The Top Ten most impressive auditions will be shortlisted and posted on the UFS pages for public votes on 16 April 2018.
4. The Kovsie community will then decide through voting who gets to win and the winners will be announced on 23 April 2018.

Watch the video below for a quick demonstration on how to enter your audition video:

 

2018/2019 #KovsieCyberSta Search from University of the Free State on Vimeo.

The deadline for submitting video auditions is 13 April 2018 at 16:30.

 

News Archive

Expert in Africa Studies debunks African middle class myth
2016-05-10

Description: Prof Henning Melber Tags: Prof Henning Melber

From left: Prof Heidi Hudson, Director of the Centre for Africa Studies (CAS), Joe Besigye from the Institute of Reconciliation and Social Justice, and Prof Henning Melber, Extraordinary Professor at the CAS and guest lecturer for the day.
Photo: Valentino Ndaba

Until recently, think tanks from North America, the African Development Bank, United Nations Development Plan, and global economists have defined the African middle class based purely on monetary arithmetic. One of the claims made in the past is that anyone with a consumption power of $2 per day constitutes the middle class. Following this, if poverty is defined as monetary income below $1.5 a day, it means that it takes just half a dollar to reach the threshold considered as African middle class.

Prof Henning Melber highlighted the disparities in the notion of a growing African middle class in a guest lecture titled A critical anatomy of the African middle class(es), hosted by our Centre for Africa Studies (CAS) at the University of the Free State on 4 May 2016. He is an Extraordinary Professor at the Centre, as well as Senior Adviser and Director Emeritus of the Dag Hammarskjöld Foundation in Sweden.

Prof Melber argued that it is misleading to consider only income when identifying the middle class. In his opinion, such views were advanced by promoters of the global neo-liberal project. “My suspicion is that those who promote the middle class  discourse in that way, based on such a low threshold, were desperate to look for the success story that testifies to Africa rising.”

Another pitfall of such a middle-class analysis is its ahistorical contextualisation. This economically-reduced notion of the class is a sheer distortion. Prof Melber advised analysts to take cognisance of factors, such as consumption patterns, lifestyle, and political affiliation, amongst others.

In his second lecture for the day, Prof Melber dealt withthe topic of: Namibia since independence: the limits to Liberation, painting the historical backdrop against which the country’s current government is consolidating its political hegemony. He highlighted examples of the limited transformation that has been achieved since Namibia’s independence in 1990.

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