3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item The impact of migration on Emnambithi households: a class and gender analysis(2010-06-30T10:42:01Z) Fakier, KhayaatAbstract This dissertation is a study of social reproduction in different classes of migrant households in Emnambithi, a town in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It traces the history of households in this community under the impact of racialised dispossession and migration, and illustrates how households were stratified into distinct classes. The three classes identified are a semi-professional, educated class, a migratory working class, and the marginalised, a segment of the “bantustan” population who never had the possibility of working in the capitalist economy during apartheid. The research then focuses on the gendered nature of social reproduction in households in the post-apartheid era, when this community continues to be shaped by migration. The research illustrates that class-based advantage and disadvantage are reproduced in post-apartheid South Africa. The dissertation analyses the different ways in which household members – predominantly migrant and resident women – deal with daily provisioning and consumption, education and care of the dependants of migrants in the absence of some members of the household. The study argues that social reproduction varies significantly in different classes of households. The class-based and gendered nature of social reproduction has implications for an understanding of developmental needs in post-apartheid South Africa, and this research opens up ways in which job creation and social policies could lead to class-based redress and gender equity.Item A critical analysis of the iconography of six HIV/AIDS murals from Johannesburg and Durban, in terms of race, class and gender(2008-03-19T13:17:09Z) Khan, SharleneABSTRACT This research report is a critical analysis of the iconography of six HIV/Aids murals from Johannesburg and Durban, in terms of race, class and gender. The six examples are community murals which were used as a social awareness tool to disseminate information on HIV/Aids to a supposedly highly illiterate Black audience public. This research focuses predominantly on the issue of stereotypes, and how certain societal stereotypes of Others are manifested in these HIV/Aids murals. My analysis also tries to make evident, how difficult it is for muralists to visually represent HIV/Aids facts, in addressing ‘high-risk’ groups. This report also tries to show that key issues of HIV/Aids transmission are often overlooked or omitted for various reasons. I argue that, given the importance of HIV/Aids murals as educative tools, muralists have to be made aware of their role in the possible perpetuation of societal racial, gender and class stereotypes, and how such perpetuation of stereotypes can contribute to the continued stigmatization of the disease. The final chapter of this research examines my own practical work that was produced as a requirement for the MA (Fine Art) degree. It analyses my performance-exhibition Walking the Line. My commentary focuses on how the social phenomenon of street trade in the Johannesburg city centre and specifically the ‘refurbishment’ of the Johannesburg Fashion District influenced my art practice. My analysis is further extended to the use of my own body in the performance, to consciously engage notions of hybridized identity.Item Anarchism and syndicalism in South Africa, 1904-1921: Rethinking the history of labour and the left(2008-02-29T13:16:11Z) Van der Walt, Lucien Jacobus WheatleyAbstract: This is a study of the influence of anarchism and syndicalism (a variant of anarchism) on the left and labour movements in South Africa between the 1890s and the 1920s, but with a focus on the first two decades of the twentieth century. Internationally, this was a period of widespread working class unrest and radicalism, and the apogee, the “glorious period”, of anarchist and syndicalist influence from the 1890s to the 1920s. The rising influence of anarchism and syndicalism was reflected in South Africa, where it widely influenced the left, as well as significant sections of the local labour movement, as well as layers of the nationalist movements. This influence also spilled into neighbouring countries, fostering a movement that was multi-racial in composition, as well as internationalist and interracial in outlook. These developments are today almost entirely forgotten, and have been largely excised from the literature: this thesis is, above all, a work of recovering the history of a significant tradition, a history that has significant implications for understanding the history of left and labour movements in South Africa and southern Africa.Item A CONTRADICTORY CLASS LOCATION? AN EXPLORATION OF THE POSITION AND ROLES OF THE AFRICAN CORPORATE MIDDLE CLASS IN SOUTH AFRICAN WORKPLACES AND COMMUNITIES(2007-02-21T13:11:34Z) Modisha, GeoffreyThe corporate middle class, or managers, occupies a contradictory class location in capitalist relations of production. While they do not own the means of production, this class stratum is not exploited like the working class. This class position, however, is bound to be different for a black manager whose advancement in the workplace may be due to government attempts to economically empower black people to redress the injustices imposed by the racially dominated social structure of the past. Through a Weberian understanding of social stratification as based on class, social status and power, this research aims to unearth how members of the African corporate middle class understand their position and roles in South African workplaces and communities. It also goes deeper to scrutinise the impact of this structural position on their agency. It is shown that their contradictory class location is exacerbated by their race. African managers constantly negotiate their positions and roles in their workplaces and communities. Indeed, while their managerial position affords them spaces that they could not have occupied during the apartheid era, their racial character lessens their ability to manoeuvre within these spaces. This can be identified both in workplaces and communities. It is shown that their middle-class status cannot be consolidated because of their perceived lower social status and less power to influence decision making in their organisations. Furthermore, it is shown that, although not all of the interviewees moved to middle-class areas, there is an indication of alienation in previously white-only residential areas. This is further exacerbated by expectations from their former communities and members of their extended families. As a result of high levels of unemployment in African communities, members of this group are actively contributing to uplift members of their extended families.