3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
Permanent URI for this communityhttps://wiredspace.wits.ac.za/handle/10539/45
Browse
3 results
Search Results
Item 'Return-Migration in Contemporary South Africa’(2007-03-01T13:42:28Z) Lauckner-Rothschild, SandraAgainst the background of theories of culture, this research questions the motives and experiences of expatriates that return to South Africa, their country of origin. In re-telling their personal stories the research aims to shed light on the decisionmaking processes that repatriates go through and explores the experiences associated with such migration so as to better comprehend what social reintegration and re-adaptation means for the individual returnee. The research uses a range of interview-focused methodologies and concentrates on the interrelated topics of migration, home, identity and social experience as the primary thematic loci. In total, fourteen returnees were interviewed. The Life Histories of two of them are examined in greater detail and their fuller stories anchor the findings and research results. All interviewees stated that special emotional bonds with South Africa had brought them back “home”: they either wanted to ‘reconnect’ with their families or the country itself; they wanted to expose their children to it or they wanted to be part of the new South Africa and help bring about change. As a consequence of their migrant journeys the interviewees gained a much stronger awareness for the cultural (i.e., geographical and lifestyle) sources of their personal identities. By exposing themselves to different surroundings and cultures they developed hybrid identities, thereby layering international associations onto their established cultural traditions and senses of self. Existing models on repatriation do not adequately account for the importance culture plays in people’s experiences of repatriation; yet clearly social as well as cultural issues play an important role. The main factors relating to ease of re-integration and re-adaptation (identified by the literature as economic, logistical, financial and social support) seem to hold true - but again the current literature tends to overlook the role that culture plays in these processes. The majority of these repatriates have established strong residential ties to overseas, whether it be through multiple citizenship or a foreign spouse, and several would consider leaving again should circumstances deteriorate locally. The research was fundamentally qualitative and therefore narrowly focused in nature. A so-called ‘snow-ball’ system was used to identify possible interviewees. This resulted in findings that may have limited statistical validity in the strict sense. Nonetheless, the data generated valuable insights that might be considered applicable for later analytical incorporation and/or policy applications in regards to the continuing ‘brain drain’ out of South Africa and other countries of the Developing World.Item Diaspora and displacement in the fiction of Abdulrazak Gurnah(2007-02-23T13:07:38Z) Ajulu-Okungu, AnneThis study examines the effects of diaspora and displacement in characters as presented in Abdulrazak Gurnah’s Paradise, Admiring Silence and By the Sea. It looks at the role played by these effects in the construction of ideas of home and identity in the characters. Displacement is studied here against a backdrop of a long history of movements brought about by trading activities, exile and voluntary migrations. The texts are set in the east African coastal region, the islands and in Western countries such as England. The study relies on theories of postcolonialism and diaspora for its reading. The introduction places Gurnah’s work within the postcolonial archive by looking at his stance against the existing postcolonial discourses. It is also of importance to consider Gurnah’s biography and attempt to relate this to the view he takes as he narrates this geographical space in a postcolonial era. Chapter two looks at ideas of home as posited by different theorists in relation to the displaced and scattered characters he presents in these texts. Chapter three is concerned with how characters construct their identities against the ideas of ‘otherness’. In this chapter, I argue that Gurnah’s ideas of ‘otherness’ operate outside the (post)colonial idea of the same where the other is defined purely by difference in race. In chapter four I examine the significance of the preponderance of violence in the families presented by Gurnah. I investigate the connection between this perpetration of violence in the family and the idea of an elusive ‘paradise’ which runs through all Gurnah’s texts. The conclusion summarizes my major findings about Gurnah’s presentation of diaspora and displacement in the East African coast and the islands, and how he uses different structures like the home, self and the family to do this.Item CONTESTED DOMESTIC SPACES: ANNE LANDSMAN'S "THE DEVIL'S CHIMNEY"(2006-11-15T11:17:48Z) Nudelman, JillThis dissertation interrogates Anne Landsman’s The Devil’s Chimney. The novel is narrated by the poor-white alcoholic, Connie, who imagines a story about Beatrice, an English colonist living on a farm in the Little Karoo. Connie, who is a product of the apartheid era, interweaves her own story with that of Beatrice’s and, in this way, comes to terms with her own memories, her abusive husband and the new South Africa. Connie deploys the genre of magical realism to create a defamiliarised farm setting for Beatrice’s narrative. She thus challenges the stereotypes associated with the traditional plaasroman and its patriarchal codes. These codes are also subverted in Connie’s representation of Beatrice, who contests her identity as the authoritative Englishwoman, as constructed by colonial discourse. In addition, Beatrice’s black domestic, Nomsa, is given voice and agency: facilities denied to her counterparts in colonial and apartheid fiction. Nomsa’s relationship with Beatrice is also characterised by subversion as it blurs the boundaries between colonised and coloniser. In this regard, the text demands a postcolonial reading. Connie, in narrating Beatrice’s and Nomsa’s stories, reinvents their invisible lives and, by doing so, is able to rewrite herself. In this, she tentatively envisions a future for herself and also potentially ‘narrates’ the nation, thus contributing to the new national literature. The nation is inscribed in the Cango caves, whose spaces witness the seminal episodes in Beatrice’s narrative. In these events, the caves ‘write’ the female body and women’s sexuality and the text thus calls for an engagement with feminism. The caves also inscribe South African history, the Western literary canon, the imagination and Landsman’s own voice. Hence, the caves assume the characteristics of a palimpsest. This, together with the metafictive elements of the novel, invites an encounter with postmodernism.