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03 September 2021 | Story Nonsindiso Qwabe
“This way please” UFS Clinic nurses point the way. From left to right: Sister Nangamso Lukhubeni, Sister Noluthando Luthuli, Sister Mathapelo Moloi, and Sister Modiehi Moloi.

Fully vaccinated! 

These were the words uttered by many Qwaqwa staff members who received their second Pfizer jab at the vaccination site on the Qwaqwa Campus on Thursday (2 September 2021). More than 100 staff members turned up at the site, many for the second jab, while others were there to get their first. The staff members were full of praise for the convenience of having a site on campus, and said the brisk service made the entire process a breeze. The 24/7 Study Centre on campus was repurposed as a vaccination site at the end of August, bringing much-needed relief to staff and students, as well as the Qwaqwa community.

The vaccination experience

Chelly König, Professional Officer in the Department of Chemistry, urged people to trust the science behind the vaccine and the fact that it works. König also came with her relatives. “I’m fully vaccinated and feeling fantastic. I’d urge anyone who’s still hesitant to trust the sciences; these people know what they are doing. My aunt, who is 62, developed COVID-19 after getting her two jabs, and she didn’t experience any effects at all. It was just like the flu. Seeing her recovery convinced me that the vaccine works.”

Ntswaki Mokoena of Bidvest Prestige Cleaning Services also received her second jab. She said: “I am fully vaccinated and so happy. I’ve experienced no side effects whatsoever, and I encourage people to vaccinate; the vaccine is harmless. They should not listen to naysayers who haven’t even vaccinated.”

Calling on more people to vaccinate 

Sister Mathapelo Moloi, Chief Officer at the campus clinic, said the vaccination drive was a source of pride for the campus. “Our priority is to re-open the campus, so I’m very happy that we are seeing staff and students being willing to get vaccinated.”

“It’s not the first time that there has been hesitancy around the vaccine. Providing information is our priority – to help them understand the side effects and everything pertaining to the vaccine.”

Acting Director of Student Affairs on Qwaqwa Campus, Zakhele Mdluli, said vaccinations would help the university community get back to normal. “I encourage students to get vaccinated so that they are able to come back to campus knowing that everyone is safe. This vaccination is no different from the vaccinations we used to get when we were younger.”

The centre operates Monday to Friday from 08:00 to 15:00. People can pre-register either online at https://vaccine.enroll.health.gov.za or via WhatsApp on +27 0 60 012 3456 and should bring along their identity documents. The site is open to anyone 18 years and older. They can simply walk in – no bookings are required.”

News Archive

Dying of consumption: Studying ‘othering’ and resistance in pop culture
2014-10-31

 

 

The Centre for Africa Studies (CAS) at the UFS – under the project leadership of Prof Heidi Hudson (CAS Director) – conceptualised an interdisciplinary research project on representations of otherness and resistance.

This is in collaboration with UFS departments such as the Odeion School of Music, the Department of Drama and Theatre Arts, the Department of Fine Arts, the Jonathan Edwards Centre Africa and the Department of Afrikaans and Dutch, German and French.  

In this project, Dr Stephanie Cawood from CAS leads a sub-project on the dynamics of pop culture and consumerism. Her research unpacks and critiques pop culture representations of othering and resistance by engaging with the othering rhetoric of conspicuous consumption as well as the subversive rhetoric or culture jamming at play in various South African youth subcultures.

Consumerism has become the institutional system in which we live our daily lives. Pop culture is the result when multinational corporations take aspects of culture and turn it into commodities with high market value. In pop culture and its manifestation, consumption, marketers and savvy advertising executives have realised long ago that othering and resistance are powerful tools to artificially create empty spaces in people’s lives that can only be filled through consuming.

“The scary thing is in my opinion that everyone has become a market segment, including very young children,” says Dr Cawood.

In his 1934 book, The Theory of the Leisure Class (TLC), Thorstein Veblen coined the term conspicuous consumption to describe the conduct of the nouveau riche. He  contended that when people manage to meet their basic human requirements, any additional accumulation of wealth will no longer relate to function, but will be spent on ostentatious displays of conspicuous consumption or waste. Conspicuous consumption has evolved into invidious consumption where consumption is a mark of one’s superior social status and particularly aimed at provoking envy. The whole point is unashamed one-upmanship.  

“Think of the izikhotane or skothane cultural phenomenon where young people engage in ritualised and ostentatious consumerist waste for social prestige. This is an excellent example of invidious consumption.

“Instead of striving to become good citizens, we have become good consumers and none are more vulnerable than our youth irrespective of cultural and ethnic differences”.

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