University of Zululand

On 17 March 2011, AISA hosted a seminar at the University of Zululand attended by students from various faculties. Prof. Adewale Banjo, Head Department of Political Science and Public Administration acknowledged students for honouring the invitation and encouraged them to participate in future events. He commended AISA for the sterling work done in sharing knowledge with academics and students at large. He explained the importance of research and the contextualisation of findings within the larger body of research to students, whilst encouraging them to visit AISA and make use of the available resources. Dr Sylvester Bongani Maphosa and Mr Shingirai Mutanga, presented papers on Thinking critically and creatively about mixed methods research in peace-building: reflections on the data collection experience from a case study in Burundi and Technology intervention as a means of meeting development needs for Africa Special reference to Remote Sensing and Geographic Information Systems (GIS) respectively. Dr Maphosa focused on the design, data collection and analysis experience of the study that made use of exploratory interpretive mixed methods research paradigms. The study was conducted to examine the peace-building role of civil society in Burundi. Mr Mutanga concentrated on the interface between various research tools such as remote sensing, GIS and the relevance of geospatial technologies in experimenting the understanding of land reforms in Zimbabwe.