Faculty of Humanities

Permanent URI for this community

https://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/4474

Browse

Now showing 1 - 20 of 137

"100 papers": an anthology of flash fiction and prose poetry with a theoretical postscript
(2008-05-30T07:24:40Z) Jobson, Liesl Karen
[NO ABSTRACT PRESENT]
3D animation as a medium of cultural representation and education : a case study of Magic Cellar part 1.
(2011-05-03) Kangong, Roland N.
Post-apartheid South African children are exposed to modern technological entertainment – television, cell phones, video games, TV animations and many other forms of popular art and media. This research report analyzes how well Magic Cellar (hereafter referred to as MC) both represents cultural diversity to a mixed audience of South African children from different ethnic backgrounds and cultures, and educates them more generally. A historical perspective on animation is provided, including animation in South Africa, as well as the technical processes of animation, and how these apply to MC. In so doing, answers to two main questions are sought: can 3D animation be used as an alternative or support to the school classroom in educating children through popular media forms? To what extent can 3D digital art technology in the form of animation be used in representing cultural diversity to children of different cultural backgrounds? Drawing on theoretical concepts, as well as comparing MC to successful programming for children that uses animation to educate, this research report argues that 3D animation, a medium that “seems to attract learners’ attention and increase their motivation to learn”(Khairezan 2), can be used to represent cultural diversity and to educate children.
"Adaptation of the Marginal Budgeting for Bottlenecks model for planning, costing and budgeting in the educational sector".
(2015-05-14) Duehring, Momo E.
Already in its Education Strategy, adopted by the Executive Board in 2007, UNICEF fully obligates to the international commitment to universal education and defines its contribution to national efforts to fulfil children’s right to education. In September 2010, UNICEF further published a special report on a study showing that an equity-focused approach to child survival and development is the most practical and cost-effective way of meeting the health MDGs for children. For the modelling process of the research a simulation was run employing the Marginal Budgeting for Bottlenecks (MBB) model, jointly developed by the World Bank and UNICEF. This model has been widely used in international public health research to design and test development strategies. In its consistency with the human-right based approach, the MBB model addresses bottlenecks in the capacity of duty-bearers to fulfil human-rights as well as barriers of the capacity of right-holders to claim their rights. Using the MBB model, policymakers and researchers can simulate varying configurations of service delivery modes to expand access of coverage and measures to encourage usage. For each strategy, the model generates the predicted impact on intervention coverage and outcomes, overall cost and cost-effectiveness. UNICEF’s global refocus on equity and the most disadvantaged children makes it necessary to introduce improved planning and monitoring instruments. In this context, the MBB model is used as a budgeting and simulation tool for UNICEF interventions in health and nutrition. UNICEF aims to use harmonized tools across different sectors to reduce transaction costs and to improve comparison and sharing of lessons learned between the different sectors. However, it is also important to adapt and develop instruments based on the diverse needs of different sectors to ensure best results. Therefore, the main purpose of this research is to find an answer to following question: Can, and if so, how can the Marginal Budgeting for Bottlenecks model, developed for the health sector, be adapted for planning, costing and budgeting allocations in the education sector? An adapted Marginal Budgeting for Bottleneck model for education could be applied for a comprehensive sector analysis, comparing intervention alternatives and setting policy goals and strategies. It could further be used to monitor the implementation of major sector reforms with regard to the comparison of potential versus actual impact of interventions on learning achievements. Applying two production functions, the MBB model applies the basic principle of Cost-Effectiveness Analysis, comparing the costs of education interventions with the corresponding expected impact on increased service coverage. However, detailed inputs, outputs, outcomes and impacts and the corresponding correlations would need to be defined for an Service Production Function (inputoutput) and an Education Production Function (output-outcome/impact). Further, a selection of globally proved remedial actions to overcome sector bottlenecks need to be specified. Education interventions largely depend on the country context and different countries and regions apply different remedial actions. Since the relationship of input and impact is not as linear as the illness-treatment relationship in health, international research and comparison of effective interventions would need to be conducted. The MBB model is applying service coverage determinants of both, supply and demand side. Therefore the approach could be a helpful instrument in the context of the Human Rights-based Approach as used within programming of the United Nations and UNICEF. However, applying further analysis on humanitarian aspects of programming always depends on the availability of disaggregated information. Based on the outline of the Service Coverage Concept and the Marginal Budgeting for Bottlenecks model and the conceptual adaptation of the MBB model for its use in education, following suggestions can be made for the Service Delivery Modes and Service Coverage Determinants: Overall, an MBB model in education could have added value for education planning, budgeting and impact simulation. However, it has to be considered that applying the model requires extensive data input for all six Service Coverage Determinants for each of the five Service Deliver Modes. Although, the MBB model could be adjusted to only cover a certain sub-sector within Quality Education for All. Five Service Delivery Modes Ten Sub-Packages 1. Pre-School Education 1.1 Public Early Childhood Education 1.2 Private Early Childhood Education 2. Formal Basic Education 2.1 Public Formal Basic Education 2.2 Private Basic Education 3. Non-Formal Basic Education 3.1 Public Non-Formal Basic Education 3.2 Private Non-Formal Basic Education 4. (Lower) Secondary Education 4.1 Public Secondary Education 4.2 Private Secondary Education 5. Adult Literacy, Continuing Education 5.1 Youth and Adult Literacy Interventions 5.2 Continuing Education Six Service Coverage Determinants Indicator Supply side 1. Availability of essential commodities Pupil-Classroom Ratio by grade Pupil-Textbook Ratio 2. Availability of human resources Pupil-Teacher Ratio (or Pupilqualified Teacher Ratio) by grade 3. Geographic and financial accessibility School-Distance School-Costs by grade Demand side 4. Initial Utilization Net-Enrolment Ratio (or Gross- Enrolment Ratio) by grade 5. Continuous Utilization Survival Rate by grade 6. Effective Utilization Graduation Ratio Graduation Test Scores Overall, an MBB model in education could have added value for education planning, budgeting and impact simulation. However, it has to be considered that applying the model requires extensive data input for all six Service Coverage Determinants for each of the five Service Deliver Modes. Although, the MBB model could be adjusted to only cover a certain sub-sector within Quality Education for All.
The adoption and ratification of the African Union's Convention for the Protection and Assistance of Internally Displaced Persons in Africa: an analysis of the dicourse of states and the international humanitarian aid community
(2012-10-17) Johnson, Hilton William Eric
The phenomenon of internal displacement dwarfs the refugee crisis world-wide. Forced migration, and more specifically internal displacement, looms as one of the largest and most poorly understood humanitarian challenges currently facing states and the international humanitarian aid community in Africa. This research project aims to increase our understanding of internal displacement by factoring in the discourse of states and the international humanitarian aid community as a key contributing factor to our conceptualization of this phenomenon in Africa. Discourse analysis may demonstrate various “sites of struggle” as important messages and ideas from the various actors compete. The well-established notion of discourse framing and containing the responses of certain actors and institutions is at the heart of this research project. The international humanitarian aid community and Africa states have been described in various documents related to the 2009 Kampala Convention as playing leading roles in the provision of protection and assistance to internally displacedConvention as its discursive locus, analyzing selected texts (documents) that are related to the production, adoption and ratification processes of the Convention. This research report will include diachronic and synchronic analyses of the ID discourse, in the form of documents, for the purpose of exploring the key messages and ideas, which will then be contextualized with the incorporation of academic literature and information related to the phenomenon of internal and forced displacement in Africa. This research report will attempt to demonstrate the various ways in which the limits of the internal displacement discourse are constructed and negotiated by states and the international humanitarian aid community, in order for us gain a better understanding of the role that is played by this growing platform for international deliberation. persons. This paper uses the Kampala
'African discourses' : the old and the new in post-apartheid isiZulu literature and South African black television dramas
(2009-02-02T11:38:06Z) Mhlambi, Innocentia Jabulisile
ABSTARCT This thesis sets out to explore the problematic perceptions regarding African indigenous language literature. The general view regarding this literature is that it is immature, irrelevant school-market driven and shows no artistic complexities and ingenuity.1 These disparaging remarks resonated persistently after the first democratic elections in 1994. Both local and international critics expected marked shifts in post-apartheid isiZulu literary productions because factors that hampered its development have been removed. The dominant Western and postcolonial critical approaches from which these critics articulated their views, operated on assumptions that failed to look at the role and centrality of the broader concerns usually covered by this literature. Barber (1994: 3) points out that these Western and postcolonial critical approaches, block a properly historical localized understanding of any scene of colonial and postindependence literary production in Africa. Instead it selects and overemphasized one sliver of literary and cultural production…and this is experience’. Furthermore it is the contention of this thesis that these critics used critical tools that are fundamentally mismatched for the types of narratives with which isiZulu literature and African-language literatures in general are engaged. It is the view of the author of this thesis that if a new set of critical tools are used, a paradigm shift may result which allows for revisiting creative conceptualisations involved in the production of these literatures. The primary aim of this thesis is to read post-apartheid isiZulu novels and the black television dramas using theoretical tenets postulated by Karin Barber. Barber’s research on African everyday culture is the key epistemological and cosmological framework with which to study post-apartheid literary and film productions that narrate the everyday life experiences of ordinary South Africans. The basic assumption is that orality which is the maximal point of reference for 1 See Mpahlele, 1992; Kunene, D. P. 1992 and 1994; Kunene, M. 1976 and 1991; and Chapman, 1996 any African work of imagination continues to thrive in black everyday popular culture as manifest in both print and broadcast media. The first part of this thesis deals with the use of oral genres in print media. Six novels are selected to explore the uses of proverbs, folktale motifs and naming as strategies for reading post-apartheid contemporary South African society. The thesis proceeds from an analysis of what these oral forms aim to achieve in the post-apartheid context. It is argued that through these oral verbal art forms the narratives transpose the traditional episteme and re-inscribe it for modern contemporary African society, where traditional morality is made to continue to shape and animate contemporary morality. The second section deals with the implications of some of these traditional epistemologies in broadcast media texts. Four post-apartheid black television dramas are selected. With Ifa LakwaMthethwa and Hlala Kwabafileyo, the thesis, demonstrates how these films position the middle-class as a solution to post-apartheid leadership challenges. The discussion of Gaz’ Lam and Yizo Yizo demonstrates the nature of orality, where oral texts are seen to be endlessly recycling similar themes in different media forms. The emphasis is on how renditions of texts always bring in new elements and topical issues, fresh and precise photographic capturing of key moments in society. In view of the nature of Barber’s theoretical model and that of isiZulu fiction and film, this thesis argues that it is the most appropriate to use for the analysis of Africanlanguages literatures. Barber’s theoretical model has intertextual links with the Black Film theoretical traditions in the Diaspora and the Third Cinema in Africa. These black film traditions, like Barber’s model, centralise the black experience, everyday culture and orality as the basic reference for African work of imagination and aesthetics.
Alcohol consumption among undergraduate social work students at a South African university
(2017) Nyandu, Andiswa
Alcohol consumption among tertiary students is becoming an urgent public health problem in many parts of the world, including South Africa and has the potential of adversely affecting students’ performance at university. The aim of this study was to investigate the drinking patterns of undergraduate students in the Social Work Department at the University of the Witwatersrand; the factors that contribute to drinking among these students; and the perceived effects of drinking on students’ academic performance. The research was guided by social learning theory and social control theory. A cross-sectional, quantitative, survey research design was employed and the entire population of undergraduate social work students was invited to participate in the study and 145 students completed a group administered questionnaire. The data were analysed using descriptive and inferential statistics. The main findings were that the prevalence of alcohol use among the respondents was relatively high (88%) with two-fifths participating in binge drinking, and that enjoyment was the primary reason for drinking. However, despite the high prevalence of drinking behaviour, a high proportion (78%) reported not performing poorly on a test or exam due to alcohol consumption in the past 12 months. The research enhances knowledge of drinking patterns among students and yields recommendations for the prevention of alcohol abuse among those studying to become future healthcare professionals, and for university counselling services aimed at supporting students. Key words: alcohol consumption; undergraduate university students; drinking patterns; social work students
"Am I what I can do?" - Grade 10 learners' choices between mathematics and mathematical literacy and questions of identity
(2015-09-03) Malahlela, Dorcas
Subject choices afford differential opportunities to children when they leave school. Mathematics offers more elite, post-school education and employment opportunities. The introduction of Mathematical Literacy in post-Apartheid schooling was framed as a democratic imperative to provide all learners with some mathematical knowledge. The supposed choice between the two subjects has to be made by adolescents at the end of grade 9 for grade 10 to grade 12.However, subjects are not particularly ‘chosen’ by the learners. Rather, the schools allocate them to a stream that is determined by their previous academic performance. Subject allocation interacts with the self-perceptions that adolescents have of their capability to succeed in school. In Phase one, 356 learners in two schools were surveyed. The Mathematics learners surveyed attributed their subject choice primarily to their intended careers and tertiary study. Mathematical Literacy learners emphasised the ease of the subject, that they could not qualify for Mathematics, and that they did not feel that they had the required skills for Mathematics. The perception that a lack of ability and natural skill is the fault of the learner is entrenched by these statements, and serves as a foundation for the acceptance of inequality. In Phase two, the data from the individual interviews with11 adolescent girls was analysed, and the themes formulated were that Mathematical Literacy was easier and more accessible for the Mathematical Literacy learners, that high school was very different from primary school, that the cultural capital conferred by Mathematics will allow them to live up to the investments from their parents and teachers, and that sex and sexuality poses a threat to their futures.Subjects that a learner does at school impact on identity formation in that it controls the cultural capital that an individual has access to.Subject allocation confers senses of self-worth, capability, and opportunity. Subject ‘choice’ directs the path of the learner/individual, emphasising the school’s (as institution) role in the reproduction of inequalities through race, class and gender.
ANTI-RETROVIRAL THERAPY: The perceptions of Female sex workers using Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) on their use of PrEP at Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, Soweto.
(2018) Vuma, Gloria
Background: In South Africa PrEP was primarily intended for sex workers, who have the highest HIV prevalence in South Africa and experience high levels of stigma and discrimination in societies. The services that have been put into place in partnership with the targeted group which is the sex workers are user-friendly. Yet the conclusion to use PrEP remains an individual choice and no one is coerced into using it.Purpose: The aim of this study is to explore the perceptions of women sex workers using Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis regarding their experiences on using PrEP as one of the antiretroviral drugs recently brought in South Africa as prevention from HIV, (the study will be conducted specifically at the Perinatal HIV Research Unit; situated in Chris Hani Baragwanath Academic Hospital, Soweto). The Secondary objectives of this study are; to explore the experiences of women sex workers on the use of PrEP, to explore the experiences and perceptions of women sex workers who use PrEP on unprotected sex and to explore what influences women sex workers to take PrEP regardless of the number of side effects versus its health benefits. Method: The study is qualitative as it will be exploring people’s lived experiences, their opinions and their subjective truths, and it will make use of case study individual interviews (semi-structured interviews) to collect data. The sample to be used includes 2 women sex workers who are PrEP users in the Baragwanath Hospital and have used PrEP for more than four months. A Narrative analysis will be used when analysing the data that will be gathered from the research study. Findings: The findings are presented in a form of themes that emerged as a result of the data collected through the interview schedules. The findings are also related to other studies with a similar interest to the study topic. Overall the findings suggested just PrEP is a harmful and an effective drug for preventing HIV. KEY WORDS: Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis HIV prevention Unsafe sex Women at risk of HIV
"The art of visible speech": infernal and purgatorial figurations in Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities
(2010-08-03) Fanucchi, Sonia
Abstract This dissertation is a study of the Dickensian imagination, focussing on the power of Dickens’s symbolism in Great Expectations and A Tale of Two Cities. Although Dickens believed himself to be a realist, this thesis explores a particular way in which his narrative style departs from realism as it came to be formulated by George Eliot and Gustave Flaubert. I argue that Dickens’s symbolism, intuitive and even chaotic as it seems, is informed by his exposure to works of allegory through reading and performance. Thus he evokes allegorical patterns of Dante, Bunyan and the Medieval Morality tradition to infuse his depiction of reality with a transcendent life. This gives it a greater dramatic intensity which effects a turn towards allegory. In a critical, evaluative study of the two novels, the dissertation foregrounds the relationship between the real and the allegorical strands of Dickens’s narrative. This is an artistic question but it is bound up with an ideological enquiry into the connection that Dickens makes between the secular and the religious. The balance between these two poles of Dickens’s vision differs in each novel but it is at its most effective in Great Expectations where the allegorical dimension arises seamlessly out of the material.
"... as far as words can give:" Romantic poetry as displaced mystical experience in William Wordsworth's Prelude
(2011-11-28) Kallenbach, Bradley Dean
This dissertation investigates the ways in which a broad and perennial problem – ‘the problem of dualism’ - is approached by three areas of inquiry, namely, English Romanticism, mysticism and contemporary studies of consciousness. By comparative analysis of key passages in Coleridge’s Biographia Literaria, Huxley’s survey of mystical traditions in the Perennial Philosophy and work by contemporary philosopher Colin McGinn on the ‘mind-body problem,’ I explain how each discipline proposes an ideal state of ‘synthesis’ or ‘coalescence’ between the subjective and objective as a solution to ‘the problem of dualism.’ In turn, each discipline discerns a faculty or means towards such a synthesis. These are the ‘Imagination,’ ‘Third Eye,’ and ‘Bridging Principle’ respectively. Thus, this dissertation has three additional aims. First, I argue that the Romantic ‘Imagination’ and mystical ‘Third Eye’ faculty are conceptually similar in an attempt to show that certain Romantic poets (primarily Wordsworth, Coleridge and Shelley) sought access to a super-sensuous realm via the ‘Imagination.’ However, seminal texts such as Coleridge’s Biographia, Shelley’s Defence of Poetry and Huxley’s Perennial Philosophy imply that the Romantic poet, unlike the mystic, is thwarted from voluntary and veridical access to these realms: the Imagination reaches an impassable threshold which the mystical ‘Third Eye’ traverses. This condition, coupled with an inability to convey mystical experience in language with greater acuity, I argue, may account for the presence of melancholy in key Romantic works such as Wordsworth’s Prelude and Immortality Ode. I thus seek to enhance our understanding of the critical commonplace referred to as “Romantic melancholy.” Second, I aim to illustrate this view by analysis of key passages in Wordsworth’s Prelude and Immortality Ode. Finally, I aim to show that the early Coleridgean understanding of ‘the problem of dualism’ as highlighted in the Biographia can be further elucidated by contemporary theories of consciousness on the ‘mind-body’ problem.
"At your own risk" : narratives of Zimbabwean migrant sex workers in Hillbrow and discourses of vulnerability, agency, and power.
(2013-09-27) Schuler, Greta
This study explores the self-representations of cross-border migrant, female sex workers in Johannesburg and compares these representations to those created by public discourses around cross-border migration, sex work, and gender. With a focus on issues of agency, vulnerability, and power, the study questions the impact of prevalent representations of these women by others on their individual self-representations. The participatory approach of this study builds on previous participatory research projects with migrant sex workers in Johannesburg and employs creative writing as a methodology to generate narratives and thus adds to literature about alternative methodologies for reaching currently marginalised and under-researched groups. Organisations such as Sex Worker Education and Advocacy Taskforce (SWEAT) and Sisonke Sex Worker Movement have worked with sex workers to generate digital stories for advocacy; however, academic research employing storytelling as a methodology has not been done with migrant sex workers in South Africa. While existing evidence indicates that cross-border migrant, female sex workers are often marginalised by state and non-state actors professing to assist them, this study emphasizes the voices of the women themselves. Over the course of three months, I conducted creative writing workshops with five female Zimbabwean sex workers in Hillbrow, Johannesburg; the women generated stories in these workshops that became the basis for one-on-one unstructured interviews. I compared the self-representations that emerged from this process with the representations of migrant sex workers that I determined from a desk review of the websites of organisations that contribute to trafficking and sex work discourses in South Africa. With the Prevention and Combating of Trafficking in Persons Bill close to becoming law in South Africa and the prevalent assumption that systemic trafficking problems are related to the sex industry and irregular migration, developing a better understanding of migrants involved in sex work in South Africa is particularly important. Furthermore, a national focus on reducing and even preventing immigration—and the stigma attached to migrants—adds urgency to the elucidation of the lives of migrants. This study investigates how female Zimbabwean sex workers in Johannesburg—often positioned as vulnerable and sometimes misidentified as trafficked—see themselves in a country increasingly concerned with issues of (anti-)immigration and (anti-)trafficking. Furthermore, sex work is criminalized in South Africa and social mores attach stigma to prostitution. Contrary to assumptions that all sex workers are forced into the industry or foreign sex workers trafficked into the country, the participants in this study spoke of active choices in their lives—including choices about their livelihood and their movement—and describe their vulnerabilities and strengths. Perhaps the most striking similarity between participants was the women’s acknowledgement of the dangers they face and the decisions they make, weighing risks and gains. This recognition of agency ran through the six key themes that I generated through thematic analysis: Conflicting Representations of Sex Work, Stigma and Double Existence, Health and Safety, Importance of Independence, Morality of Remittances, and Mobility. Throughout the analysis, I argue that the participants in the study present themselves as aware of the dangers they face and calculating the risks. The participants responded enthusiastically to the creative writing methodology—through their stories, discussions, and interviews, they portrayed a complex, at times ambiguous, portrait of migrant sex workers in South Africa. While recognizing their double vulnerability—as illegally engaging in sex work and, often, illegally residing in South Africa, they also emphasized their strength and agency.
Attitudes of black African mothers towards the use of traditional healing and Western medicine in treatment of newborn infants
(2017) Lekgothoane, Nteseng
Many Black African mothers take their newborn infants to a traditional healer not long after birth for them to be given treatment to protect them against bad spirits and to aid in their growth and development. However, there are some Black African mothers who do not believe in traditional medicines but rather in western medicine and practices; while others use a combination of approaches. The aim of the study was to understand the different attitudes that mothers of newborn infants have towards the use of traditional and/or western medicine for the treatment of newborn infants. The study employed a qualitative research paradigm which allowed for the understanding of different beliefs and practices of mothers of newborn infants. An interview schedule was used to facilitate data collection. Eighteen participants were recruited through snowball sampling, and thereafter the participants’ responses were analysed using thematic analysis. The study was guided by the Afrocentric approach. A key finding that emerged from the research was that participants were of the view that monthly visits to western-based healthcare clinics were necessary to track the growth and development of their children, while consultations with traditional healers were limited to approximately three visits in the first few months of life. The mothers who were interviewed also indicated a preference for the use of western medicine as opposed to traditional healing. The main conclusion reached was that the use of traditional healing and western medicine are not necessarily mutually exclusive and that mothers were able to see the value of both approaches, despite a preference for biomedicine. Findings also underscored the importance of an Afrocentric theoretical approach for guiding a research project of this nature. Key words: newborn infants, maternal beliefs, traditional healer, traditional medicine, western medicine
Authority, trust and accountability : regulation of pharmaceutical drug trade practices in Yeoville.
(2013-09-27) Cossa, Ema Euclesia
The increase in use and distribution of pharmaceuticals on a global scale has caused pharmaceuticals to play an integral role in the notions of quality of health. This study is concerned with how Western medication is transacted and interpreted in explicit and implicit contrast to the other context. I observe the commercial trade of medicines, specifically the effects of regulation of pharmaceutical drug trade in a suburb of Johannesburg (Yeoville) a low income area where many migrant groups have found long and short term refuge. A Policing and Mobility Project (Hornberger & Cossa 2010) centred on tracing paths of medication and the level of policing thereof in Johannesburg revealed that clandestine sale of medication occurs in the suburb’s local market. This prompted a comparison between the formal and informal pharmaceutical trade spaces. Simon (a pharmacist) and Teresa (a former nurse turned market trader) sell pharmaceutical drugs in seemingly contrasting contexts. Despite their expertise in health care, Simon and Teresa were flung to opposite ends of the trade spectrum by regulation. In the weeks I spent with Teresa and Simon it became abundantly clear that the spaces which had been initially presented as the opposite of one another may have had a few layers of common ground. At first it seems as though only regulation has the ability to produce authority, trust and accountability. But later it becomes evident that such aspects can be reproduced through manipulation of everyday practices. Roger Cotterrell’s (1999) interpretation of Emile Durkheim’s view of the law as a ‘Social Fact’ (1999:9), demonstrates how the collective experience of regulation (an aspect of the law) affects the individual. But De Certeau (1984) claims that the same individual can tacitly undermine this collective experience (the dominant form) through everyday practices. The findings suggest that the assumed roles of regulated and unregulated pharmaceutical trading spaces are not as static as they appear. The study concluded that authority, trust and accountability can be reproduced outside of regulation. And secondly thus the formal and informal trade of pharmaceuticals in Yeoville have more in common than perceived since both Simon and Teresa, had authority in health, their customer’s trust and loyalty and were accountable within the trade.
"Bakwena Arts": a case study of arts and culture policy and implementation in the Limpopo Province
(2009-10-13T12:08:16Z) Franks, Daniel Zachariah
Abstract: In this research I examine the legacy of Arts and Culture Administration in the Limpopo Province, specifically with the intention of bringing to light the ways in which the evolution of this administrative structure has been largely framed by a history of domination by manifold colonial states. This fact of history has been shown to have given life to unique phenomena that are the seeming birth right of the new dispensation: corruption, inequality, apologism, blamelessness and rural contempt. The research makes special reference to the difficulties encountered by the emergent Northern Transvaal / Northern Province / Limpopo Province in establishing arts infrastructure and basic delivery. These difficulties are shown to be due to the former Transvaal’s policy of centralized cultural structures, and further compounded by the implications of the transformation of Pretoria’s State Theatre. This specific instance will inform an examination of the disparities between rural and urban realities in postcolony SA. My own practical work is discussed in relation to the above as far as it deals with the everyday production of culture, represented by the intrusion of global modern media into highly disparate social contexts.
Balancing act: An investigation of the in-between space used by selected contemporary artists in South Africa
(2006-11-17T10:46:41Z) Watson, Deirdre
After endless contemplation on the idea of ‘word and image’, the following expression of J.W.T Mitchell in Word and Image (1996: 56) brought insight: ‘[W]ord and image’… a pair of terms whose relations open a space of intellectual struggle, historical investigation, and artistic/critical practice. Our only choice is to explore this space (own emphasis). I shifted my position from the forlorn act of peeling to one of creative exploration. Not necessarily exploring the specific space between word and image, but rummaging ‘the space between’; always hovering amid opposites. This space provides an opportunity to confront and debate the many issues that stem from the relations formed in its fluidity. It is a space that informs my thinking. It is a space of conversation. I see not only my writing, but also the art that I scrutinize as conversation. My conversation is captured in the linear structure of this thesis, but the conversation of art is dynamic. It is informal and flexible – following not one path, offering no answer, giving the potential at each moment for surprises and transformation. The idea is to ponder contemporary art’s dialogue, the manipulators thereof and the indispensable factors constituting this notion: space, grammar, medium, criticism. The notion of dialogue assumes a listener, a participant, an audience. But who is this audience with whom ideas are conversed, and what language do you (presumably) use to communicate the necessary? I have chosen to investigate these questions, the purpose and plan of art, with relation to a selected group of artists: an individual, Terry Kurgan and a collective – Stephen Hobbs, Marcus Neustetter and Kathryn Smith, known as The Trinity Session.
Balancing opportunity and conflict: the impact of a refugee influx on the decentralisation process
(2009-04-15T11:21:44Z) Blaser, Caitlin
Abstract This study explores the impact a refugee influx has on the decentralisation process. It uses the case study of Loulouni, southern Mali, in 2005-2006, where a camp for Ivorian refugees was established. Using mixed methods including a large survey and many in depth interviews, this study has found that the refugee influx has had a profound and transformatory impact on decentralisation at the local level. In Mali, the decentralisation effort is closely tied to the promotion of participatory democracy in the country, and the refugee presence has further promoted interaction between citizens and local government officials. However, the arrival of resources in the form of humanitarian aid has also caused conflict between upwardly and downwardly accountable local government authorities, which threaten a complete transfer or powers.
'Being and doing' in a new academic environment : challenges faced by seven Chinese post-graduate students at a South African University.
(2009-01-09T08:15:56Z) Shen, Chunyan
This research explores a range of academic and socio-cultural challenges faced by seven Chinese post-graduate students at the University of the Witwatersrand. The main aims of this study are to identify and understand any academic discourse challenges these students have been experiencing, together with any challenges in their new socio-cultural environment, such as financial or social challenges, and then to investigate the impact of these challenges on their studies and their identities as students. The study is based on data gathered from in-depth, semi-structured interviews with seven Chinese post-graduate students, from location ‘maps’ completed by each student and from some examples of the writing of three of the students. The findings suggest that these Chinese students are encountering great challenges in relation to English language proficiency and adjustments to new Discourses (Gee, 1996) – both academic and social. The data provide evidence that although these students feel socially disempowered in many respects, their attitudes toward academic study remain positive and each is making steady progress in his or her progamme of study and research. This finding indicates that there seems to be no explicit connection between positive social experiences and academic achievement and contrasts with findings from other research studies in which there is a correlation iii between positive or negative socio-cultural experiences and success or failure in the academy.
"Beliefs of the district e-learning coordinators in the GDE about the pedagogical integration of ICTs in Gauteng Online schools".
(2014-01-06) Waspe, Tom
Using a Mixed Methods Convergent Parallel Design this study examines the Behavioural Intentions of the District eLearning Coordinators (DELCs) in the Gauteng Department of Education. The study posits that the educational beliefs of the DELCs are a significant factor in influencing their Behavioural Intentions with regard to their role concerning the integration of Gauteng Online into teaching and learning. Its purpose is to explore whether the DELCs intend to perform their roles in constructivist “Just-in-time” ways. It does this by examining their pedagogical beliefs, their knowledge about technology integration as well as other salient beliefs as formulated in the Theory of Planned Behaviour and by finding out whether these have a bearing on their intentions to provide support and professional development for teachers in the GDE. The study draws on key theories like the Theory of Planned Behaviour, theory about teacher knowledge for technology integration – Technological Pedagogical Content Knowledge (TPACK) amongst others to explore these beliefs and behavioural intentions.
Biomedical health care and African traditional healing in the treatment of HIV and AIDS : complementary or competing cosmologies
(2016) Mendu, Elvis
"Burying our dead in your city": interpreting individual constructs of belonging in the context of burial of loved ones in exile.
(2009-09-09T09:11:36Z) Ayiera, Eva A. Maina
ABSTRACT Globalization and an exponential increase in cross-border migration have led to a redefining of belonging and membership. It is argued that the question of belonging is no longer a question of residential geography and ties to location, but one that is constructed in light of a decline of the meaning of fixed place in an ever more globalized world. Globalization has facilitated a rise of alternatives to place-bound identity. Yet, when refugees face the experiences of death and burial of loved ones in exile, they seem to cling to fixed place as the base for asserting their identity and where they belong while in exile. Although where one is buried is important in many African communities, burying loved ones on foreign land does not generate rather a new sense of connection to the foreign land. Instead, refugees repudiate ties to this soil and consciously invoke references to their homeland and geographical locations in describing where they belong. This paper presents a discussion of the concepts of belonging and place in the context of compelling experiences of death and burial in exile for refugees in a globalized world.

Browse

Browsing Faculty of Humanities by Type "Thesis"

Results Per Page

Sort Options