This Is OIS is a journey into the research topics and methodologies of the students of OIS – Organisational and Institutional Studies at Wits University.
Episode 5: What’s behind poor service delivery at eMfuleni Municipality?
Lesley Mhlanga interviews her fellow OIS honours student, Tafadzwa Ndofirepi, about her research into eMfuleni Municipality in the Sedibeng district. Tafadzwa tries to find out the reasons behind poor service delivery in the municipality, especially in relation to poor intergovernmental relations.
Episode 4: If there’s a failure in local government, why is it failing?
Lesley Mhlanga (OIS honours student) interviews Owen Witbooi, whose Phd thesis investigates the decision making processes in a municipality that adopts an unfunded budget.
‘If there is failure in local government, why is it failing? If we have all these frameworks governing these processes, where are we going wrong? … There are an increasing number of municipalities adopting unfunded budgets and this is having a negative effect on service delivery’
Episode 3: Why do their decisions not benefit the people?
Lily Manoim interviews Masters student Mabotlhale Mbatani about her research into how public servants view themselves and their roles and what informs their decision-making processes. “I was trying to get the narratives and perceptions from the public servants themselves”.
Episode 2: Bravo Mike, Bravo Mike
Thulani Tshabalala interviews fellow OIS Masters student Lily Manoim about her research into what legitimises security networks in Johannesburg. “The upper classes can get away with anything. And so, these security networks perpetuate these class dynamics of legitimising the actions of the upper class and criminalising poverty.”
Episode 1: When Africans gather, they do so for violence
Michael Asikabulu interviews fellow OIS student Thulani Tshabalala about his Masters research into why police brutality persists as a feature of protests in post-apartheid South Africa: “Police do not see protesters as citizens, but as insurgents or enemy combatants of some sort”.
