Electronic Theses and Dissertations (Masters)

Permanent URI for this collectionhttps://hdl.handle.net/10539/37948

Browse

Start date: 2009Subject: search.filters.subject.SDG-5: Gender equality

Search Results

Now showing 1 - 9 of 9
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    Lamenting the End of Time: Living, Dying and Grief in the Shadow of the Sixth Extinction
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2020-07) Nativel, Chantal Elizabeth; Schulz, Tamara
    This creative research enquiry was framed as a response to my singular personal existential struggle, eco-anxiety and grief in the face of the Sixth Extinction. The enquiry produced a mindful performative offering firstly in the form of a zine (digital and printed) entitled ACT-i-ON: my random actions upon living, dying and grief in the 6th extinction, a collection of narrative writings, photos and sketches as a lament. The zine was then transformed into a gallery of posters, and used as a script and background for an embodied lectern-lamentation. I used the methodologies of performance as research with auto-ethnography. The content gained form via journaling and documenting lived experience in a creatively expressive mode, including but not limited to narrative, poetic language, embodied practice and photography. My reflections drew on past trauma and grief as well as present anxiety in relation to the current milieu. I then shaped this documented experience into a ‗ritual of lamentation‘ for the global suffering caused by humans to ourselves, and to all other sentient life on Earth, as well as my own personal grief. In this essay, I reflect on what this process meant. As a ‗creative thought randomiser‘ or an empathetic chameleon who dashes off on anecdotal tangents, was I able to synthesise my lived experiences of wandering and wonderings into a narrative form and structure which was able to be shared with an audience? Was I able to lift or shift my own sense of unease and ‗creative drought‘, to forge meaning while seeking my own place and significance in the world? The ‗random anecdotes‘, and representations of mindful actions, have been an antidote, or healing balm for the malaise of this possible end of time. These performative rituals are offered as my own coping mechanisms to calibrate and re-calibrate myself, manage my general life anxiety, my eco-anxiety and grief. By seeking peace through centering is it possible to find commonality – a conscious embodied-practice combined with mindful engagement and self-activism, which others may use to soothe themselves?
  • No Thumbnail Available
    Item
    A Visual Mapping: Uncovering the Silencing and Secrecy of Abuse in the Lives of South African Indian Women’s Love Narratives
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Madhi, Saajidah; Khan, Sharlene
    Using Autoethnography as a research approach, this dissertation explores how storytelling and poetry can be used to unveil South African Indian women’s lived experiences of Indian culture and generational teachings. This is explored in conjunction with how love and secrecy/silencing (which is the aftermath of abuse) co-exist in heterosexual relationships. In this context, unveiling refers to the uncovering of women’s narratives, the stories that have been silenced, erased, or overlooked, due to women often being judged and shamed for expressing their suffering. Throughout this dissertation, my poetry is utilized to address these issues. Furthermore, this dissertation analyses South African Indian women’s narratives using qualitative research (interviews) that questions the notions of how love, patriarchy, Indian cultural beliefs, and identity influence relationships. To achieve this, Chapter One outlines the key concepts of love, patriarchy, Indian identity, and generational beliefs, through literature that is interwoven with South African Indian women’s experiences. This is followed by Chapter Two, which engages in gendered roles, silencing, secrecy, and the impact that media has on romance and love in relationships. Lastly, Chapter Three proposes the model of unlearning as a practice. In this context, unlearning refers to a transformation of learned knowledge to build safer and non-violent relationships. To critically examine the practice of veiling in South African Indian women's lives, my artwork actively explores various methods of veiling. These methods include covering, layering, uncovering, and recovering, and they act as tools to voice a subjective position on women’s silencing through weaving, stitching, and beading.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    How can screen dance be used as a tool to reframe the black female body in South Africa?
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Setzin, Sasha-Lee
    Screendance can be used to explore and celebrate the diversity and complexity of the Black female body, highlighting the unique experiences and perspectives of Black women in South Africa. Through experimentation with movement, camera angles, and the manipulation of light and sound, Screendance can be used to create a new visual language that reframes the Black female body in a more nuanced and empowering way. This medium can be used as a tool to reframe the Black female body in South Africa by breaking stereotypes, giving agency to Black female dancers and choreographers, and exploring the diversity and complexity of the Black female experience. Screendance allows for greater creative control and representation of the Black female body, offering a platform for self-expression, experimentation, and the exploration of new perspectives. The research seeks to examine the ability to manipulate and reimagine the image of the Black female body, through digital media which can be a powerful tool in challenging dominant cultural narratives and re-centering the experiences and perspectives of Black women. Additionally, it explores how Screendance can bring attention to the embodied experiences of Black women, and the ways in which their bodies have been subject to historical, cultural, and societal oppression. By making the body visible, Screendance can create a space for resistance, healing, and empowerment for Black women.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Responding to trauma: in what ways can an embodied expressive narrative approach, strengthen the agency of women who have experienced abuse?
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Menell, Katherine; Draper-Clarke, Lucy
    Woman abuse is both a human rights issue and serious public health concern, that has not received the aKenPon and acPon proporPonate to its prevalence, globally or locally. It has far-reaching effects, that include the impact of trauma on women’s physical and mental health. A need has been idenPfied for intervenPons that centre women’s voices and mulPplicity of experience, while supporPng their resourcefulness and resistance. This research aimed to develop of a community-based intervenPon that could support the agency of women who have experienced abuse. It proposed that a narraPvely informed, movement-centred expressive arts approach, was well posiPoned to address the effects of trauma and develop resources to build resilience and hope. A parPcipatory arts-based research approach was adopted with two groups of parPcipants, in experienPal workshop series, over three months. ParPcipants’ experience of the groups, in the form of creaPve wriPng, drawing and reflecPon, was analysed using themaPc analysis, as a means to evaluate the impact of the groups. ParPcipants consistently reported feeling relaxed and energised by posiPve and novel experiences. Movements, feelings, imagery and narraPves emerged that supported parPcipants’ preferred idenPPes, as expressed by their behaviour outside of the groups and arPculated hopes for the future. While this demonstrated the potenPal of this approach to support agency, a number of areas emerged in need of further development. These included expanding pracPces for eliciPng relevant themes and ‘thickening alternate narraPves’ and building relaPonal safety with a focus on the role of the witness and co-regulaPon.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Womedy and its women: How female comedians confront and perform gender within dress and costume, in their stand-up performances
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Florentino, Gabriella; Ramsay, Fiona
    This research is grounded in gender, comedy and costume and investigates links that weave through humour and gender. Is costume the link? This research grew from the perception that ‘men are funnier than women’ or that ‘women aren’t funny’, as mentioned by Jerry Lewis and Christopher Hitchens. This perception held female comedians out of the comedy industry. However, this is changing as more female comedians are rising to fame. This study examines this perception and stereotypes to explore how female comedians are changing this perception. The research uses the theoretical framework of a semiotic analysis of ten signs and a gender performativity lens inspired by Judith Butler to determine their role in sanctioning these perceptions. Through three case studies, this research examines gender inequalities and differences. I explore the practice of women’s stand-up comedy and its space by comparing three female comedian’s performances to determine whether female comedians perform gender
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Transgender Character Representation and the Gender Binary: Theorizing a Philosophy for Transgender Character Construction in Video Games.
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Cloete, Stephen
    Transgender characters in video games are often met with negative opinions by the largely heteronormative playerbase which, like in other media, results in a wider negative opinion on transgender people and subjects in reality. In exploring a personal identification with Celeste, I formulate a philosophy concerning the gender binary norm and its role in perpetuating harmful ideas. This philosophy manifests as both an ideology and platformer video game questioning what gender means to story and character. Through exploring gender, metaphor, queerness and game design, a philosophy is constructed to create a transgender character and video game story in a positive light.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Short Cut: A Feminist Reflection on the Postcolonial Uncanny
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) MILLS, ANGELITA VIOLA; Sakota, Tanja
    This research-led praxis Masters interrogates and explores Sigmund Freud’s psychoanalytic theory on the uncanny to realise a short film text, entitled Short Cut. Specific attributes of the uncanny are applied in the film’s attempt to produce a sensibility of the uncanny, in order to convey the anxiety and fear of femicide experienced by women in South Africa on a daily basis. The film is effectively created through the theoretical considerations of the research. Drawing on primary texts from Sigmund Freud, Homi Bhabha and Teresa De Lauretis, the research deliberates on how the uncanny is a critical register through which to articulate conditions of dread and horror shaping the lives of women navigating the spectre of femicide in South Africa. The uncanny is marshalled as an aesthetic-conceptual tool consciously and intentionally used by filmmakers and as an aesthetic and conceptual tool for filmmakers interested in exploring the experiences and traumas of postcolonial women. In so doing, it seeks to provide new possibilities, insights and expressions of representation on film, through the intersectional conceptual lenses of gender, postcolonial theory and psychoanalysis.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Lil_ith- A love story for South Africa’s queer, misfit youth
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-03) de Jager, Robin Claude; Wessels, Christopher
    This project takes the form of an explorative filmic investigation into and reflection on the archetype of the queer misfit in South African cinema. The film and research take the standpoint of the South African misfit archetype being a post-queer-theory subject in relation to the country’s historical, socio-economic, sexual, traditional and technological landscape. I will compare the appearance of the queer misfit through the arrival of the neon and caustic characters of the New Queer Cinema movement of the 1990s to South Africa’s contemporary emergence of this archetype, positioning Queer Theory and the New Queer Cinema movement of the early as the primary emergence of a ‘true’ queer voice. I will engage with the influence of socio-economic, political and technological stimuli as well as the emergence of post-Queer Theory in the West and South Africa and its contribution to the evolution of the queer and misfit in post-colonial South African cinema. Through a practice-led, autoethnographic approach I combined these findings with core theoretical frameworks on post-modern sexuality by Queen and Schimel to inform and fuel the development of the film Lil_ith. The film stands as a creative execution expanding on the South African Misfit archetype in relation to the global history of Queer Misfit representation as well as its relationship with South Africa as a nation in the process of de-lonialisation within a digitised and globalised world.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Challenging the Representation of Masculinity & Themes Pertaining to Rape Culture in Film & Televisual Media
    (University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022-06) Gondo, Jackson Onai; Heatlie, Damon; Dladla, Tiisetso
    This dissertation raises questions around the representation of masculinity and in turn the notion of ‘toxic masculinity’ in film and televisual media, and will result in a project in the form of a screenplay and animated scene that subverts these representations and makes the audience, through viewing the film, question their relationship to toxic masculinity and ‘rape culture.’ The dissertation looks at the narrative and visual conventions pertaining to masculinity that have existed throughout the history of film and television and how they still manifest themselves today. It looks at attempts to subvert these conventions and where these attempts failed. It also looks at literary scholars who have theorized these notions of masculinity and how those ideas have indeed manifested throughout film and television.