4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions
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Item The aesthetic politics of skin tone and hair texture amongst black women in Diepkloof, Johannesburg(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Kwinika, Makhawukana Akani; Katsaura, ObviousBeautification practices for Black women in South Africa reveal a complex interplay of cultural influences and individual affirmative choices. This research explores the societal factors that inspire Black women to beautify the surface-body, focusing on hair and skin, both locally and from an intra-racial perspective. The theories that the research borrows from are the Self- objectification theory, which explains the issues associated with bodily modifications and insecurities, and African Feminism, which examines the intersectionality of race, gender, and beauty standards, emphasizing the importance of examining the history of African women. Employing a qualitative methodology, data were collected through questionnaires and in-depth semi-structured interviews conducted in Diepkloof Zone 2, a Township situated in Soweto, Johannesburg, with a sample size of seven women. Thematic analysis was utilized for data analysis. The findings demonstrate that Black women’s beautification practices remain politicized globally, yet the Black beauty experience is multifaceted, ranging from personal to trivial. The study highlights the agency of Black women in redefining beauty standards globally and within the African continent, rather than merely adhering to Western norms. Recommendations include further exploration of Black women’s hair aesthetics to accommodate bald-headedness or short hair as a preference. Furthermore, to explore skin bleaching practices among Black women and understand the psychological implications of colourism and the yellow bone phenomenon beyond the internalization of whiteness.Item In Search of Utopia: Sylvia Pankhurst, Ethel Mannin, Nancy Cunard, and International Socialist Woman Authors in Interwar Britain(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Timlin, Carrie; Kostelac, Sofia; Gordon, ColetteA revival of anti-communist discourse in scholarship and politics has reignited decades-long debates between those who associate communism with the atrocities of totalitarian systems, and those who seek to emphasise the work of Socialists who genuinely sought to create a world free from gender, class and racial discrimination. In literary studies this has manifested as renewed interested in the lives and work of utopian Socialist authors like Nancy Cunard, Ethel Mannin and Sylvia Pankhurst, which suggests a shift in scholarship towards those outside the literary canon. Pankhurst and Mannin drew on literary forms that spoke to the culture, history, and experiences of their readers: women and the working classes. An exploration of the complexity of Cunard’s journey from attempts to infiltrate elitist literary circles, to a poet whose work captured the hardships of racial inequality and war, challenges ideas about the politics of modernist experimentation, and the value placed on high art. Taken together, their fiction and non-fiction unsettles the boundaries between art and activism, high, middle and lowbrow art, and preconceived ideas about the canon in the study of literature. Bringing their fiction and non-fiction into conversation with their socio-political contexts, readerships, and the philosophies and utopian socialist doctrine that shaped them as author-activists opens new avenues of exploration into the interplay of politics and aesthetics. Blurring the line between public politics, fiction and non-fiction, Pankhurst, Mannin, and Cunard’s work was a crucial and effective part of their internationalism, socialist activism, and resistance to totalitarianism. In the tradition of the utopianism of the late 19th Century they adapted literary forms as vehicles for socialist philosophy and doctrine. In addition to their creative work, they used literary techniques to shape non-fiction like newspaper articles, pamphlets and other political texts. The diversity of experience that Pankhurst, Mannin and Cunard recorded in their fiction and non-fiction amounts to an archive of work that complicates reductionist post-Cold War debates about the theory and practice of communism.Item Networks power: political communication in two inner city Johannesburg CBOs(2021-11) Pointer, RebeccaThis research aimed to establish how two community-based organisations (CBOs) in inner city Johannesburg used communication to build political power in their political networks. As such, I explored theories on building, shaping, and transforming networks of power, especially with reference to Latour, and Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of an assemblage. Assemblages are underpinned by the desire to make connections and therefore Deleuze and Guattari’s concept of desire is helpful in revealing the connections between different elements of political communication. The departure point for this research was to examine how CBOs use political communication in networks of power or to generate networks of power. The research examined flows of communication among CBO members, their communities, and other audiences, using an a political communication machine/assemblage. The machine has five components, which were explored in depth in the chapters of this thesis. They are: desire, framing, aesthetics, communication tools and audiences. Desire is not a lack but the creative, productive impetus for the organisations; using this theory to explore the two CBOs communications led to insights into the not only the material outputs and conditions of communication, but also both the rational and affective qualities of that communication. In terms of the study of communication, the conceptual framework allowed for the study of the different components working together to generate a communication flow, instead of simply relying on a static study of frames, or tools, or aesthetics or audiences. As such, the study reveals the dynamism in CBO political communication. Previous studies of South African CBOs have mentioned that before CBOs protest, they undertake extensive efforts to communicate with government; however, the previous studies did not elucidate what these extensive efforts consisted of, so this study has provided rich detail for further exploring the dynamic. The two CBOs were markedly different in their structure and their efforts to communicate. The Inner City Resource Centre (ICRC), which tackles housing issues in the inner city, was well funded, and had offices. Their communication efforts were highly effective at building and retaining its core membership. However, they were not successful in connecting with the City of Johannesburg, because the city had locked them out of participatory spaces. One Voice of All Hawkers Association (One Voice) was highly fractious, some members exhibited micro-fascisms, and the organisation ran in somewhat of a haphazard pattern in its efforts to protect street traders. However, they were highly successful at micro-local politics, using subterfuge to undermine the city’s trader administration system and preventing traders from being evicted. One Voice also sustained a large membership base over a long period of time, and this was mainly based on one-on-one communication. Their success was not based on a powerful political communication machine, but instead on the way they opportunistically managed micro-local circumstances. The study showed that an effective political communication machine was important for growing solidarity networks. However, large parts of government could not be reached, regardless of what communication strategies the organisations deployed, since participatory governance spaces were either closed off or inaccessible.