590
E. E. Mukwevho and M. Togo
is not even and the roots for such diversity can be linked to the history of segregation,
which resulted in the creation of reserves for black people (Allan 2005). This also
permeated education and black only institutions were developed. The University
of Venda was one such institution (Kros 2010) and it ended up being located in the
outskirts, deprived of resources and financial support. The University of Pretoria was
a white only institution for Afrikaans speaking people (Kros 2010) which had access
to resources, infrastructure and financial support. The University of Venda is located
in a rural setting in the Limpopo Province, which is also one of the poor provinces
in the country. The Limpopo province has low unreliable rainfall and is seriously
affected by droughts (Maponya and Mpandeli 2016) while the Gauteng Province in
which the University of Pretoria is located has a good climate with adequate rains
in most years. South Africa is a water stressed country, is generally experiencing
changes in climate and there are predictions for water shortages (DEA 2011). Some
of these impacts are already being experienced with the worst affected city of recent
being Cape Town. Water use restrictions have also been introduced on and off in
Johannesburg and Pretoria.
This research was aimed at determining the progress made with respect to implementation of sustainable development at the University of Pretoria and University of
Venda. No such research was carried out at the two institutions before. Institutions
from two different contexts were chosen to establish whether there are any differences in the initiatives they are implementing, in terms of both the focus and the scale
of implementation. The idea was to do a comparative analysis of the initiatives based
on the same parameters and to establish the role or influence of structure versus that
of agents (structure agency stratification of reality) in actualisation of sustainability
initiatives at the two institutions.
3 Research Design and Methods
The research was designed as a qualitative study which took both the form of descriptive research and explanatory research. Descriptive research involves identifying
the characteristics of an observed phenomenon (Leedy and Ormrod 2015); it thus
describes what is happening, providing details about the phenomena as it is. This
informed establishing the nature of initiatives at the two institutions and the focus
and scale of implementation. The explanatory research sought to establish the role
of structure and agency in making the initiatives a reality. The research is also a comparative case study of two cases (universities) in different settings and with different
histories.
Basic critical realism was employed as a theoretical framework (Archer 2003;
Bhaskar 1978). The foundation of critical realism lies in its basic principle which
states that there is a reality which exists beyond what we know and experience and
that reality is stratified in ordered levels where:
• the observed events occupy the empirical level of events which is our experiences.
E. E. Mukwevho and M. Togo
is not even and the roots for such diversity can be linked to the history of segregation,
which resulted in the creation of reserves for black people (Allan 2005). This also
permeated education and black only institutions were developed. The University
of Venda was one such institution (Kros 2010) and it ended up being located in the
outskirts, deprived of resources and financial support. The University of Pretoria was
a white only institution for Afrikaans speaking people (Kros 2010) which had access
to resources, infrastructure and financial support. The University of Venda is located
in a rural setting in the Limpopo Province, which is also one of the poor provinces
in the country. The Limpopo province has low unreliable rainfall and is seriously
affected by droughts (Maponya and Mpandeli 2016) while the Gauteng Province in
which the University of Pretoria is located has a good climate with adequate rains
in most years. South Africa is a water stressed country, is generally experiencing
changes in climate and there are predictions for water shortages (DEA 2011). Some
of these impacts are already being experienced with the worst affected city of recent
being Cape Town. Water use restrictions have also been introduced on and off in
Johannesburg and Pretoria.
This research was aimed at determining the progress made with respect to implementation of sustainable development at the University of Pretoria and University of
Venda. No such research was carried out at the two institutions before. Institutions
from two different contexts were chosen to establish whether there are any differences in the initiatives they are implementing, in terms of both the focus and the scale
of implementation. The idea was to do a comparative analysis of the initiatives based
on the same parameters and to establish the role or influence of structure versus that
of agents (structure agency stratification of reality) in actualisation of sustainability
initiatives at the two institutions.
3 Research Design and Methods
The research was designed as a qualitative study which took both the form of descriptive research and explanatory research. Descriptive research involves identifying
the characteristics of an observed phenomenon (Leedy and Ormrod 2015); it thus
describes what is happening, providing details about the phenomena as it is. This
informed establishing the nature of initiatives at the two institutions and the focus
and scale of implementation. The explanatory research sought to establish the role
of structure and agency in making the initiatives a reality. The research is also a comparative case study of two cases (universities) in different settings and with different
histories.
Basic critical realism was employed as a theoretical framework (Archer 2003;
Bhaskar 1978). The foundation of critical realism lies in its basic principle which
states that there is a reality which exists beyond what we know and experience and
that reality is stratified in ordered levels where:
• the observed events occupy the empirical level of events which is our experiences.