3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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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 Mortality and violence in Agincourt, a rural area of South Africa(2009-11-17T12:53:28Z) Mosiane, Malerato Adelaide NthamaneViolence is a hidden problem in most communities, yet it is among the leading causes of death and non-fatal injury worldwide. It is an essential public health issue for every country and needs to be addressed as a matter of priority. While rural areas of South Africa are believed to be safer than urban areas, they are not necessarily safe per se. The main objective of this study is to examine the burden of fatal violent injuries on a rural South African community. The violent deaths data used in this report were collected through a verbal autopsy (VA) process during the period 1992 to 2000 in Agincourt, Bushbuckridge, a rural area in the north-eastern part of South Africa with a population of about 69 000 people. Person-years data for the same period, obtained from the Agincourt Health and Demographic Surveillance System (AHDSS), were used for the denominator in the computation of rates. Violence accounted for 5.9% (170/2 859) of deaths from all causes in the Agincourt area between 1992 and 2000. Of the 170 violent deaths, 68.2% were due to assault while the remaining 31.8% were suicides. The proportion of violent deaths, as proportion of deaths from all causes, is highest in the 15–19 year age group (20.9%, compared to 1.0% amongst those under the age of 15 years and 2.0% among those 60 years and older). The small number of victims in each age group results in wide confidence intervals. The violent deaths proportion, as a proportion of deaths from all causes, is higher in males (9%) than in females (2.3%). Violence levels appear to be higher among South Africans than among self-settled former Mozambicans, though the observed difference between these two populations is not statistically significant. However, a statistically significant difference is found between levels of death due to assault among migrants and permanent residents. To address this situation, violence prevention strategies and programmes need to be put in place to reduce violence. However, more research is required in order to identify more risk factors associated with violent behaviour, to study the identified risk factors, and to inform the development of these programmes.Item Reading violence: representation and ethics(2009-02-17T10:01:18Z) Thompson, Allan CampbellABSTRACT The textual representation of an instance of violence involves three principle considerations: a notion of representation, a conception of violence, and an inter-relationship between ethical and aesthetic evaluations. By investigating these considerations within the context of postmodern thought, a more sensitive perception of textual representations of violence becomes possible. Any representation, prior to being read and interpreted, has no predetermined meaning, and therefore no inherent value. It is only through a process of reading that verifiability, the principles of appraisal and personal cognition become actualised. As any text is necessarily iterable – subject to infinite (re)interpretation within an infinite number of future contexts – any interpretation is determined by the intersection of the iterable text and the historically situated reader. Violence, which is defined as an act of direct or indirect intentional harm against a person’s body or mind or property, may be experienced either as an event, or as a representation of an event. In instances of the representation of violence, the ethical perspective of the reader is influenced to a large extent by expectations of the text’s verifiability, the linguistic register of the text, and the inter-subjective ethical framework at the moment of reading the text. The aesthetic evaluation of the narrative, which is closely associated with its linguistic features, is also closely related to this ethical perspective. However, normative systems of ethics are often inadequate in the face of the plurality of meaning and possibilities inherent in representations of violence, and therefore a postmodern conception of ethical thought seems most appropriate. Textual instances of violence therefore have the potential for representing a multiplicity of experiences and ethical responses, without necessarily having to rely upon problematic normative obligations of systemisation or duty. A recognition of postmodern ethical ambiguity, combined with a flexibility of moral outlook, allows the reader to develop a more nuanced approach to the ethical predicaments suggested by the representation of violence.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 The effectiveness of the "Mato-Oput 5" curriculum in changing school children's attitudes towards conflict and violence, and in reducing pupil perpetrated acts of violence(2007-02-19T13:34:10Z) Mutto, MiltonObjectives The study evaluated the effectiveness of the “Mato-Oput 5” curriculum in changing children’s attitudes towards conflict and violence and preventing violent acts by them; specifically, it determined attitudes differences between children exposed to and those not exposed to the intervention, and compared rates and trends of pupil-perpetrated intentional (violent) and severe intentional incidents among the children who were taught and those were not taught the curriculum. Methods and setting The study was analysis of secondary data from a community trial. The original study had been conducted in a war affected rural district in Northern Uganda in 2002. Results The intervention and control groups had comparable demographic characteristics, attitudes towards conflicts and violence, and rates of intentional and severe intentional incidents (violence) before intervention. After intervention, they remained comparable with regard to their demographic characteristics and rates and trends of intentional and severe intentional incidents. Their attitudes towards conflicts and violence, however, differed significantly, with the intervention group tending towards forgiving of offenders, and away from forceful response to provocation more than the control group. Both groups had post-intervention rate reductions in intentional incidents, and rate increments in severe intentional incidents. The pre-intervention incident rates in the intervention and control groups were 270/1000 and 370/1000 respectively, while the post-intervention rates were 190/1000 and 350/1000 respectively. Before intervention, seven in every 1000 incidents in the intervention group required school first aid or treatment in a health facility (severe incidents) as compared to 12 in every 1000 in the control group. These rates increased to 150/1000 and 160/1000 respectively after intervention. Conclusions The Mato-Oput 5 curriculum was effective in changing children’s attitudes towards conflict and violence: the intervention group tended towards forgiveness of offenders and non-forceful responses to provocation more than the control group. The rates and trends of pupil-perpetrated intentional (violent) and severe intentional incidents in the two groups of children, however, remained comparable.Item Slow Motion(2007-02-19T12:03:11Z) Miller, AndieThe rationale of this work is a peripatetic exploration, both literally and intellectually: the form echoes the content. The creative work stands on its own, but the theoretical reflection contributes retrospectively to the work as part of this peripatetic process. The theoretical reflection picks up the theme, though more formally, in order to create one coherent project. I have aimed to create a dialogue between the theory and creative work on a road that goes both ways. If it appears that the section of theory devoted to the poets is disproportionately long compared to the rest of the work, this is because I discovered in the course of my exploration that poets seem more predisposed to wandering than others.Item Violence,fantasy,memory and testimony in MDA's ways of dying and she plays with the darkness(2007-02-15T13:18:40Z) Foster, Sue-Ann AnitaThis research report analyzes the representation of violence in Zakes Mda’s Ways of Dying and She Plays with the Darkness. Ways of Dying questions whether social stability and democracy would be fully realized in post-apartheid South Africa as is predicted in Black South African literature written between 1970 and 1994. Mda’s disillusionment is shown in his examination of undemocratic and violent practices committed within the liberation movement against the oppressed and of “black-on-black” violence in South Africa. She Plays with Darkness posits that political corruption and repression in Lesotho occurred as a result of the erosion of African values and traditions, which caused political leaders and the middleclass to dismiss the well-being of their society for personal gains. For Mda, however, societies and individuals can be redeemed from violence through memory, testimony, fantasy and art. Both novels reveal his endeavor to creatively narrate the experience of violence.Item Tickling the Ivories: Power, Violence, Sex and Identity in Elfriede Jelinek’s The Piano Teacher.(2006-03-22) Petersen, KendallThis study examines the role of power and its manifestation in social and inter-personal relationships, violence, sex, and sexual identity – the construction of identity as well as the perception of identity – in Elfriede Jelinek’s novel The Piano Teacher (1988). The location of the study within a contemporary text, is intended to examine the manifestations and implications of power in contemporary society, using the relationships indicated within the text as case studies. The study attempts to indicate that social and inter-personal relationships cannot be divorced from the dynamics of power which demonstrate themselves in acts of physical, psychological and sexual violence. In light of this, the research attempts to examine the relationship between gender and power, and the manner in which it demonstrates itself in relationships. Power is also examined in light of the concept of generational conflict, through an examination of the exchange between the principal character, Erika, and her mother, and the relationship between Erika and her students, specifically a male student by the name of Walter. Furthermore the study attempts to establish the extent to which women are complicit in, and consequently perpetuate their role as victims. The examination of the relationships serves to indicate the consequences of the female adoption and consequent internalisation of traditional male power roles. Although the study is located specifically within an Austrian text, the issues raised within the text and the study are relevant to many contexts.