3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Human-animal relationships and ecocriticism: a study of the representation of animals in poetry from Malawi, Zimbabwe, and South Africa(2011-11-21) Mthatiwa, Syned Dale MakaniThis study analyses the manner in which animals are represented in selected poetry from Malawi, Zimbabwe and South Africa. It discusses the various modes of animal representation the poets draw on, and the ideological influences on their manner of animal representation. It explores the kinds of poetic forms the poets employ in their representation of animals and examines the manner in which ecological or environmental issues are reflected in the poetry. Further, the study determines the extent to which the values expressed in the poems are consistent with, or different from, current ecological orthodoxies and the ways in which the metaphors generated in relation to animals influence the way we treat them. The study shows that in the selected poetry animals occupy a significant position in the poets’ exploration of social, psychological, political, and cultural issues. As symbols in, and subjects of, the poetry animals, in particular, and nature in general, function as tools for the poets’ conceptualisation and construction of a wide range of cultural, political, and philosophical ideas, including among others, issues of justice, identity, compassion, relational selfhood, heritage, and belonging to the cosmos. Hence, the animal figure in the poetry acts as a site for the convergence of a variety of concepts the poets mobilise to grapple with and understand relevant political, social, psychological and ecological ideas. The study advances the argument that studying animal representation in the selected poetry reveals a range of ecological sensibilities, as well as the limits of these, and opens a window through which to view and appreciate the poets’ conception, construction and handling of a variety of significant ideas about human to human relationships and human-animal/nature relationships. Further, the study argues that the poets’ social vision influences their animal representation and that their failures at times to fully see or address the connection between forms of abuse (nature and human) undercuts their liberationist quests in the poetry.Item Exploring black lesbian sexualities and identities in Johannesburg(2011-07-07) Matebeni, ZethuExploring black lesbian sexualities and identities is a multifaceted in-‐depth ethnographic study of black urban lesbian life in contemporary South Africa. This study, which focuses on lesbian women aged between 17 and 40 years, reads the term lesbian as both a political and a theoretical project. It speaks to current concerns, which raise questions related to the politics of inclusion/exclusion, love, sexuality, identity politics, violence, style and urban space while sensitively giving agency to women’s narratives. In many ways, it enriches and challenges conventional gay and lesbian studies and studies on sexuality in Africa by bringing meaning to the complex interplay between space, style, erotic practice and sexuality. It further illustrates the flexible practices and variable notions of sex, sexuality and gender categories. At the same time it tackles the precarious and painful position of black lesbian women whose lives are an ongoing maneuvering and negotiation between a potentially hostile or violent environment and a country with constitutional protections. The political and theoretical imperative of the study is evident in the representations of black lesbians as occupying subject positions in which they determine the structures and meanings of their lives. Their narratives show that they inhabit the world actively, not only as victims or in relation to others, but also as conscious subjects that make meanings of their lives: subjects who are actively and critically engaging with the world we inhabit.Item Power, identity and agency at work in the popular economies of Soweto and Black Johannesburg.(2011-06-21) Krige, Paul Friedrich DetlevThis thesis investigates a number of economic and financial practices, processes, relationships, actors and institutions prevalent in the residential areas that form part of Johannesburg that is known as Soweto, all of which have in common the exchange, hoarding, spending and risking of cash money. It describes actual flows of monies between actors and through popular economic institutions which are embedded in social relations of friendship and kinship, neighbourhood life and socially constructed identities. Building on the anthropological literature that seeks to show how money flows carry meaning as well as having function, it inquires into the meanings such flows of money - between popular institutions and social groups and across social classes - have for a range of differently situated participants in the popular economies. It explores the ways in which institutions and practices within the popular economies are deployed by actors and groups so as to direct flows of monies into certain social networks and relationships while redirecting it away from others, highlighting the agency of actors and groups in relation to their position in the local and larger political economy. Employing elements of practice theory, as well as perspectives from both political economy and cultural economy approaches to everyday life, the thesis offers arguments about power, identity, agency and state sovereignty in the context of the history of Black Johannesburg under apartheid and makes a contribution to our understanding of the material and symbolic structures of everyday life in contemporary Soweto and Johannesburg.Item Negotiating memory and nation building in new South African drama(2010-11-19) Mekusi, BusutiABSTRACT This thesis examines the representation of trauma and memory in six post-Apartheid plays. The topic is explored through a treatment of the tropes of racial segregation, different forms of dispossession as well as violence. The thesis draws its inspiration from the critical and self-reflexive engagements with which South African playwrights depict the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The dramatists are concerned with the contested nature of the TRC as an experiential and historical archive. Others explore the idea of disputed and seemingly elusive notions of truth (from the embodied to the forensic). Through the unpacking of the TRC, as reflected in three of the plays, the thesis argues that apart from the idea of an absolute or forensic truth, the TRC is also characterised by the repression of truth. Furthermore, there is a consideration of debates around amnesty, justice, and reparations. Underpinning the politics and representations of trauma and memory, the thesis also interrogates the concomitant explorations and implications of identity and citizenship in the dramas. In the experience of violence, subjugation and exile, the characters in the dramas wrestle with the physical and psychological implications of their lived experiences. This creates anxieties around notions of self and community whether at home or in exile and such representations foreground the centrality of memory in identity construction. All these complex personal and social challenges are further exacerbated by the presence of endemic violence against women and children as well as that of rampart crime. The thesis, therefore, explores the negotiation of memory and identity in relation to how trauma could be mitigated or healing could be attained. The thesis substantially blurs the orthodox lines of differentiation between race and class, but emphasises the centrality of the individual or self in recent post-Apartheid engagements.Item The ties that bind and bond: socio-cultural dynamics and meanings of remittances among Congolese migrants in Johannesburg(2010-08-17) Kankonde, Bukasa PeterABSTRACT The thesis investigates how transnational familial ties and socio-cultural dynamics shape migrants‘ remitting behavior and inform their relationships. It shows that most research on remittances fails to capture the personal and social significance remittances have for migrants, embedded not only in their transnational social relations, but also in cultural contexts. Drawing on empirical qualitative and quantitative research amongst Congolese migrants in Johannesburg, the study argues that migrants remit mainly in a bid to escape social death by fostering familial belonging and sustaining social status. It shows that socio-cultural influences and internalized social stereotypes about the economic effects of emigration shape migrants‘ awareness of the role expectations their communities of origin hold in relation to them. This internalization of role expectations subjects migrants to such a social pressure that they often feel a compelling need to be perceived as financially ―successful‖ as well as ―valid‖ and ―good‖ family members – not only in their communities of origin but also among other migrants. In this context, remittances become a fundamental measure and criterion that shapes migrants‘ sense of belonging and social and familial inclusion or exclusion. For individual migrants, remittances play an essential instrumental role portraying positive images for themselves and, at the same time, are seen as a means to avoid social stigmatization and exclusion.Item Whose identity [document] is it? documentation and the negotiation of meaning among Zimbabwean migrants in Johannesburg(2010-07-29T11:08:07Z) Takabvirwa, KathrynABSTRACT From the moment a person enters a state, whether by birth or migration, the individual-state interaction is often mediated by some form of (supposedly) official state-issued document. This is particularly the case in cross-border migration. Documentation is often viewed as an instrument of the state, with passports containing declarations within them stipulating to them being “the property” of the government issuing them. Yet, documentation is borne by individuals whose use of it in the context of migration indicates incongruence between their view of documentation and that of the state. This research examines migrants‟ perceptions of documentation, what informs those views, and the ways in which those perceptions inform migrants‟ views of and interaction with the nation-state, citizenship, identity and state control. It explores contestation over the ownership of and rights over documents. In an effort to explore the levels of connection and disconnection, the study contrasts migrants‟ perceptions against those of the state. It moves away from the functionalist, policy-directed approach to the study of documentation that often characterises migration literature. It is informed by post-positivist, relativist commitments to examining the perspectives of individuals while adopting the constructivist recognition that meaning is created, as informed by history, context and experience. Focusing on Zimbabwean migrants resident in Johannesburg, this study draws on information gathered through in-depth interviews and group discussions, examined through discourse analysis and thematic content analysis.Item The multiple formations of identity in selected texts by William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams(2009-09-18T11:56:26Z) Malan, MorneABSTRACT This project compares and contrasts the ways in which selected texts by William Faulkner and Tennessee Williams render their fictional figures as modern subjects engaged in the complex processes of identity-formation and transformation. These processes are deeply rooted within the context of the American South. The interrelatedness of identity and language is explored by investigating how these texts dramatize selfhood not as an essential or homogenous state, but as a perpetual process of self-fashioning and play amid multiple positionings. The central hypothesis is that identity manifests itself necessarily and continuously as a textual discourse in and through language, and that self-fashioning gives rise to ethical questions, because identity involves not only the subject’s relation to the self, but also his or her relationships with others in closely interwoven personal, familial and communal-cultural bonds. This ethical dimension underscores the relational aspects of selfhood, that is, the notion that the individual is always situated inextricably within the social, and that the fashioning of the self is thus inconceivable without a consideration of the other. The following pairs of texts are compared: As I Lay Dying and The Glass Menagerie; The Sound and the Fury and Cat On A Hot Tin Roof; Light in August and A Streetcar Named Desire.Item Mythologising music: identity and culture in the Italian prisoner of war camps of South Africa(2009-05-29T12:06:30Z) Somma, Donato AndrewThis thesis investigates the idea of music-making as mode of cultural expression among Italian prisoners of war imprisoned in South Africa during the Second World War. In addition to readings of some of the music performed, there are accounts of the prominence of music as a theme in the mythology generated by the prisoners. Viewing music as a framing mechanism for the narration of experience is central to understanding the resulting group identity of these prisoners. This in turn leads into an examination of the continuing function of the myths as markers of identity; highlighting cultural production as a defining characteristic of Italian South African identity in the present. Through the investigation of various forms of archive, analyses of a variety of non-musical cultural products are included for their ability to articulate some specific Italian cultural values promoted in the mythology.Item "No" - Jose Saramago's subversive creativity from The History of the Siege of Lisbon to The Stone Raft: voyages into the idea of national identity(2009-02-19T10:58:44Z) Mihai, Corina M.Abstract This study outlines a reading of Saramago’s novels as tracing a reflective itinerary into history, questioning the modalities informing a contemporary consciousness, thus acknowledging and re–configuring the past. Through an interpretation of these narratives as ‘voyages into the idea of identity’ it is shown that they reveal a symmetrical pattern tracing the Portuguese national saga from its foundation myth in The History of the Siege of Lisbon to contemporary images of identity in The Stone Raft. In light of this, the analysis examines the subversive narrative strategies employed with regard to the interrogation of canonized historical facts that led to the construction of Portuguese cultural memory and identity. Although the discussion is particularly located within Portuguese texts, the issues raised are relevant within the broader context of Western civilization. It is argued that, within his fictional discourse, Saramago aims at a reformulation of the notion of identity, highlighting the importance of preserving and actively affirming one’s individuality. Drawing on the postmodern perspective of pluralism in the reconstruction of the past, this analysis explores the relationship between history, fiction, memory and identity as reflected in the narratives under discussion. The focus will be on the textual nature of historiography as well as on the relative character of memory, aspects suggesting the irretrievable nature of the past and the necessity of using various acts of supplementation, construction and invention when representing it. Furthermore, the dialogue between Saramago’s fictional canvass and the theoretical framework, drawing on the thinking of critics such as Hayden White, David Lowenthal, Tzvetan Todorov, Linda Hutcheon, is intended to situate Saramago’s stance viz–à-viz the truthfulness of historiography within the contemporary preoccupation with the representation and construction of the past with an eye to reflecting present needs.Item Identity engraved: artistic endeavour and ethnic entities in Central South Africa(2009-02-12T10:32:12Z) Rifkin, Riaan FABSTRACT Ethnicity has been a focus of socio-scientific research for at least three decades, but for the greater part of that period it has been virtually ignored by archaeologists. As a result, many researchers remain committed to an essentialist approach to ethnicity. The reluctance to respond to such views by taking up more explicitly the dynamic and situational approaches to identity, as is currently underway in anthropology and sociology, arise from several sources, which undeniably also include the political. Ultimately, though, the essential reason is practical. The literature demonstrates that ethnicity and ethnic identity are slippery concerns in contemporary societies, let alone in pre-historic social contexts. Rock art presents an opportunity for assessing assumptions about identityconsciousness. It provides a category of material culture for the establishment of historical and chronological records of multi-cultural interaction and ensuing episodes of adaptation and change. Engraved art is a source of information on past societies, subsistence strategies and, most importantly, on the development of cohesive social systems and social consciousness. Artwork is the most obvious example of symbolic storage outside the human mind, yet it is not universally practised by huntergatherers and it cannot therefore be used as the sole criterion for recognising modern symbolism, modern behaviour, and ethnicity. Given this ambiguity with regards the function of rock art in the demarcation of territorial boundaries and in the construction of social and ethnic identities, an exploration of additional spheres of ethnic conception and assertion may illuminate the question of how San huntergatherers conceived and conveyed their respective identities. This investigation into the association between art and ethnicity is founded upon the conviction that the complexity of social identity must be explored on a dynamic continuum that allows for interface between varied social factors. Notions concerning the ethnic orientation of social groups are represented, either unconsciously or purposefully, in socio-cultural spheres as diverse as territoriality, subsistence economy, language, religion, and also aesthetic and artistic cultural patterns. This study of the relationship between conceptions of identity and engraved art aspires to augment the existing understanding of the origins of processes of identity-formation, how such processes operate, and how they may be manifest in material cultural contexts.
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