Ignatius Swart

Ignatius Swart
University of South Africa | unisa · Research Institute for Theology and Religion

BA (cum laude), BA Hons (cum laude), MA (cum laude), BTh (cum laude), MA (Development Studies), DPhil

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34
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435
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March 2012 - November 2015
University of South Africa
Position
  • Professor (Full)

Publications

Publications (34)
Chapter
Young people in South Africa are not equally affected by unemployment and precarious living conditions and, given the racialized past of the country, it is not surprising that race and class play influential roles in young people’s life chances. High unemployment figures and limited targeted social assistance programmes exacerbate the difficult cir...
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This article seeks to make an initial contribution towards a reappraisal of how the Christian religious leadership in Nigeria is beginning to chart a new course in social transformation that has the potential to engender sustainable transformational development in the country. This aim is met by first providing the necessary contextual orientation...
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Religion constitutes an inextricable part of African society. As such, political and socioeconomic activities are often flavoured with religious expressions and rituals. Whilst Africans are steeped in religiosity – this is expressed in many ways – poverty and corruption are rife on the continent. The question thus arises as to whether African relig...
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This article seeks to make an initial contribution towards a reappraisal of how the Christian religious leadership in Nigeria is beginning to chart a new course in social transformation that has the potential to engender sustainable transformational development in the country. This aim is met by first providing the necessary contextual orientation...
Article
Full-text available
This article proposes a 'fusion of horizons' in constructing urban public theologies in South Africa. This is done through the introduction of five interrelated themes that have emerged from the on-going knowledge and idea production by a distinguishable counterpoint in contemporary scholarly, intellectual and activist engagement with the urban, in...
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This article serves as the introductory, first contribution to a special collection of articles on the theme, 'Doing urban public theology in South Africa: Visions, approaches, themes and practices towards a new agenda'. The aim of the article is to set the conceptual and hermeneutical framework for undertaking urban public theology as a very inten...
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This article highlights important dimensions of public theology and shows how the identified dimensions are relevant to the specific situation of informal early childhood development (ECD) facilities in a South African urban setting. The article considers the contributions and challenges of informal community-based ECD on the basis of research cond...
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This article gives a critical account of a participatory action research process through which the researchers have aimed to mobilise the faith-based sector for social development action in selected local communities. After highlighting a number of key features, the article describes in some detail the multifaceted methodology applied in the resear...
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In South Africa the state strongly expects the religious sector – or more specifically the collectivity of faith-based organisations constituting this sector – to make a meaningful contribution towards the country’s struggle against poverty and HIV and AIDS (Koegelenberg, 2001, 2007; Swart, 2008). The debate on the role and contribution of faith-ba...
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This article serves as the introductory, first contribution to a special collection of articles on the theme, ‘Doing urban public theology in South Africa: Visions, approaches, themes and practices towards a new agenda’. The aim of the article is to set the conceptual and hermeneutical framework for undertaking urban public theology as a very inten...
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My point of departure in this article is a new interest in the socio-religious reality of a reviving kairos theological tradition – or kairos consciousness – in post-apartheid South Africa, but indissolubly related to this is also an interest in the question of the potential and actual role of the country's historic mainline churches as reviving ch...
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In recent development studies a positive, yet critical reappraisal of the potential contribution of religion has emerged. Commentators like Galtung, as well as Edwards and Sen, seem to be moving development discourse beyond its habitual economic and technological biases. Development theorists have also called upon religious actors to recast their u...
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This article holds up the development of an expanding South-North collaboration between researchers from South Africa and the Nordic European countries of Finland, Swe-den and Norway as an example of what can also be recognised as a new-found intentional initiative by the International Society for the Research and Study of Diaconia and Christian So...
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Various sources have influenced and shaped the ideological orientation and outlook of Christian religious leadership in successive epochs in Nigerian history. This orientation and outlook have by and large been sustained in the contemporary post-military dispensation. This article develops a more informed identification of the historical sources th...
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This article proceeded from the assumption that the theme of service delivery in present-day South Africa could well be qualified by the notion of 'crisis', to the extent that this qualification, from a theological perspective and on the basis of comparative social analysis, well recalls the statements in such critical and profound theological docu...
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As part of the theological task of developing a publicly oriented ministry that will do justice to the social plight of children in Africa, this article adopted as its point of departure an appreciation of the new 'hermeneutics of listening' that is advanced today by an interdisciplinary movement of scholars from the disciplines of practical theolo...
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This article is concerned with the question of whether and how a local church or congregation can, as indissoluble dimension of its vocation as a Christian faith agent, make a difference by influencing the dynamics of social and economic change that are transforming the face and structures of 'traditional' social and religious life in its community...
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Purpose The purpose of this paper is to explore the theoretical and ideological foundations for a research agenda on the social economy in South Africa. Design/methodology/approach The paper combines relevant literature research and case study work in a selected geographical region in the Western Cape province of South Africa to meet its research...
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In 2008 a project funded by the National Research Foundation (NRF) was started in the Western Cape and KwaZulu-Natal provinces of South Africa to explore the role of religious ritual in the kinds of social capital formation that are relevant to the related objectives of alleviating poverty and promoting social development at grassroots level. ABSTR...
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In the field of international practical theological scholarship, a new concern with the problem of poverty has recently emerged. This article is offered as a contribution toward practical theology's endeavor to become a meaningful role-player in the global struggle against the problem of poverty. The author draws specifically on his South African c...
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The aim of this article is to give prominence to the rights of children as a new agenda for Practical Theology in South Africa. Adopting a distinctly contextual approach, the article takes a critical look at the problematic situation of children in present-day South Africa and then focuses attention on the emergence of a children's rights agenda, b...
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The aim of the article is to present a perspective on the manner and extent to which churches may be considered as an important stock of social capital for promoting social development outcomes in selected communities in the Western Cape, South Africa. Taking the recently presented policy outline on social capital formation in this province as the...
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Abstract This article offers a critical account of the turn in the religious social development debate in South Africa from its initial critical people-centred disposition to a preoccupation with pragmatic considerations, that is, its elaborated claim on the need for a formal religion-state partnership in the field of social development on the basi...
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This paper identifies the historical debate on development projects in the ecumenical movement as the essential starting-point for Christian theology and the churches' ongoing concern with development. Named by Charles Elliot at an early stage as 'The Pragmatic Debate', the paper innovates by distinguishing between a moderate and a radical account...
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Worldwide opposition to different aspects of globalisation indicates the emergence of a global social movement that typically targets the international bodies that regulate global trade and global finance, as well as the regulations themselves. The significance of the movement calls for a synthetic analysis that moves beyond the currently used frag...
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This paper offers a critical account of the turn in the religious social development debate in South Africa from its initial critical people-centred disposition to a preoccupation with pragmatic considerations - i.e. its elaborated claim on the need for a formal religious- state partnership in the field of social development on the basis of the ext...
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Word processed copy. Summary in English and Afrikaans. Thesis (D. Phil.)--University of Stellenbosch, 2000. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 271-287).

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