3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Samaj belonging in the in-between : reviving the greater Transvaal Gujarati Hindu community in Johannesburg(2016) Daya, Jasmeeta MaganEntitled “Samaj, Belonging in the In-between: Reviving the greater Transvaal Gujarati Hindu community in Johannesburg”, this project centres on themes of belonging, culture and identity, and seeks to explore how Diasporic or migrant communities foster a sense of belonging for themselves in their host society through the formation of community organisations and community centres for the enactment of their identity narratives. The project centres on the Gujarati Hindu community, a minority Diasporic group, whose “histories and narratives[...] in the context of ethnicity, Diaspora and identity have yet to be fully explored in South African historiography” (Hiralal 2014: 62). The project seeks to explore how the historical narrative of the community, largely impacted by the marginalisation resulting from colonial and apartheid policies, influenced the group to strengthen their hold on their cultural identity through the formation of community organisations , or Samaj’s, and the establishment of community centres, in order to foster a sense of belonging for themselves, in the suburban areas, or ethnic enclaves, in which they were located. At present, in post-apartheid South Africa, with the rise of urbanisation, members of these communities have sought to relocate to the city, away from those ethnic enclaves, which has resulted in a physical disconnect between them and the community spaces and, thus, their markers of cultural identity. In relation to this shift, the question that arises is: how is a sense of belonging constructed, through the medium of architecture, in contemporary society, specifically in the urban environment where different cultures and identities intersect? In addition, can a regional centre be constructed in the city to serve as a base for the community? Furthermore, how could a community centre of this nature be re-envisioned in a post-apartheid, urban South African context? As a means of addressing the questions above the project adopts acculturation theory and the integration of cultures as a favourable model to facilitate a sense of belonging. As a strategy for achieving that integration, the project argues for hybridity or the in-between (Bhabha 1994) as a location in which belonging can be constructed. The concept of the in-between, where belonging, culture and identity can be interpreted, negotiated, re-constructed serves as the central concept in the project. This concept is applied at multiple scales and instances, including to site, programme and concept, where each instances aims at facilitating connection, experience, engagement and exchange - qualities inherent of the in-between . The resultant design is a cultural centre and culinary incubator located in the diverse, vibrant and multicultural suburb of Fordsburg.Item Antecedents of brand tribalism and its influence on purchase intention in the luxury housing market(2018) Tsiu, Nthabiseng; Mokoena, NthabisengThe purpose of the study was to determine the antecedents of brand tribalism and its influence on purchase intention in the luxury housing market. A research conceptual model was developed to assess the potential relations between luxury brand preference, corporate philanthropy, social identity, brand fetish, brand tribalism and luxury brand purchase intention. The research objectives and proposed hypothesis were also based on the above-mentioned variables. The study adopted the positivist approach whereby it was quantitative in nature. Research data was collected from 267 willing participants from the Gauteng province in various industries. Their selection for the study was based on convenience sampling. In order to analyse the data the structural equation modelling approach was utilised in which SPSS 24 and AMOS 24 were used. Numerous findings were observed from five hypotheses that were developed for the purposes of the study. The proposed hypotheses were found to be supported and significant except for one. The relationships not significant were those of social identity and brand tribalism. This was also the weakest relationship and suggested that to identify socially; one did not need to be part of a brand tribe. Lastly, recommendations for marketing practitioners, housing market government officials and academicians were provided in the study.Item 'Born-free' narratives: life stories and identity construction of South African township youth(2016) Howard, KimWithin a narrative paradigm, this research project had two elements. Firstly, the project aimed to enable the researcher to gain an understanding of the construction of adolescent identity from the perspective of a cohort of first-generation, post-Apartheid adolescents as members of an NGO’s after-school support programme. Secondly, a participatory action element aimed to provide the participants with an opportunity to reflect upon their own lives in a positive, empowering way thereby providing an understanding of their past lives, strengthening a realistic power of agency for their future lives, balanced between self-identity and self transcendence in the present (Crites, 1986). Within this research, the self is theorised psychosocially, presented as both a narrated and narrating subject in which identity construction is consolidated through story-telling and the adaption of these stories to different audiences and cultural contexts. 12 volunteer participants were provided with disposable cameras and asked to take photographs of people and objects that were important to them. Using these photographs, the participants then constructed art timelines of their lives in the narrative format of ‘past’, ‘present’, and ‘future’. Each participant was then narratively interviewed twice, four months apart. The two datasets (the art timelines and the interview transcripts) were subject to three levels of analysis. Firstly, the construction of each participant’s descriptive narrative portrait was analysed across the time zones of ‘past life’, ‘present life’, and ‘future life’; secondly, thematic analysis was horizontally conducted across the narrative portraits identifying the similarities and differences between the participants, extending the specific experiences discussed by the participants into generalised themes; and thirdly, the vertical analysis of portraiture was re-invoked in greater depth, examining how the different theoretical dimensions of narrative identity identified, coalesce in one case history. The first level of analysis focused specifically on the imagoes, or personified concepts of the self, identified within the narrative portraits of three participants. It was found that these imagoes had significant effects on the identity construction of these young people, specifically on those whose parents had died. In the second phase of analysis three different dimensions of, or ways of thinking about, narrative identity were distinguished: relationality and the sense of belonging or alienation experienced by the participants in their interaction with others; the consolidation of life stories at adolescence and the participants’ social positioning within the systems of structural identity markers of race, class, gender and sexuality; and lastly the participants’ hopes and dreams, their narrative imaginations and future-orientated lives. In the third level of analysis, one participant’s narrative was selected to illustrate the theoretical concepts that underpin the construction of narrative identity, particularly constructionist intersectionality (Prins, 2006) and cultural creolisation (Glissant, 1989). These young people’s narratives indicate a patent tension between their lives to date, the histories of their families marked by insecurity and feelings of being unsafe as the effects of racism, disease and poverty, and their future imagined lives characterised by the promise of freedom and agency, education, employment and health. Through listening to and analysing these young people’s past, present and future stories, this study gained an insight into the ambivalence that exists in their lives, the contradictions they face between their moments of belonging and their moments of alienation, and how all these experiences inform and contribute to their identity constructions.Item Memory, slavery, nation: an analysis of representations of slavery in post-apartheid cultural and memory production(2016-02-29) Cloete, Nicola MartheThe continuing role of South Africa’s past in the reconstruction of present-day identities is an area of study and investigation that crosses political, social, cultural and racial boundaries. It is also a field which, despite the post-apartheid political period and South Africa’s change to a democratic dispensation, has not necessarily provided neat categories, instances or guidelines into which identity-formation can fit. As a result, studies abound which attempt to track, respond to, reflect on and reposition how this history of slavery, colonialism and apartheid may be viewed in relation to present-day society and socio-political circumstances. This dissertation considers how and why representations of slavery emerge in discussions of what constitutes a national discourse of race and reconciliation in postapartheid South Africa. I argue that these resurgences of interest in slavery are tied to the symbolic work that the multiple memories of slavery are able to do in the postapartheid period. The study is broadly situated in a globally emerging interest in historic formations of slavery packaged in popular culture, and the current increase in human rights politics dealing with re-emerging and new forms of slavery. As a result, this study adopts an interdisciplinary approach to both the content and methodological focus of how representations of slavery re-emerge in post-apartheid South Africa; providing a consideration of the phenomena of power in relation to discursive and cultural constructions of slavery, memory, identity and nation-building. Each of the areas considered (wine farms, museum and memorial practices and walking tours), suggest that the memory of slavery is able to function in relation to the immediate needs of those proposing and implementing the remembering and remembrance.