Alcohol Control, Poverty and Development in South Africa

Lead Research Organisation: King's College London
Department Name: Geography

Abstract

Abstracts are not currently available in GtR for all funded research. This is normally because the abstract was not required at the time of proposal submission, but may be because it included sensitive information such as personal details.
 
Title City Desired exhibition 
Description City Desired offers the story of one city in the making, through the intricate lives of ten Capetownians, uncovering a multitude of finely woven dynamics. The story of Cape Town is emblematic of the beautiful struggle of all cities, wrestling with the imperatives of sustainability and social justice in our divisive era. The intent of City Desired is to foster and enrich multiple publics that will take the city in its current forms and future trajectories as a matter of democratic concern and action. Touch, listen, stare, trace trend lines, unravel questions, loose track of time, ponder endless connections, propose, and most importantly, enjoy a glimpse of the city. 
Type Of Art Artistic/Creative Exhibition 
Year Produced 2014 
Impact none as yet 
 
Title Flows and friction of alcohol in Cape Town 
Description Mary Lawhon is a post-doctoral researcher in the University of Cape Town's African Centre for Cities. An urban political ecologist, Mary combines natural and social sciences to provide an interdisciplinary understanding of the human-environment nexus in her work (which has appeared in International Journal of Urban and Regional Research, Environment and Planning A and Progress in Human Geography, among other places - see here). Her Antipode paper, 'Flows, Friction, and the Sociomaterial Metabolization of Alcohol', offers a novel lens through which to consider alcohol, viewing it as a sociomaterial hybrid. Studies of alcohol, Mary explains, typically focus on either its negative impacts on health and well-being or positive impacts on economic development, while policy debates focus on whether and how to control access. Using a case study of alcohol in Cape Town, her Antipode paper moves beyond these binaries to provide a more nuanced, grounded articulation of how alcohol flows and what inhibits its flow, and how these flows and encounters with friction shape sociability and harm in complex, indeterminate ways. Examining the distribution of power and agency, limitations of state regulation, willingness of community members to act outside of and with little fear of the law, and the specificity of alcohol as a highly desirable commodity which easily flows around artificial barriers, Mary casts some much needed light on the relationships, power and the (in)efficacy of policy efforts, suggesting the need to refocus debates. And rather than providing specific policy recommendations, her paper argues that a better understanding of flows and frictions can move the focus from alcohol control to reducing alcohol related harm. 
Type Of Art Film/Video/Animation 
Year Produced 2012 
Impact n/a 
 
Description 1. Conceptual: The project outputs highlight alcohol's importance to intellectual agendas that stretch beyond health and into urban planning, urban studies, political ecology, development and livelihoods, violence, crime, gender and governance. The project critically engages with biomedical/ public health framings of alcohol as a "problem" to examine the upstream causes of risky behaviours, as well as the reasons underpinning the persistence of the informal alcohol sector. The project thus strengthens work on the 'social determinants of health', health inequity as an issue of social (in)justice and the reframing of global health agendas to include behavioural risk factors.



2. Empirical: Our project findings can be summarised as follows:



(i) The Western Cape Liquor Act has done little to reduce the scale and effects of the illicit trade, rather it has caused a metamorphosis in the ways shebeens operate.

(ii) Alcohol represents both a cause and consequence of poverty, creating a vicious spiral of retail and consumption that existing policy has little capacity to break.

(iii) Alcohol-related violence is compounded by gendered practices of household resource management and responsibilities.

(iv) Historical inequities in the right to trade liquor persist. Licensed premises are still overwhelmingly concentrated in "previously advantaged" areas. This imbalance has deep implications for household survival and economic sustainability in poor communities.

(v) Drinking entrenches the everyday violence of poor communities. It undermines coping strategies, reinforces vulnerabilities and erodes community networks of safety and trust.

(vi) The problem of alcohol is inextricable from the broader problems of law enforcement, the judicial system, corruption and policing in South Africa.

(vii) The chronic effects of drinking and their relationship to the non-communicable disease burden are underrepresented in policy discourse. Infectious disease risk, crime, injury and violence are the strongest policy motivators, but this is at the expense of a longer-term view of risk reduction.

(viii) Industry involvement in policy development is strong (i.e. SABMiller helping shebeens apply for licenses). This represents clear conflicts of interest and is reflective of current debates on industry collaboration at the World Health Organisation.



3. Methodological: The project has strived for methodological innovation and, importantly, critical reflection. Consensus is growing around the value and importance of ethnographic approaches to embodied experience within the field of global health. Although the alcohol studies field was initially dismissive of ethnography's "problem deflation" (Room, 1984) tendencies, sceptics have now grudgingly conceded the value of qualitative granularity (Schmidt and Room, 2012). Our research thus complements burgeoning anthropological work on global health in its use of participant observation, focus groups, in-depth interviews and narrative analysis. It has also overtly reflected on the problems of sensitivity and gender in alcohol research in South Africa (Lawhon et al, in press).



4. Future research: The PI has secured Wellcome Trust funding to explore the impact of the Botswanan Liquor Levy on (i) the nature of the informal trade and (ii) consumption trends. This should add to the limited compendium of knowledge on the complex effects of supply-side liquor policies within developing country settings.
Exploitation Route The potential non-academic use of this project operates at in and through three main scales: the international, regional and local.



International: Parnell's membership of the International Council for Science's (ICSU) 'Scientific Committee on Urban Health' and the UN Sustainable Development Goals' working party brings the project findings into close conversation with negotiations over future global and urban health agendas. This positioning has also enabled Parnell to use the project findings as a vehicle to argue for the importance of considering the interrelationships between the 'unhealthy commodities', non-communicable disease risks, urban governance, capacity building and development in the Global South.



Regional: We have built a significant 'user' community - city/provincial government, third sector, research institutes and industry - from the project outset. This has been facilitated through well-developed co-working between the African Centre for Cities (ACC), the public sector, think tanks and NGOs. A successful policy workshop in November 2013 has initiated new conversations about how best to integrate alcohol harm reduction agendas within broader city and regional planning frameworks and develop alternative livelihood strategies to shebeening.



Local: The project maximises the ACC's established networks to enable the findings to be better used by communities arguing for increased involvement in liquor matters. Research revealed high levels of misunderstanding with regards to the Act and, therefore, little awareness of the financial and social consequences of infringement. Better community information could arguably inform people of their rights and responsibilities and help reduce corruption with respect to policing the Liquor Act.
Over the project duration, we have developed and capitalised on a number of key exploitation routes. These will be further developed over the next year and include:

1. Engaging academic audiences: Primarily through: 17 publications (including a journal special issue on "Alcohol, Poverty and Development"); two further publications in progress; and 28 international conference/ seminar talks. We have convened three international/regional conference sessions. Importantly, all eight research team members have authored outputs and this has had a two-fold benefit: First, capacity-building for early-stage researchers (one post-doc now in a full-time lectureship and one research associate now in full-time employment with the Cape Town Partnership, part of the project user community). Second, broadening the reach and impact of the research by ensuring a cross-section of journals reaching different disciplines and audiences.

2. Engaging non-academic audiences: By providing non-academic users with full access to all published material and working papers through the project website and a simple summary of the project findings. We held a targeted policy workshop that brought together representatives from city and provincial government, the liquor board, public health and medicine, NGOs and the project team. The workshop report as well as presentations from the day can also be found on the project website.

3. Collaborative networks: By forging a productive collaborative partnership with the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation. This has resulted in two joint-authored publications (published and under review), data-sharing and future grant plans.

4. Mainstreaming and embedding: Through activities and publications that clearly make the case for the mainstreaming of urban health within development agendas as well as the importance of alcohol to engaging with poverty, inequality, urban governance, access to livelihoods and, therefore, sustainability.
Sectors Other
URL http://alcoholsouthafrica.wordpress.com/
 
Description Impact narrative i. Structure of research team: The project was a cross-collaboration between the Department of Geography at King's College London (PI) and the African Centre for Cities (ACC) (Co-PI) at the University of Cape Town (UCT). The ACC has an exceptionally strong and unique dedication to public engagement and urban research in Cape Town, as well as strong working relationships with NGOs and government at the national, provincial, metropolitan and local levels. These relationships enabled the project to quickly embed itself within policy-making networks, particularly at a city (Cape Town) and provincial (Western Cape) scale. The project was housed within the ACC's 'Healthy CityLab' research strand. To maximise the potential offered by the ACC, this grant engaged a large and expressly interdisciplinary project team from across UCT. The rationale for this was to: leverage diverse skills, existing contact networks and trust relationships with over-researched communities; avoid the replication of existing research across UCT; and to formulate a wider group of those working at the intersections of alcohol, poverty and development in urban settings. Thus, the final project team was composed of Clare Herrick (PI), Sue Parnell (Co-PI), Mary Lawhon (post doc, ACC), Mercy Brown-Luthango (researcher, ACC), Warren Smit (researcher, ACC), Even Blake (researcher, Dept of Geography), Nikki Wilkins (researcher, Dept of Geography), Gordon Pirie (Professor, ACC), Shari Daya (Lecturer, Department of Geography), Prestige Makanga (GIS specialist, Infomatics, UCT) and Laura Drivdal (PhD candidate, Political Science, UCT). This represents a far larger team than originally envisaged, but this arrangement brought distinct benefits in the generation of impact. At the initial stages of the project, the team met weekly to discuss project methodology, the identification of case study sites and development of the research tools. The large research team meant that, in addition to addressing the core research questions set out in the original project proposal, the research held the potential to adopt a more iterative and creative approach to the intersections between alcohol (regulation, production, retail and consumption), poverty and development. In practice, this meant the capacity to bring together a diverse array of research strands and unparalleled local knowledge. It also meant that all research could be conducted in-house and, in the process, further strengthen the ACC's existing work within its Healthy CityLab strand. The exceptional number and range of academic outcomes from the project bear testament to this approach, with 20 publications now either published, in press or under review. The project has produced one journal special issue (South African Geographical Journal, 2014). In addition, the broader themes of project have also motivated a special issue in the Journal Health and Place (with David Reubi and Tim Brown, QMUL; 2015) on the 'Politics of non-communicable disease in the Global South' and a further edited book with Routledge entitled 'Global Health Geographies' (with David Reubi). Importantly, these publications have come from all members of the research team, ensuring capacity building for junior researchers [1-3]and bolstering the research profiles of those with more experience [4, 5]. The whole team has benefited from mentoring from the PI and Co-PI throughout. ii. Conceptualisation of "issue": In planning for impact, one of the primary goals of the project has been to re-work and reframe the existing debate on the ways in which poverty and development intersect with the use and abuse of alcohol. There is a significant body of work on the epidemiology of problem drinking and especially its negative externalities (e.g. violence, injury, unsafe sex, HIV/AIDS transmission, foetal alcohol syndrome) in South Africa. Indeed, Professor Charles Parry at South Africa's Medical Research Council has long been one of the most influential figures in the international Alcohol Studies research domain (and advocacy movement). This area of research is, however, overwhelmingly led by Medical Science and Public Health, which ensures that alcohol itself is almost always framed as a type of pathogen, with drinking places viewed as sites of pathogenesis and the commercial production of alcohol as supplying a 'vector of disease' to populations variously understood as vulnerable or wilfully risk-taking [6]. As a result, this compendium of research has vociferously argued that the only way to reduce alcohol-related harms is through supply restriction (e.g. through increasing tax, reducing opening hours and outlet density and the control of the unlicensed/unregulated trade). This stance has been supported by the World Health Organisation (WHO) in its 2010 Global Strategy to Reduce the Harmful Use of Alcohol. By contrast, questions of demand - the reasons why people drink - are under-explored in the race to set out simple policy "best buys" that can be replicated regardless of local social, economic and political contexts. Thus, from the offset, the project aimed to reposition the debate on alcohol consumption in the South African city from a public-health dominated concern with the quantification of the effect of risk behaviours to a far broader, trans-disciplinary concern with the multiple meanings, politics and significance of alcohol as an urban governance challenge. In so doing, it also became clear that alcohol holds a complex and often ambiguous relationship with both poverty and development. This, in many ways, is unique to the South African city, but also has some points of commonality with other Southern African countries (e.g. Botswana, Namibia, Zambia) where alcohol is fast emerging as a policy priority [7]. Where household resources are limited, spending money on alcohol can divert money away from food, schooling costs, housing, clothes and medications. There is a distinct gender dimension to this, where men are most likely to earn and spend the money that female household members are reliant upon. This, in turn, perpetuates inter-personal violence. Alcohol, however, also provides a medium through which to augment household resources through home-based retailing. This has long been a way by which women have made money within the township and informal settlement contexts. This complex and ambiguous relationship between urban livelihoods and alcohol is one that has not been acknowledged or worked through in much depth by the policy community [8]. It is also under-theorised within both the City of Cape Town's liquor by-laws and the Western Cape's own Liquor Act. The necessity to make a living amid conditions of entrenched poverty, where communities are often isolated from transport networks and places of employment opportunity, means that alcohol that the small-scale retailing of alcohol is incredibly pervasive problem that also reveals the best of human ingenuity [9, 10]. For policy makers, this marks the potential for both unanticipated consequences and also reveals the limits to universal policy solutions as envisaged in the WHO's 'Best Buys' document [11]. As these findings emerged from the qualitative research process, the project's core impact aim became to convey this message to policy makers. iii. Strategic timing The timing of the project was incredibly opportune. As the project came onstream in late 2010, the Western Cape Liquor bill was still being debated and was finally signed into law some months later. The re-working of the provincial Liquor Act was the first such in South Africa (and has since been followed by Gauteng) and also marked the ascendency of Helen Zille's Democratic Alliance (DA) party in both the provincial and city elections. In contrast to the ANC, the DA ran for election based on a hard line on both drugs and alcohol and identified the problem of illegal bars or "shebeens" as a core election platform. The Western Cape Liquor Act allowed for much stronger powers to raid and close shebeens which were conceptualised as being the locus and genesis of many of the social problems besetting Cape Town's poor communities. The ways in which the debate over the Liquor Bill unfolded in the press was also documented in an early project paper [12]. One of the research strands in this project was a number of stakeholder interviews from across government, the NGO sector and industry to ascertain the contours of alcohol as a "problem" in Cape Town, identify different 'epistemic communities' and how they generate and then mobilise around these problem frames [13]. This process also served an additional function, which was to map out and create a contact network between the project and all stakeholders. The policy community around alcohol in Cape Town is relatively small and it was therefore fairly simple to ensure that the project was on the radar of all relevant parties. The project website also provided a vehicle by which policy makers could stay connected with the project's aims, methods, working papers, conference papers and initial findings. In undertaking the stakeholder interviews, it became clear that research was already being conducted on the relationship between micro-enterprises (including alcohol outlets) and livelihoods by an NGO called the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation (SLF) [14]. One of the chief barriers facing NGO research and the ability to use this as a platform to generate either an audience or further funding is a lack of time and resources to publish in peer reviewed journals. While policy makers are quick to assert that they rarely read academic papers, they do require peer-reviewed papers to create an 'evidence base'. Thus, NGOs such as SLF serve as effective 'knowledge brokers' with excellent access to policy makers, but often lack a communicative form that policy makers respect. With SLF undertaking some exceptionally original and detailed survey work on the enterprise dynamics of shebeening and the impact of regulatory action on the sector, we undertook a joint publication and dissemination strategy to ensure that the results from this work were brought into the academic and policy domain. This work has already been cited by South African urban violence researchers [15, 16], as well as in the MPA thesis of the deputy head of the City of Cape Town Metropolitan Police. A controversial paper on shebeening, regulation and crime appeared in a South African open access journal [17], ensuring that policy makers can have full use of it. iv. Communicating the findings The principal aim of reframing the debate around alcohol to one that acknowledges its ambiguity and importance to livelihoods - and therefore its complex relationship with development - and raising awareness of this among the policy community has been achieved through a number of means. The ACC hosts a seminar series that is advertised throughout city and provincial government circles and is well attended. Research team members have given number of such talks that have then produced follow-on conversations with government employees. The core messages from the research findings were condensed into a pamphlet. This was sent to all stakeholders - in addition to national ministers - alongside a personal letter, links to the website, copies of two papers and a full list of publications. In November 2013, the team hosted a policy workshop at the ACC with representatives from the Province, City, Liquor Board, UCT's Public Health Department and SLF. The invitation went out to c.50 contacts and uptake was strong, with more than 30 confirmed attendees. Presentations were made by the project team, SLF, public health and the city with animated debate following. The timing of the workshop was prescient with the a series of amendments to the Western Cape Liquor Act tabled at that time due to difficulties in policing and closing shebeens and loopholes in shebeeners prosecution that had emerged. In contrast to the hard line espoused by those in public health, the City was also considering rescinding on its tighter opening hours in order to facilitate the business environment for licensed traders. Such moments of debate are vital opportunities for the generation of impact. Although the grant ended in December 2013, opportunities for impact continue to arise. In 2014, Cape Town was designated global design capital. In celebration of this, the ACC secured sponsorship to host an exhibition of its work in City Hall at the end of 2014. The alcohol work will feature within this and, as the event will be open to the public for 6 weeks, should facilitate awareness and debate of the issues raised by the research project. It will also serve the goal of ensuring that alcohol is viewed as a cross-sectoral governance challenge, rather than just one of public health and/ or law enforcement. In addition to this, SLF are also hosting a launch event for their 'safer shebeens' work in the settlement of Sweet Home Farm in October 2014. This small scale project invited local shebeeners to work together to generate a shared set of rules for their premises that would ensure a code of conduct and thus mitigate some of the problems associated with anti-social behaviour. The idea emerged from earlier research that demonstrated that, far from being the lawless spaces often described within policy discourse, shebeeners actually go to great lengths to micro-manage their premises to ensure patron and neighbour safety. This is crucially important for any policy debate as townships and informal settlements have little or no recreational spaces, further reinforcing the importance of shebeens to the social life of these communities. Closing shebeens may manage risks in one sense, but also robs communities of rare communal spaces. Envisaging these spaces in a different way - of potential for social change - represents the aim of SLF's launch event as well as its policy strategy. The next year will show the effect of these events. In August 2014, a workshop at SLF revealed a shared need to produce a communication that would resonate with policy makers. To this end, it was decided that a small number of the project team would contribute to a short booklet loosely based on that produced by the Royal Geographical Society entitled 'Consumption Controversies: Alcohol in the UK' for which the PI was a contributor. The RGS's booklet was launched at the House of Commons in 2011 and the idea here is to generate a similar booklet that will dispel common myths around alcohol, its use and regulation in South Africa. Funds have been secured for a launch event, appropriate graphic design and printing support and copies will be sent not only to city and provincial stakeholders, but also the South African Human Research Council (which as recently launched its own alcohol research findings) and the national Ministry of Health (which is currently embroiled in a fierce debate around strict alcohol advertising laws). This event is planned for early 2015. v. Co-evolution of an issue: Post-2015 agenda The timing of the project has been opportune as negotiations have stepped up around the likely structure of the new Post-2015 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). For these, two issues are pertinent, the likely inclusion of non-communicable disease (NCDs) for which alcohol is one of four 'modifiable risk factors' and the explicit inclusion of a set of urban goals. The Co-PI's active membership of this SDG negotiation on the urban Open Working Group has emerged from, and in turn, benefits from the research project's emplacement with these urban health debates [18, 19] and those of global health [20]. This again offers a clear link between the project and the policy community and helps serve the purpose of highlighting that issues of health and its risk factors are not always best served by their treatment by the public health community. Indeed, the SDG outcomes document clearly highlights the need for inter-sectoral working across government scales and domains in order to effect change. The Co-PI's membership of this community, as well as the International Council on Science (ICSU), has and continues to ensure that the project co-evolves with the Post-2015 agenda and, as a result, that it continues to have policy resonance and relevance. vi. Negotiating the challenges to impact: As with any research project, the genesis of impact has been rendered complex by a number of factors. These may not be particular to this project, but represent the broader, shared concerns of the academic community. They also serve as useful lessons as the opportunities for impact continue to unfold and as lessons for the PI, for whom this was the first experience of managing a large project. Some of these limitations are explored briefly below: 1. Self-referential, small policy community: Like many cities, Cape Town's policy community is fairly small and self-referential. People frequently shift roles within government, leaving the project team to forge new relationships and broker trust once again. At an inter-personal level, it was important to ensure that all member of this community were included in events such as policy workshops, lest members felt excluded. The self-referential nature also meant that policy makers tended to look to well-known and respected experts in the field (usually public health), rather than casting their nets more broadly to new social scientific work. Initial meetings with stakeholders were then often used to highlight the diversity of debates surrounding alcohol and its regulation in order to gain legitimacy for the project's approach. This revealed a high level of tension between public health researchers and the policy making community around several issues and, therefore, a willingness to engage with new and challenging critical social science perspectives. 2. Public health-led policy logic: As has been explored, the debate on alcohol and its governance has long been dominated by Public Health in South Africa and beyond at the WHO. This framing has also then led to the promotion and adherence to particular policy recommendations. The other outcome of this dominance is a particular disciplinary territoriality with regards to alcohol research. This was often evident at UCT and there were some occasions where tensions between disciplinary approaches could have been said to have undermined the generation of impact. This is not a problem particular to South Africa and is evident through a hardening of the public health stance towards the shape of alcohol research. This means that many high-impact outlets (e.g. Bulletin of the WHO) are disinterested in research that questions the current regulatory recommendations for liquor. Alternative, more critical and open access outlets are therefore a more viable option for dissemination. The project leveraged these routes. 3. Historically-entrenched causal narratives: As in many countries, the causal narratives surrounding the genesis of alcohol-related harms are inextricable from local history, cultural beliefs, social formations and the ways in which the urban form has developed and been inhabited. South Africa has a mercifully unique history, but the creation of a dual system of legal and illegal local outlets is found throughout the Global South, although their exact nature and the products they sell may differ. The causal narratives of harm in South Africa are entwined with racialized understandings of social difference, urban segregation and inequality and these are, unsurprisingly, difficult to challenge - even (and often especially) among policy makers. This serves to demonstrate, on one hand, the partiality of evidence and, on the other, the stubborn resistance of social belief. Generating evidence in forms that forces policy makers to confront and question their entrenched social beliefs is thus core to the generation of impact. 4. World Health Organisation goals v local needs: For any health-related project in the Global South, the WHO is a key reference point. Their strategy documents, data repositories and advisories form the framework around which health policy is often created. In the case of South Africa, realising the target of a 10% reduction in alcohol use set out in the NCD Action Plan 2013-2020 [21]has become a core justification for national efforts to increase the legal drinking age and restrict alcohol advertising. However, the WHO's dominance also presents a barrier to the generation of impact, especially where research may challenge their argument that 'one size fits all' alcohol harm reduction policies are possible and where it has been shown that the uptake of these policies has had unintended consequences. In part this relates to the global status of the WHO and in part also to a reticence among policy makers to "experiment" based on local data and evidence. It also demonstrates the need for policy makers to generate and demonstrate evidence of change within relatively short timescales. In such situations, the appropriate community to engage for impact may well be the WHO itself, something that will be taken up in the next stage of the emerging impact agenda of this project. 5. Finding the correct language: Academic texts may compose the evidence base when authoring policy position papers, but Ministers themselves rarely read them. Information needs to be easily digestible and have a core message at its heart. In this sense, projects that have a stock of easily reproducible infographics that can be used by policy makers in presentations and publications are a core means by which to generate and also trace impact. Another means to communicate and engage is through platforms such as Twitter. This is popular in some African countries - although it is obviously not a viable way of engaging local communities - but is well-used by those able to by smart phones. Facebook pages are also important methods of communication that would have been useful to deploy. In future projects, more emphasis will be placed on Comms and the development of a dedicated strategy and monitoring system thoughout the life-course of the project. 6. Insider v outsider: Finally as a point of reflection, the generation of impact was both aided and abetted by the PI's outsider status (not being a South African national). With the policy community well known to each other, in many respects being an outsider facilitated curiosity, respect and access. It also made the PI non-threatening and affirmed a certain "expert" status. This had its strengths, but being non-resident also meant missing many good opportunities for impact and charting these as they arose. While the project's post-doc was charged with the task of keeping abreast of debates and opportunities, such conversations need to happen in a consistent, iterative fashion to really ensure the maximisation of all possible avenues of impact. This is a final point for reflection as the impact agenda continues to develop and unfold over the coming years and months . References 1. Lawhon, M., C. Herrick, and S. Daya, Researching sensitive topics in African cities: reflections on alcohol research in Cape Town. South African Geographical Journal, 2014. 96(1): p. 15-30. 2. Drivdal, L. and M. Lawhon, Plural regulation of shebeens (informal drinking places). South African Geographical Journal, 2014. 96(1): p. 97-112. 3. Lawhon, M., Alcohol, materiality, flows and friction in Cape Town. Antipode, 2013. 45(3), p. 681-71 4. Pirie, G., On alcohol, transport and poverty in Cape Town. South African Geographical Journal, 2014. 96(1): p. 50-59. 5. Daya, S. and N. Wilkins, The body, the shelter, and the shebeen. Affective geographies of homelessness in South Africa. Cultural Geographies, 2013. 20(3) p.357-378 6. Gilmore, A.B., E. Savell, and J. Collin, Public health, corporations and the New Responsibility Deal: promoting partnerships with vectors of disease? Journal of Public Health, 2011. 33(1): p. 2-4. 7. Charman, A., C. Herrick, and L. Peterson, Fomalising urban informality: micro-enterprise and the regulation of liquor in Cape Town. . Journal of Modern African Studies, in press. 8. Herrick, C., Alcohol control and urban livelihoods in developing countries: can public health aspirations and development goals be reconciled? Critical Public Health, 2013. 24(3): p. 361-371. 9. Charman, A.J.E., L.M. Petersen, and L. Piper, Enforced informalisation: The case of liquor retailers in South Africa. Development Southern Africa, 2013: p. 1-16. 10. Herrick, C. and A. Charman, Shebeens and crime: The multiple criminalities of South African liquor and its regulation. South African Crime Quarterly, 2013. 45: p. 25-33. 11. World Health Organisation, From burden to "best buys": Reducing the economic impact of NCDs in low- and middle-income countries. 2011, WHO: Geneva. 12. Lawhon, M. and C. Herrick, Alcohol control in the news: The Politics of Media Representations of Alcohol Policy in South Africa. Journal of Health Politics, Policy and Law, 2013. 38(5): p. 989-1025. 13. Herrick, C., Stakeholder narratives on alcohol governance in the Western Cape: the socio-spatial 'nuisance' of drink. South African Geographical Journal, 2014. 96(1): p. 81-96. 14. Petersen, L. and A. Charman, Case study: understanding the local economic impact of the closure of shebeens in the Western Cape as a consequence of the new Western Cape Liquor Act, 2008. The Small Business Monitor, 2010. 6(1): p. 102-109. 15. Faull, A., Policing taverns and shebeens: Observation, experience and discourse. SA Crime Quarterly, 2013. 46(35-48). 16. Matzopoulos, R. and J.E. Myers, The Western Cape Government's new Integrated Provincial Violence Prevention Policy Framework: Successes and challenges. Aggression and Violent Behavior, 2014. 17. Herrick, C. and A. Charman, Shebeens and crime: The multiple criminalities of South African liquor and its regulation South African Crime Quarterly 2013. 45(1): p. 25-33. 18. Herrick, C., Healthy Cities from/ of the South, in The Routledge Handbook of Cities of the South, S. Parnell and S. Oldfield, Editors. 2014, Routledge: London, p. 556-569 19. Herrick, C. and S. Parnell, Alcohol, poverty and the South African city. South African Geographical Journal, 2014. 96(1): p. 1-14. 20. Herrick, C., (Global) health geography and the post-2015 development agenda. The Geographical Journal, 2014. 180(2): p. 185-190. 21. World Health Organisation, Global action plan for the prevention and control of noncommnicable diseases 2013-2020. 2013, WHO: Geneva.
First Year Of Impact 2014
Sector Communities and Social Services/Policy,Government, Democracy and Justice
Impact Types Policy & public services
 
Description Departmental Research Impact Fund
Amount £2,000 (GBP)
Organisation King's College London 
Sector Academic/University
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2015 
End 08/2015
 
Description Wellcome Trust small grants
Amount £4,985 (GBP)
Organisation Wellcome Trust 
Sector Charity/Non Profit
Country United Kingdom
Start 02/2014 
End 08/2015
 
Description Research on micro-enterprises and the effects of liquor regulation on township dwellers 
Organisation Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation
Country South Africa 
Sector Charity/Non Profit 
PI Contribution Collaborative publication with Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation Joint working with the SLF, Cape Town in order to bring their research on micro-enterprises and the effects of liquor regulation on township dwellers to international journal audience and, therefore, to gain legitimacy among government and policy makers in South Africa
Start Year 2011
 
Description Alcohol and Healthy Cities CityLab workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact This event was hosted by the African Centre for Cities (ACC), UCT and King's College London to share the findings of our Healthy Cities CityLab work on alcohol, violence and the built environment. For the past three years, ACC and King's have been engaged in collaborative work exploring the everyday lived experiences of alcohol across several Cape Town communities, examining the multiple perspectives of alcohol policy stakeholders, the spatial distribution of licensed premises across the city and seeking to understand responses and reactions of the shebeen sector to the Western Cape Liquor Act. The results of this work have been published in a large number of academic papers, but the workshop creates the opportunity to open up discussion of the work and its broader implications for our understandings of the interface between wellbeing and the urban environment with key stakeholders. The meeting convened over 25 strategic stakeholders from the Provincial government, municipality, liquor authority, academia and NGOs to explore the research findings, their significance and the gaps in knowledge that remain.

Further correspondence with the City of Cape Town to discuss issues raised in the workshop around how best to communicate information to shebeeners about the Liquor Act and its significance for their business practices. Further co-working with the Sustainable Livelihoods Foundation on a policy-facing short publication and planned launch event.
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Alcohol, flows and friction in Cape Town 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Urban political ecologies have followed the flows of various materials such as waste, energy and fat through the city and how people and power shape these flows. Examing alcohol through this lens offers interesting insights for while often considered as a social lubricant alcohol can also, ironically, like fats be a "sticky" commodity. Alchol can resist flows as well as constricts the flows of material, people, and processes in the city. Building on fieldwork in Cape Town, this study uses the examples of waste and transportation to show how alcohol shapes the flows and stickiness of circulation. Specifically, I trace the flow of materials into the bottles, through the city's transportation system (much of which becomes "invisible" as it flows to unlicensed, illegal shebeens), and into specific bodies. One of the remnants of this flow is the waste left behind- bottles, cans, plastic from papsak- which individual shebeen owners, city solid waste teams, informal recyclers, and community members are left to re-move. Additionally, alcohol- visible in paper sacks, evident in smells or assumed in certain bodies- shapes the movement of people in the cities, particularly in the public transport systems. Alcohol in these cases is shown to provide friction- reducing people's willingness to move, or decreasing their comfort when doing so. These examples show the interrelationships between different flows, and how some seemingly fluid materials such as alcohol constrict circulation.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Governing alcohol control in the Western Cape : what is said v what is done 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This paper explores two sides of the same coin. On the one hand, it explores the current regulatory environment in relation to drinking practices in the Western Cape. On the other, it examines the ways in which stakeholders of such regulation formulate, comprehend and act upon the "problem" of drinking. As a result, the paper aims to tease out where the differences between what is said (of alcohol within policy) and what is done (about alcohol within policy). It does this in order to: (1) deepen current engagements with alcohol control policies in South Africa and the Global South; (2) explore the extent to which stakeholders actually know about the drinking practices that they seek to regulate; and (3) argue that although drinking practices in the Global South exhibit particularities that mark it out in contrast to those of the Global North, the regulatory challenges are often far more similar than either expected or acknowledged. These similarities have significant consequences for how alcohol is understood as a barrier to development as well as offering a useful point of critique for alcohol policies more broadly.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Inebriation and immobility 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Poor and / or young urban residents often use public transport spaces (such as rail, bus and taxi termini and halts) most intensively and most often. Regulation of alcohol advertising, sale, purchase and consumption in these fixed 'commotional' sites - and in public passenger vehicles - has been and is undertaken to achieve technical, legalistic specifications of passenger comfort, vehicle operating safety, and public order. This research speculates that such regulation creates distinctive urbanities and affects young, poor (and illiterate) urban citizens in particular ways. These ways may include increased prices of alcohol, dispossession of alcohol, fines, ejection from a space or vehicle, and / or inconsistent or lax application of local authority and transit operator by-laws. The research builds on interview and participant observation fieldwork undertaken in Cape Town to explore the ways in which alcohol is regulated and consumed in transportation spaces, and how this shapes mobility and the city itself.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Liquor regulations and zoning schemes : attempts by the state to control shebeens in Cape Town 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Usage of alcohol is linked to ill-health and negative social behaviour, and, as a result, government bodies almost always try to restrict access to alcohol, through regulating where and when it can be sold. The impact of such regulations is usually limited, however. This paper examines attempts to regulate informal drinking places (shebeens) in low-income residential areas in Cape Town. Firstly, the literature on the regulation of drinking places, and the ideas about alcohol as a public health problem underpinning this, are reviewed. Secondly, the context of Cape Town and the prevalence and nature of shebeens in low-income residential areas Cape Town are discussed. The paper then looks at the ways in which different levels of government have tried to prevent or control shebeens in Cape Town over the past decade. The paper focuses on two initiatives in particular: the Western Cape Provincial Government's new Liquor Act, and the City of Cape Town's new zoning scheme. Finally, the policy implications of these attempts are discussed.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Shebeens in the news : contesting alcohol control policies in the western cape, South Africa 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Media coverage of the "problems" associated with alcohol is now widespread. However, there have been very few analyses either of newspaper coverage of alcohol or media coverage of alcohol policy, especially outside Europe or North America. However, this paper argues that given mounting concern with the longterm health, economic, social and developmental consequences of risky drinking in the Global South, an exploration of newspaper coverage of nascent alcohol policy in such a context is both timely and valuable. This paper therefore explores how two alcohol control policies - the Western Cape Liquor Bill and the City of Cape Town's liquor by-laws - have been debated in two regional, English-language South African newspapers over a four year period between 2007 and 2011. In so doing, it draws out the tensions between alcohol as a source of livelihood in a context of endemic unemployment and chronic poverty and alcohol as a source of poverty, crime, violence, social disintegration and health risks. It consequently argues that in SA, alcohol serves multiple, overlapping and often competing social, economic and political agendas. Furthermore, it contends that the constructive processes guiding public and political opinion are inextricable from the contested and ambiguous nature of alcohol itself.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description The body, the shelter, and the shebeen : affective geographies of homelessness in South Africa 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Geographies of homelessness mainly address issues of social exclusion, especially in contexts of urban public space. Recent research focuses on spatial regulation and surveillance, and strategies used by homeless people to resist these forms of control and create spaces for themselves in the city. Relatively little attention is paid, however, to the embodied, affective, emotional and relational geographies of homelessness. We address this absence through an exploration of how material spaces and practices shape a sense of belonging for a group of men living in a homeless shelter in Cape Town. Theorising belonging as constituted through the materialities of both self-identity and social connections, we examine the three spaces that are most affective in our participants' everyday lives: (i) their bodies, (ii) the shelter where they live, and (iii) the shebeen (tavern) where they drink. The discursive and embodied accounts of two participants in particular serve as a case study that illuminates the complex ways in which belonging is shaped in spaces of homeless life. These men's experiences reveal some of the ambivalences and ambiguities of homelessness that are only rendered visible through a theoretical lens that respects their status as emotional and relational subjects, rather than as objects within structures of exclusion. Drinking in particular emerges from this research as an important factor in understanding the contradictory behaviours and feelings in these men's daily lives. Damaging their bodies and social relationships, alcohol nonetheless provides a sense of belonging by facilitating both a sense of self and connections with others.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description The space and place of drinking in Salt River : contested narratives and imaginaries of the urban through a lens of the locie 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Current literature on drinking in social urban geography addresses the relationship between alcohol and place making. This paper aims to build on this literature by exploring how contested and shared meanings of place and identity within the Cape Town suburb of Salt River can be negotiated through drinking and drinking places. Salt River demonstrates a unique social and economic mix that defies assumptions in literature on traditional drinking places and those who frequent such spaces. There is a blurring of binaries between the formal and informal economic activities in the area, with stable and transient populations residing in spaces where gentrification and urban poverty are found side-by-side. The unique social mix in Salt River is mirrored in the diverse drinking spaces found within the suburb. Taverns, clubs, bars, shebeens and house based establishments all form part of Salt River's complex social mosaic, with people demonstrating different degrees of mobility in moving between different drinking places. Through an ethnographic study, this paper explores how people create meaning and identity in Salt River through drinking places. Drinking places become the nodes in Salt River's social-scape where people can interrogate their contested and shared meanings of place and identity. This analysis reveals that different drinking spaces throughout Salt River - places that blur social and economic boundaries, create and shape unique social and place identities that have not yet been accounted for in current geographic alcohol literature.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Violence and alcohol in the Cape Flats, Cape Town 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The link between alcohol abuse and violent behavior is now widely accepted in academic and policy circles, although there is still some debate about the extent of the impact that the abuse of alcohol has on aggressive behavior. Corrigall (2010) estimates that more than 95% of studies worldwide report a positive association between alcohol abuse and violence. Little attention has however been devoted to understanding if and how the abuse of alcohol intersects with the nature of the built environment and the impact which this has on violence and violent crime in cities. This paper therefore aims to explore the relationship between urban violence and alcohol abuse in urban settlements characterised by poorly located, low-quality housing and inadequate access to land, services and infrastructure. It draws on research conducted in Freedom Park, a low-income settlement on the Cape Flats which has recently been upgraded from an informal settlement into formal housing under South Africa's Upgrading of Informal Settlements Programme. The basic research question which the paper tries to address is if and how the nature of violence has changed since the upgrading process and the role that alcohol abuse plays in violence and violent crime experienced within the settlement. Preliminary findings suggest a shift in the nature of violence from gang-related violence during the informal settlement phase to a perceived increase in domestic violence linked to drug and alcohol abuse post upgrading. In a context of poverty, high levels of unemployment and a lack of opportunities for educational advancement; alcoholism, drug abuse and inter and intra-personal violence seem to thrive in Freedom Park.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description A hazard approach to alcohol control, development and poverty in South Africa's western cape 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Blaikie et al's (1994; 2003) multi-disciplinary, political ecological approach to risk, vulnerability and coping with respect to natural hazards has received widespread academic attention. However, while this structuralist approach has been applied to HIV/AIDS as "long-wave disaster" (see Barnett and Blaikie 1992), the approach may also help question the constitution of the multiple hazards relating to behavioural or lifestyle risks, such as drinking alcohol. As such, this paper argues for the utility of Blaikie et al's "disaster" approach to question the relationships between alcohol control, development and poverty in South Africa's Western Cape region. The purpose of this is twofold: first to mark out a research agenda that considers the qualitative and complex interweaving of development aspirations and realities with poverty in relation to alcohol consumption as "disaster". Second, to develop an analytical framework that enables structuralist explanations and post-structuralist interpretations to speak to each other in ways that challenge stereotypes of risk and risk-taking. With the recent ratification of the WHO's Global Strategy on alcohol, the alcohol control agenda is gathering momentum in the Global South. However, this momentum also marks out research gaps, in which multi-facetted structures of risk should be explored in situ. This paper thus aims to mark out areas of research priority that will be taken up in subsequent works.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Alcohol and Healthy Cities CityLab workshop 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This event was hosted by the African Centre for Cities (ACC), UCT and King's College London to share the findings of our Healthy Cities CityLab work on alcohol, violence and the built environment. For the past three years, ACC and King's have been engaged in collaborative work exploring the everyday lived experiences of alcohol across several Cape Town communities, examining the multiple perspectives of alcohol policy stakeholders, the spatial distribution of licensed premises across the city and seeking to understand responses and reactions of the shebeen sector to the Western Cape Liquor Act. The results of this work have been published in a large number of academic papers, but the workshop creates the opportunity to open up discussion of the work and its broader implications for our understandings of the interface between wellbeing and the urban environment with key stakeholders. The meeting convened over 25 strategic stakeholders from the Provincial government, municipality, liquor authority, academia and NGOs to explore the research findings, their significance and the gaps in knowledge that remain.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Alcohol consumption and NCDs in South Africa: A missing Agenda? 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact South Africa has one of the world's highest rates of alcohol-related harms. These are estimated to cost the nation roughly 2% of GDP annually and, in addition, contribute to country's exceptionally high levels of crime, violence and injury. At a policy level therefore, attention has been overwhelmingly focussed on the regulation of supply - both availability and access - in order to reduce these harms. In practice this has been achieved through strategies of land use zoning, more stringent opening hours and attempts to regulate the informal liquor sector through police raids and closures of shebeens (illegal bars). These strategies have been underpinned by the drive to address the acute effects of drinking, rather than the more sustained, chronic health effects such as non-communicable diseases (e.g. cancers, liver disease) for which the World Health Organisation recognises alcohol as one of four main risk factors. The paper engaged with this 'missing agenda' within South Africa's alcohol control remit by exploring the consequences of the omission of NCDs from policy aims. In particular it critically explores (1) how the focus on acute effects of drinking serves to frame alcohol consumption as a risk behaviour and (2) the consequences for the ways in which alcohol control strategies are socio-spatially deployed across urban spaces.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Creating interdisciplinary and international research: crossing the public health/ social science gap 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact In this talk, we will reflect on an expressly interdisciplinary and international collaborative research project that has been in progress since 2013. The project is funded by the UK's Economic and Social Research Council and the Department for International Development with the PI located at King's College London (Herrick) and the Co-PI at the African Centre for Cities (Susan Parnell). It set out to explore two interlinked questions: first, how are the lived experiences of drinking understood and taken up in the policymaking process? And second, how, why and where do the poor drink and under what conditions do these practices become "problematic"? These questions aim to help deepen our understanding of the complex relationships between alcohol (production, consumption and retailing), poverty and development in the context of Cape Town where, arguably, most progress has been made in moving forward an alcohol control agenda that reflects the aspirations of the World Health Organisation's 2010 Global Strategy. The Western Cape Liquor Act and the City of Cape Town's bylaws have not been without their debates, controversies, proponents and detractors and, as result, have provided a truly fertile research setting in both regulatory and geographic terms.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Is alcohol threatening health and wellbeing in South Africa? 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Alcohol abuse is a global problem which compromises both individual and social development and contributes to 2.5 million deaths each year. South Africa has one of the highest per capita alcohol consumption rates in the world, with over 30 per cent of the population struggling with an alcohol problem or on the verge of having one. Treating the causes of high alcohol consumption rather than focusing on the effects reveals important development questions linked to the emergence of non-communicable diseases in South Africa. Sue and Clare will explore the emergence of non-communicable diseases in South Africa, focussing on the harmful use of alcohol as a risk factor for development.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description NCDs, alcohol and development in South Africa 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact In this presentation for the IDS seminar 'Global Demographic Shifts: Urbanisation and the 21st Century Burden of Disease', Clare Herrick explores the emergences of non-communicable diseases (NCDs) in South Africa, focussing on harmful use of alcohol as a risk factor for developing NCDs.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Negotiating senses of place beyond a 'time-space' envelope : a study into the hotel drinking establishments of Cape Town 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This paper explores the ways in which Salt River's cosmopolitan demographic composition and the pressures of rapid socio-economic change are evidenced in and through the nature of the suburb's drinking spaces. How, in particular, do spaces such as the original hotels seek to provide a sense of community and 'place' in an otherwise fluid neighbourhood. Moreover, how do drinking practices themselves bring this sense of place into being?

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Regulating shebeens in informal settlements in Cape Town : a plural view on regulatory actors and strategies 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact The regulation of space has increasingly been seen to extend beyond the scope of the state to include decentralised, diffuse non-state actors. The regulation of shebeens in South Africa has long been a key focal point for the State, as a means for regulating behaviour, controlling crime and disorder and generating state income. However the post-apartheid state has struggled to find new and effective ways to regulate alcohol in ways that respond to the myriad problems associated with its consumption. In the absence of effective regulation and enforcement by police, we examine three sets of non-state actors who contribute to the regulation of drinking spaces in informal settlements in Cape Town. We examine the particular strategies through which neighbours, shebeen owners and community leaders attempt to regulate the flow of alcohol and the effectiveness of such strategies in reducing alcohol-related harm.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Researching sensitive topics in African cities : reflections on alcohol research in Cape Town 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This short talk explores the contentiousness of alcohol as a research topic and, as a result, the limits and difficulties of conducting qualitative research, particularly in poor communities where drinking is both taboo and socially normalised.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description Some macro-demographic trends of significance for health and development 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact In this presentation given for the IDS seminar 'Global Demographic Shifts: Urbanisation and the 21st Century Burden of Disease', Professor Sue Parnell examines major shifts in global demographics -- especially regarding urbanisation -- and their implications for national health systems. In particular, she argues the the development studies community must recognise that the poorest are living in cities, and are no longer farmers living in the countryside.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Stakeholder communication letter 
Form Of Engagement Activity A press release, press conference or response to a media enquiry/interview
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Professional Practitioners
Results and Impact This is a letter sent out to all the stakeholders interviewed in the project plus additional national scale stakeholders (eg Department of Trade and Industry and the Minister for Health). It was also an opportunity to contact stakeholders who it was not possible to interview (e.g the Head of the Western Cape's Liquor Licensing Tribunal, the Premier of the Western Cape and the MEC of Economic Development and Tourism)



The letter was accompanied with a copy of all the project's outputs, a copy of the Geoforum paper and a few copies of the project's overview leaflet

Section not completed
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Stakeholder narratives on alcohol governance in the Western Cape : the sociospatial nuisance of drink 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This paper examines, on one hand, the current regulatory environment in relation to alcohol retailing and consumption in South Africa's Western Cape. On the other, it explores how stakeholders of such regulations formulate, comprehend and act upon the "problem" of drinking. As a result, the paper aims to tease out the discrepancies between what is said (of alcohol by policymakers) and what is done (about alcohol within policy) through the conceptual lens of alcohol as 'nuisance'. It does this in order to: (1) deepen current empirical engagements with alcohol control policies in South Africa and the Global South; (2) explore what stakeholders "know" or believe about the drinking practices that they seek to regulate; and (3) highlight the dynamic tensions between what is said and what is done. In so doing, the paper contributes novel empirical data to the growing cannon of geographical engagements with drinking practices and policies by situating its analysis in the context of the Western Cape. As a result, it marks out an original contribution to the multidisciplinary field of critical alcohol studies, as well as South African geographical research.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description The impact of upgrading on the nature of violence and violent crime in low-income settlements : the case of Freedom Park, Cape Town 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact This paper explores the impact of urban upgrading (the transformation of an informal, slum settlement into formal housing) on the nature of violence and alcohol use in the Cape Flats. The example of Freedom Park demonstrates that, while formal housing was viewed as a panacea for the associated problems of poverty, crime and inter-personal violence, the reality was often very different. While informality had necessitated street committees and informal methods of surveillance, the shift to formal housing had precipitated a turn to drinking at home and a loss of surveillance. The result was a marked shift from public to private violence, made far worse by alcohol.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2012
 
Description The moment he starts drinking the devil comes out of him : alcohol use and abuse in Cape Town 
Form Of Engagement Activity Participation in an activity, workshop or similar
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach National
Primary Audience Public/other audiences
Results and Impact Health/ urban geographer Clare Herrick will discuss her paper that begins from the assertion that, 'South Africans are generally aware of the liquor abuse problem and many have had personal experiences or know family members who have had personal experiences' (Akinboade and Mokwena, 2010, 69).



These experiences represent a domain in which researchers need to 'address the taken-for-granted sites of health experience, where gaps in academic knowledge intersect with gaps in material opportunity and personal well-being' (Kearns, 1997, 274). Thus, while significant and important work has been undertaken within epidemiology and public health to quantify the extent to which alcohol contributes to South Africa's significant burden of infectious and non-communicable disease, rates of violence and injury, sexual risk taking and 'intimate partner violence'; too few studies have qualitatively explored the dynamics and experiences of alcohol and its complex intersections with the conditions of urban poverty. This paper therefore explores narratives of liquor use, abuse and its consequences in three settlements in Cape Town and argues that alcohol consumption is an embedded experience that is both a driver and consequence of poverty. Drawing on focus group findings, this idea is brought out through attention to three themes: tales of cause and consequence; gendered interactions and societal expectations; and prestige. The paper then turns to a discussion of respondents' suggestions for how alcohol consumption and its harms might best be tackled. The significance of these suggestions vis-à-vis the current regulatory environment are further examined in the paper's conclusion.

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Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013
 
Description Urban health and wellbeing 
Form Of Engagement Activity A talk or presentation
Part Of Official Scheme? No
Geographic Reach International
Primary Audience Policymakers/politicians
Results and Impact The General Assembly of the International Council for Science (ICSU) launched its new global initiative " Health and Wellbeing in the Changing Urban Environment: A Systems Analysis Approach" in 2012. Simple models for population health often have limited applicability in complex urban settings, where decision-making and policies have to simultaneously take account of many different issues. The ICSU Science Plan lays out a new conceptual framework for considering the multi-factorial nature of both the determinants and the manifestations of health and wellbeing in urban populations. The application of systems analysis - quantitative modelling of relationships among interrelated systems - provides a mechanism for exploring this complexity and providing solutions to real-world problems. This presentation formed part of the Urban Health and Wellbeing meeting in Kuala Lumpar, Malaysia

Formed a pre-cursor to membership of the UN Sustainable Development Goal advisory group (urban)
Year(s) Of Engagement Activity 2013