JOURNAL INFORMATION
Seychelles Research Journal is published twice a year, in February and August. The aim of this online, open access journal is to demonstrate the vibrancy of research in and about Seychelles. Boundaries are drawn loosely to include comparable issues elsewhere in the western Indian Ocean and in small island states further afield.
Information on how to submit proposed articles and on the refereeing process is explained elsewhere in the website. New proposals are always encouraged.
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Editor: Emeritus Professor Dennis Hardy
Deputy Editor/Web Design: Jane Woolfenden
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Marketing Consultant: Guy Morel
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International Advisers:
- Dr Ashton Berry, Bird International, UK
- Dr Pascal Nadal, Diocesan Service of Catholic Education, Mauritius
- Dr Jivanta Schöttli, Institute of South Asian Studies, Singapore
- Dr Erika Techera, University of Western Australia
- Dr Kris Valaydon, Founding Editor, Island Studies
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Sponsors:
Publication would not be possible without the generous support of our sponsors.
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This is a publication of the University of Seychelles http://www.unisey.ac.sc
The views and opinions represented in this publication are not necessarily those of the institutions to which the authors are affiliated and, additionally, should not be attributed to the publisher.
©2019 – Seychelles Research Journal, The University of Seychelles
Cover photograph © Jane Woolfenden
ISSN 1659-7435
CONTENTS
EDITORIAL
Read the editorial here: Editorial
AN INTERVIEW WITH . . .
In the first of a series of interviews with leading researchers in and about Seychelles, the Editor, Dennis Hardy meets the international expert on health and community, Dr Conrad Shamlaye .
Read the interview here: Interview with Dr Shamlaye
ARTICLES
Universalism and Creolization in Seychellois Proverbs
Penda Choppy
The proverb is one of the most enduring and popular forms of orature in Seychellois Creole. As in other Creole societies, this genre has shown a tendency to survive the general upheaval of slavery, colonialism and even the drive towards Westernization. Since language is the medium of expression for all types of discourse, it is normal to expect that the proverb genre in Creole societies originates from all the languages and cultures that contributed to a specific Creole. Raphaël Confiant makes the point that because the proverb form is an incipient part of daily speech, it will naturally reflect the daily experience of proverb users, and the daily experience of Creole societies in their formative years for more than three centuries was that of slavery. He thus sees the proverb form in the Creole world as being divided into two main groupings: those that have been transmitted directly from an African or European language, which can more or less be categorized as universal wisdoms, and those that portray a world characterized by slavery, which Confiant says is the larger corpus (Confiant, 2004). In this paper, I intend to discuss universalisms in Seychellois proverbs that occur both as direct inheritances from the original languages of the early inhabitants and as local compositions firmly rooted in the Creole environment and culture, thus revealing the creolization process in action.
Read the full article here: Universalism and Creolization in Seychellois Proverbs – Penda Choppy
Penda Choppy is the Director of the Creole Language and Culture Research Institute at the University Of Seychelles. She was the Director of the Creole Institute of Seychelles from 1999 to 2014 when she became its CEO. She moved to the University of Seychelles in 2016. Penda studied English at Leeds University and has recently completed a research degree at Master’s level at the University of Birmingham, UK. Her main research interests are the oral and written creole traditions of the Western Indian Ocean, in the postcolonial context. penda.choppy@unisey.ac.sc
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A Survey on Seychelles English
MA Min
There are many English varieties in the world. English is one of the three official languages in Seychelles which is an island nation located in the Indian Ocean. The English spoken in Seychelles is one of the regional varieties of the language. Language contact will lead to language change; and the English spoken in Seychelles is not an exception. The change to the English spoken in Seychelles is mainly caused by Seychellois Creole which is the first national language and one of the official languages. Secondly, it naturally conforms to the principle of simplicity of language change. To understand the characteristics of the English spoken in Seychelles will surely benefit the cultural change and economic cooperation between the two countries.
Read the full article here: A Survey on Seychellois English – MA Min
Ma Min is Professor of English at Dalian University, China. Ma Min graduated from Harbin Normal University with a bachelor’s degree in English, and obtained a postgraduate certificate from Dalian University of Technology. Ma Min worked as an English lecturer in Nongken Teachers’ College for about ten years and taught English at Dalian University for twenty years. Following this, he went to Brandon University, Canada, as a visiting scholar for six months, and then worked for three years at the University of Seychelles as an instructor in Chinese and as Dean of the Confucius Institute. Having now retired from Dalian University, he currently teaches English academic writing and phonetics at the Guangzhou Institute of Technology and Business. mmdlu@sina.com
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Men, Violence and Parenting: The need for rehabilitation programmes in Seychelles as a child protection strategy
Susan Alderson
As men’s intersecting identities as fathers and as perpetrators of domestic violence is increasingly acknowledged in research and practice in the UK and US, the issue of safe parenting has gained heightened attention on the social work agenda. In recent years there has been an increased recognition that working with male perpetrators can result in positive outcomes for both women and children where such work is included as part of a holistic, coordinated response to domestic violence (HM Government, 2009). In England and Wales, this work is provided through two routes: criminal justice based programmes in probation-led community settings; or community based programmes that take self-referrals, partner-mandated referrals, or statutory referrals such as children’s services. In the Seychelles context however, whilst significant strides have been made in recognising the problem of domestic violence, there is a need for more interventions to address violence in the home and its impact on children. To date there are no community based rehabilitation programmes running in the country as a reponse to domestic violence. This paper will examine the challenges for social workers in Seychelles, regarding the paucity of interventions available, to successfully engage with domestically violent fathers in order to address violence against women and its impact on their children; and the feasibility of introducing such programmes in Seychelles. The paper will also incorporate findings from my doctoral study which investigated the extent that children themselves benefit from their fathers’ participation on a rehabilitation programme, thus providing a unique perspective regarding the nature, scope, and adequacy of this intervention and the outcomes for children. It should be noted that whilst I am not disputing the fact that women are also capable of using violence against men, a recent systematic review of the literature found that many men may be over-reporting instances of being victims of domestic violence, while simultaneously perpetrating domestic violence themselves (Hester, 2013). For the purpose of this paper therefore, my focus will be domestically violent men rather than women. The term ‘fathers’ in this paper refers to men who are father figures, stepfathers, or other men who are significant in a child’s life.
Read the full article here: Men, Violence and Parenting – Susan Alderson
Susan Alderson began her interest in criminology as an undergraduate student at Teesside Univesity, and has been an academic researcher, university lecturer and activist in the area of violence against women since 2000. She received her PhD from Durham University in 2015, which focused on the impact of domestic violence perpetrator programmes on childrenand young people. This was a multi-methodological study which collected primary quantitative and qualitative data. Through the course of her career, Susan has undertaken various research projects focusing on domestic violence, early child development, children’s services and rape crisis interventions. susan.alderson@durham.ac.uk
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Targeted and Group-Specific Social Work Interventions in the Area of Tension Between the Reproduction of Hierarchical Structures and the Sensitivity Towards Differences
Susanne Nef
The design of services offered by social work and social services represents challenges in the 21st century. Societies and lifestyles are increasingly individualised and heterogeneous. In addition to this development, processing and addressing social problems is becoming increasingly complex. Moreover, altered social structures impede the inclusion of affected persons and groups. Social work has responded in both practice and research to this change in framework conditions by differentiating the services on offer, for example by differentiating interventions in terms of various target groups. To ensure the inclusion of heterogeneous members of society, social work offers differentiated and target-group-specific interventions. A distinct emphasis centres around prevention work with young adults, which increasingly includes peer-education approaches with the aim of including and directly addressing young adults as a specific target group. The following article uses the example of peer-education projects to explore the challenges of social work services, in which tension exists between the reproduction of hierarchical structures and the sensibility of differentiation. This topic is of high relevance for the field of practice of education and social work for the further development of the professions as well as the development of new concepts and interventions. Specifically for countries with a heterogeneous population structure (e.g. high ethnic and cultural diversity level), it is relevant to reflect on the normative framework of social work interventions and educational services. Furthermore, for preventive and psychosocial support as well as health promotion, peer education and its further development might be an interesting concept for grassroots interventions to empower children and youth in developing knowledge, attitudes, and skills. Therefore, it requires proper preparation. This article is intended to give the reader an insight into the relevance of reflection of such targeted and group-specific social work interventions in the area of tension between the reproduction of hierarchical structures and the sensitivity towards differences.
Read the full article here: Targeted and Group-specific Social Work Interventions – Susanne Nef
Susan Nef is a Research Associate at the Zurich University of Applied Sciences ZHAW, School of Social Work, Institute of Diversity and Social Integration. She is currently a PhD candidate in Extracurricular Education, University of Zurich and a member of the Postgraduate Doctoral Programme for Gender Studies, University of Basel. susanne.nef@zhaw.ch
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Gender identity in Social Work: Male Social Workers’ Experience in Seychelles
Georges Nicette
In terms of its activity, social work is gendered, both in regards to its workforce and its client group. It is well documented that more women than men enter this area of work (Parker & Crabtree, 2012). Social work is identified as a caring profession and has been described as a non-traditional occupation for men. This article draws on the findings from a qualitative study, carried out in Seychelles in 2014. It explores the experiences of men working in social work, which is commonly considered a feminine profession and which is also female dominated. Focusing primarily on gender identities, this article discuss how gender issues at work are complex and have problematized understandings of both gender equality and social work practices. It challenges one assumption found in the literature that ‘men in social work are potential threats to the profession’. This article argues that for social work to evolve, it is helpful to deconstruct the socially constructed gender discourses in the profession and their impact on social service delivery, as well as appreciate men for the positive qualities they bring and can bring to social work, which could lead to a more positive image of the profession.
Read the full article here: Gender Identity in Social Work – Georges Nicette
Georges Nicette is a Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Seychelles. Georges graduated from the Edith Cowan University in Western Australia with a Bachelor’s degree in Social Work. He also obtained a Postgraduate Certificate in Business Administration from the same university. Georges worked for five years as a probation officer for the Ministry of Social Development and Culture and, before that, for the Ministry of Immigration. As part of his undergraduate degree programme in Australia, he worked as an intern for the South West Aboriginal Medical Services. He has also lectured with the National Institute of Health and Social Studies and the Ministry of Education’s centre for Adult Learning and Distance Learning Education. georges.nicette@unisey.ac.sc
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The Semiotics of Food and Intentional Exercise in Performing Masculinity: Diabesity in Seychelles
Raini Nailer
Obesity and diabetes are two of the greatest health difficulties the global community is facing; and interventions, which largely focus on aligning individual behaviour to recommended public health standards have shown marginal success. Medicalizing obesity, food and health generally ignores culturally specific and individual ways of being in the world. This project explores the semiotic meanings of the desired behaviour changes for obesity and diabetes prevention in Seychelles. As women are highly focused on health, body image and food research, this inquiry aims to locate men within the landscape of semiotic food and physical activity, in relation to obesity and diabetes. This investigation, aspires to find how food and intentional exercise construct social capital and masculine identity among Seychellois men, and the importance these symbols hold within their communities. At the conclusion of this research project, these findings will be contrasted to behaviour changes promoted by public health organizations as well as current public health messaging in Seychelles. This project aims to find the difference in social value between these two ways of being, which may help to explain choice and non-compliance to medicalization of lifestyle.
Read the full article here: The Semiotics of Food and Intentional Exercise in Performing Masculinity – Raini Nailer
Rainer Nailer has an MA in Social and Cultural Anthropology (University of Amsterdam), an MSc in Public Health (Flinders University, South Australia), a BSc (Hons) in Social Science (James Cook University, Queensland), and a BA in Archaeology (Flinders University, South Australia). She has held various positions in the Australian public health system for a variety of different organisations and for government, working on projects in preventative health specific to obesity, diabetes, tobacco cessation and prevention of violence against women. Her main areas of interest are obesity and diabetes, health behaviours, medical and cultural anthropology, public health, social science research. raini.nailer@gmail.com
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Detection of Weather Anomalies and Events of Interest Using Complex Event Processing
A. Gayanthika Udeshani and H.M.N. Dilum Bandara
While developed countries use sophisticated and proprietary weather-monitoring and warning systems, other countries primarily rely on manual practices. With the advancement of open source, distributed processing solutions, it is now possible to build weather-monitoring systems by integrating relevant off-the-shelf components at a fraction of the cost. We demonstrate a Complex Event Processing (CEP) based system to detect weather anomalies and events of interest to enrich a weather/climate observatory system with real-time monitoring and detection capabilities. The proposed solution focuses on four use cases, namely: (i) detection of impeding weather events that exceed a given threshold; (ii) identification of weather stations with defects; (iii) finding anomalies in the sensed data; (iv) identifying weather situations around a given location. These use cases provide the basic capabilities of a typical weather monitoring center. The performance evaluation shows that the proposed solution performs well in the specified use cases even with high input rates and a large number of meteorological variables. We further identify enhancements that are needed in CEP engines to better support spatial and temporal weather data.
Read the full article here: Detection of Weather Anomalies and Events of Interest Using Complex Event processing – Udeshani and Bandara
Gayanthika Udeshani graduated with First Class Honours in Computer Science from the University of Sri Jayewardenepura, Sri Lanka; followed by an MSc in Computer Science (specializing in software architecture) from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. She was employed as a software engineer in Excel Lanka Technologies, which deals with Laser Marking, for more than 5 years; she then lectured at the University of Seychelles. Her most recent research is about weather anomalies detection with complex event processing. During her undergraduate years she took a special interest in the area of image processing and artificial intelligence. The results of the project she participated in(detecting lung cancer from chest X-ray images using neural networks and image processing algorithms) were published in an international journal of image processing. gayaudeshani@gmail.com
Dilum Bandara (Senior Lecturer/Coordinator Industrial Training & MBA in IT/ Director, Engineering Research Unit, Dept. Computer Science & Engineering, University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka). Dr. Bandara has a BSc (1st Class Honors) in Computer Science and Engineering from the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka (2004), an MSc and PhD in Electrical and Computer Engineering (Colorado State University (2008)/Fort Collins (2012), USA. He also has diplomas and certifications in psychology, college teaching, and security products from WatchGuard. He joined the Department of Computer Science and Engineering at the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka in 2005 and has also taught part-time at the Naval Artificer Training Institute, Sri Lanka, Science Land IT, Northshore College of Business, and Rajarata University of Sri Lanka. His research interests include IoT (Internet of Things), Data Engineering, Distributed Systems (Cloud, P2P, and HPC), and computer and network security. Dilum.Bandara@uom.lk / http://dilum.bandara.lk
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Big Data-Enabled Supply Chain Management: A systematic review
Roy Meriton and Gary Graham
The buzz about big data and business intelligence (BI) as drivers of business information data collection and analysis continues to build steam. However, it seems not everyone is taking notice. Whilst scholars are, in the main, excited about the ‘fields of possibilities’ big data and related analytics offer, in terms of optimising firm capabilities, supply chain scholars have been surprisingly quiet. In this work we hope to break this silence and we achieve this through a comprehensive survey of the literature with the aim of exposing the dynamics of big data analytics in the supply chain context. With state of the art data analytics and visualisations, our findings suggest that the benefits of a big data driven supply chain are many on the proviso that organisations can overcome their own myopic understanding of this socio-technical phenomenon. On the issue of diffusion, our findings show a dearth of studies from scholars on the African continent. Further studies would significantly add to the emerging body of knowledge by considering the pros and cons of adopting big data strategies for supply chains in the context of small island developing states, such as Seychelles.
Read the full article here: Big Data-Enabled Supply Chain Management – Roy Meriton and Gary Graham
Dr Roy Meriton completed his PhD in Business and Economics at Leeds University Business School, UK, in 2016. He now holds a lectureship in Innovation and Entrepreneurship at Loughborough University based in the Institute for Innovation and Entrepreneurship. Drawing on the critical realist notion of emergence, his PhD thesis interrogates the modalities of interactions between internal conversations and organizational contexts in shaping organizational behaviour. His research interest spans a variety of academic disciplines including organizational behaviour, strategic management, and supply chain management. He has presented at numerous international conferences and has published in a number of internationally recognized journals such as the International Journal for Production and Operations Management (IJOPM), and Production Planning and Control (PPC). His latest article is entitled ‘Do Makerspace represent scalable production models of community-based redistributed manufacturing?’. R.Meriton@lboro.ac.uk
Dr Gary Graham is an Associate Professor in Operations and Supply Chain Management at Leeds University, and a visiting research scholar at MIT’s Centre for Transport and Logistics. He has authored three books, thirty-four research papers, and his grant income (EU, EPSRC and ESRC) totals over £1.13m. g.graham@lubs.leeds.ac.uk
Details of his impact case work are available at: http://www.fccrnet.org/
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Paradise Lost? Searching for the Perfect Place
Dennis Hardy
In an edition on the theme of interdisciplinary research, the idea of paradise fits well. Moreover, for a publication based in Seychelles, where paradise is promoted as part of a powerful brand to lure tourists, an exploration of the idea becomes hard to resist. Yet, as this article reveals, paradise is a remarkably complex concept, where it is by no means easy to find agreement on what it actually is. Is it solely a figment of the imagination or does it have an historical basis? Is it for the living or only for life hereafter? And, amidst all the conjecture, why do islands so often provide the setting for ideas of paradise?
As well as reviewing some of the ways in which the term is used, this paper looks at some practical experiments to create paradise on earth. The track record of these colourful experiments is not good, but fresh generations are not deterred from trying themselves to reach the golden land. In spite of its elusiveness, paradise remains an alluring concept, seemingly within reach but never quite so.
Read the full article here: Paradise Lost – Seaching for the perfect place – Dennis Hardy
Emeritus Professor Dennis Hardy graduated with a first degree in Geography from the University of Exeter, UK, followed by an MA in Geography by research. From there he joined the Greater London Council and qualified at University College London as a professional urban planner, in due course becoming a Fellow of the Royal Town Planning Institute. He obtained his PhD through part-time research in urban planning history at the London School of Economics and in 1988 was awarded a professorship at Middlesex University London. With ten well-received books to his name, research and writing remain important elements of his profile. He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and was formerly President of the International Communal Studies Association. Currently he is a research professor in the James R Mancham Peace and Diplomacy Research Institute at the University of Seychelles. dennishardy@ymail.com
CONFERENCE REPORTS
16th International Creole Studies Colloquium
Seychelles, 28 October – 2 November 2018
Read the conference report here: 16th International Creole Studies Colloquium, Mahe, 28th October – 2nd November 2018
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6th World Ocean Council Sustainable Development Summit
Hong Kong, 14 – 16 November 2018
Read the conference report here: 6th World Ocean Council Sustainable Development Summit, Hong Kong, 14-16 November 2018
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2nd Africa Summit
Cape Town, 21 – 24 November 2018
Read the conference report here: Second Africa Summit, Cape Town, 21-24 November 2018
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1st Sustainable Blue Economy Conference
Nairobi, Kenya, 24 – 29 November 2018
Read the conference report here: 1st Sustainable Blue Economy Conference, Nairobi, Kenya, 24-29 November 2018
PUBLIC LECTURE
Each year, the University of Seychelles organises a public lecture by a well-known local individual. In September 2018. Dr Conrad Shamlaye spoke on the subject of his long-term study of child development. Although the full text of his lecture is not available, the importance of the research is such that we are including a copy of his presentation slides. 2018 Unisey Anniversary Lecture – Dr C Shamlaye
Seychelles Research Journal 