Quality of life and wellbeing in South Africa State of the nation: Quality of life and wellbeing in South Africa, focuses on new, fresh and relevant directions that focus on quality of life and notions of well-being. As in preceding volumes, in the spirit of stimulating debate, we seek to make two important qualifications to clarify the approach we are taking in this edition.
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Quality of life and wellbeing in South Africa State of the nation: Quality of life and wellbeing in South Africa, focuses on new, fresh and relevant directions that focus on quality of life and notions of well-being. As in preceding volumes, in the spirit of stimulating debate, we seek to make two important qualifications to clarify the approach we are taking in this edition. Firstly, we caution against the overly homogenising idea of the economy being determinative. Conscious and respectful as we are of structuralist explanations of poverty, inequality, quality of life and well-being, we take a multidisciplinary approach in this volume. Secondly, we argue against the idea that income inequality adequately encompasses other variables such as ‘race’, gender, culture and so on, and can be rendered as a proxy for them. While we recognise the important place of the economy in the broader project of development, this volume also responds (as we have done with recent editions of State of the Nation, see Soudien, Reddy & Woolard,2019; Bohler-Muller, Soudien & Reddy, 2021) with some caution to an economic instrumentalisation of poverty and inequality and its relevance for quality of life and well-being simply through models and metrics (see also Jenkins and Micklewright, 2007). We take this approach to conceptualise a framing of human development and well-being, the focus of this volume, which is integrated and cross-cutting. The volume is distinctive because it will be the first fully dedicated text focused on quality of life and well-being in the State of the Nation. It offers a range of perspectives on quality of life in ways that aim to reflect the complex interdependence of how people make lives for themselves and contribute to the lives of others. We argue that it is in this complex act of making lives, individuals acting in their own interests and the government articulating an agenda for the nation, that we are able to discern the outlines of the state in which the nation finds itself. Product information
Contents
Introduction:
Part 1: Quality of Life, Politics, and the State
Chapter 1:
Vasu Reddy, Narnia Bohler-Muller, Zitha Mokomane and Crain Soudien
Chapter 2:
Prof Narnia Bohler-Muller
Chapter 3:
Prof Joleen Steyn Kotze
Chapter 4:
Professor Lawrence Hamilton
Chapter 5:
Prof Irma Eloff
Part 2: Economics
Chapter 6:
Prof Justine Burns
Chapter 7:
Prof Monde Makiwane and Dr Monde Faku
Chapter 8:
Dr Carolyn Chisadza and Prof Margaret Chitiga-Mabugu, Dr Kehinde O. Omotoso
Part 3: Society, Culture, Identity and the Public Good
Chapter 9:
Prof Kopano Ratele, Dr Carmine Rustin, Prof Maria Florence
Chapter 10:
Dr Safura Abdool Karim, Maanda Mudau, Prof Quaraisha Abdool Karim, Prof Koleka Mlisana
Chapter 11:
Dr Benjamin Roberts, Dr Yul Derek Davids, Dr Jare Struwig, Prof Valarie Moller
Chapter 12:
Dr Steven Lawrence Gordon
Chapter 13:
Prof Karin van Marle
Chapter 14:
Prof Nomusa Makhubu
Part 4: South Africa and the World
Chapter 15:
Prof Sandy Africa
Chapter 16:
Prof ’Funmi Olonisakin, Dr Damilola Adegoke, Dr Alagaw Ababu Kifle
Contributors
Index