4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions

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Ndim Lo, Masidlale: A critical exploration of the importance of culture and diversity in South African Drama Therapy spaces
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Mkhize, Mawande
The Anglo-Saxon word “plega” is the concept of playing which means battle, fight, game, or sport (Weiskopf, 1982). In most cases play is believed to have a biological, cultural, and psychological function that is seen as essential to the development of a person from a young age (Cohen, 1987). The founder of psychoanalysis known as Freud describes play as having an important role in the emotional development in people, development that is seen to take place from their early years of life and throughout their lifespan (Johnson, Christie, & Yawkey, 1987). Johnson (1987) states that in relation to Freud's view that suggests that play has its place that takes place mainly in childhood and is abandoned in adulthood, in the name of one being too old for playing. Evidence shows that playfulness in both children as well as adults plays a role in personality characteristics essentially for mental health, imagination, and creativity (Johnson, et al, 1987). Research has shown (Cohen, 1987) that play is not just activities done for fun, but rather there is more to it, it goes as far as having influence on the growth and development of those who choose to partake in the process of play. People play in different ways, in most cases the environment(s) that they grew up in expose them to the way that they are familiar with or may prefer to engage. For instance, for the Black Indigenous community, indigenous games to many may seem more preferable than other methods of play because of their familiarity. According to Burnett and Hollander (2004) indigenous games are viewed as being recreational and characterized by organized play that follows a certain structure and works in accordance with the rules that those involved agreed on that reflect a socio-cultural dimension of reasoning and behaviour. The term indigenous has a strong connection to cultural and historical context (Burnett & Hollander, 2004: 11). Playing indigenous games has an influence on developing positive character traits from an early age by reinforcing African values such as cooperation, communication, strategy, and problem-solving abilities. In South Africa, there are various people with varying beliefs and cultures, these differences are part of what makes the country unique (Gibson, 2003). I believe that none of these matters more than others, and they are all part of what makes it special. People's stories are affected by these differences (Gibson, 2003), these stories can be told based on how they were raised and 6 | M . M k h i z e how they have experienced life. This study explores the various ways in which Black indigenous people engage with play, and ways in which it can be implemented in South African Drama Therapy spaces. Understanding the various forms and ranges of client experiences is very important in order to develop effective therapeutic skills (Elliot, 2008), this process can also help therapists improve their understanding of their clients.
An Exploration of Life and Career Narratives of Black Senior Managers: The Storied Habitus of Career Navigation
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Ramodibe, Refiloe; Canham, Hugo
This research located black senior managers within a temporal frame that links them with their families, communities, childhoods, socio-political and economic histories. This location shed new light since it illuminated their lives and careers in new ways that are grounded in history and context. It enabled an understanding of black senior managers as bearing histories that they bring along with them into the workplace. To explore the stories of these senior managers, I conducted in-depth narrative interviews with twenty black men and black women who occupy senior positions within the financial services sector. Accessing these histories through the genre of narrative assisted in showcasing what is enabled by storying one’s life, therefore creating circuits of meaning-making that connect seemingly disparate sites of the personal, historical, social and workplace. At its core then, this project was about storying the early lives of black senior managers by locating them as mostly working class, caught up in the struggles against apartheid for democratisation, as benefiting from the opportunities enabled by the transition to democracy, as entering the white and masculine corporate workplace of the financial services sector, and as reaching and navigating seniority in their organisations. The participant’s narratives were read through the lenses of narrative theory, habitus, the black feminist theory of intersectionality, and critical race theory. The basic assumption of habitus is that the way one acts and behaves is influenced by where one comes from and one’s dispositions, including contextually salient identity categories, such as race, class, and gender. The basis of these theories is the assumption that there might be a difference in how people of varying class backgrounds and black men and women narrate their stories of mobility. The stories told by participants highlighted the role of the senior managers’ habitus in shaping their identities and trajectories. Childhood experiences and parental influences were found to have shaped their later behaviours in navigating their career journeys. Access to mentors and sponsors early on in their careers was found to have provided the senior managers with the capital that allowed them to progress to more senior roles. Refuting the existing narrative that black people move between organisations excessively, senior managers’ tenure illustrated that they stayed in their organisations for longer periods than industry norms. Notwithstanding their tenure, their stories suggest that unaccommodating cultures and unconscious bias remain prevalent in the financial services sector. Organisations that had more black people in senior roles were found to drive the transformation agenda iv more intentionally. The black senior managers understood their role as that of influencing the cultures of their organisations while also paying it forward by driving the transformation agenda. In the process of sharing their life and career stories, the black senior managers articulated their experiences and understanding of themselves, others, and the world. Therefore, not only did the personal narratives enlighten us about the participants’ personal and working lives, but they illuminated how their identities as black senior managers working within the financial services sector were shaped over time. A prominent finding from the study was that while the black senior managers shared similar experiences related to race, their experiences differed in terms of their family backgrounds and schooling experiences in their childhood. Black people’s experiences may be common in certain aspects and different in others. This necessitates the importance of exploring heterogeneity in organisational studies. This study contributes to organisational studies, gender and critical race studies, history and social theory.
An intersectionality of race and ethnicity: the glass ceiling in the banking sector in Kenya and South Africa
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Genga, Cheryl Akinyi Margaret; Maier, Christoph
Even though progress has been made in the Kenyan and South African banking sector, Black African women remain a minority in Top Executive leadership positions. Previous research on the “glass ceiling” focuses on Black African women as one homogenous group not acknowledging the diversity dimensions of Black African women from Africa. Invisible factors such as race and ethnicity have been stated to contribute to the glass ceiling in the banking sector, yet this has not been investigated making Black African women more invisible. This research primarily aims to provide an understanding of the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, and career advancement of Black African women in the Kenyan and South African banking sector. This research further aims: to describe the obstacles that Black African women still face, to analyse the diversity of Black African women in management, to identify the reasons as to why some Black African women have been able to crack the glass ceiling in the Kenyan and South African banking sector and to give recommendations to stakeholders as to how they can help crack the glass ceiling for Black African women in the Kenyan and South African banking sector. To address the research objectives, this research applied a qualitative Intercatergorical Intersectionality Approach to provide an understanding of the relationship between race, ethnicity, and gender in the Kenyan and South African banking sector. This was facilitated by the use of semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus groups that were carried out with the participantsbeing Black African women managers in the Kenyan and South African banking sector in Nairobi and Johannesburg, respectively. Data collected from the interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis in which themes and patterns were identified to address the research objectives. Firstly, findings from the research illustrated a relationship between race, ethnicity, and gender. The extent of the relationship between race, ethnicity, and gender was discussed by the role of race, the role of ethnicity, the intersectionality of race and gender, and the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, and gender in the career advancement of Black African women in the Kenyan and South African banking sector. Secondly, the findings identified the obstacles that Black African women still face in the banking sector, which were discussed and described into three groups: Black African women are their own worst enemies in the banking sector. Thirdly, the findings illustrated the diversity dimensions of Black African women managers from the Kenyan and South African banking sector in relation to their race, ethnicity, and the positions that they held in the banks they were working for. Fourthly, the findings highlighted reasons as to why some Black African women managers had cracked the glass ceiling (discussed with the use of the glass ceiling scale). Fifthly, the findings recommend that stakeholders have to be fully committed if they want to help Black African women crack the glass ceiling in the Kenyan and South African banking sector. In conclusion, through the findings, this research provides a conceptual framework to understand the glass ceiling in relation to the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, and gender of Black African women in the Kenyan and South African banking sector
The intersectionality of social generations, locale, and race, in diversity management in South Africa
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Nayager, Kesagee; Carmichael, Terri
This qualitative case study explores the intersectionality of social generations (known as cohorts), locale (space and place), and race, how it may influence intra-generational differences in South Africa, and the meanings that intra- generational differences may have for diversity management studies. Whilst intersectionality studies commonly focus on the intersecting of social categories such as race and gender, little is known about the intersectionality of social generations, race, and locale (space and place) in the workspace in South Africa and about intra-generational differences and the meanings it may have for studies on diversity management. Whereas the literature on the phenomenon of social generations tends to portray social generations as homogenous and as defined in the American context, this study contributes to studies on local social generations by examining how intra-generational differences may be facilitated when race, locale (space and place), and social generations intersect. The seminal theory of generations defines locale in terms of space only. By expanding on the definition of locale to include both space (a physical setting) and place (the ambience created when space is socially engineered), this study explores the Black and White lived experiences of social generations, space, and place in the workspace. A dual case study design was used, and 60 face-to-face qualitative interviews were conducted with Black and White employees who were purposively selected from the three social generations (Generation X, Generation Y, and Baby Boomer) working at Bombela and the Gautrain Management Agency. The research findings were thematically analysed to explore how Black and White South Africans from each social generation experience spaces and places in present-day South Africa. The analysis revealed that, in the workspace, Black and White South Africans from different social generations have a shared experience of space but varied experiences of place. Black participants from the Generation Y social generation described their financial burden of caring for extended family members who have been historically disadvantaged by the Apartheid regime in South Africa, terming it a “Black tax” from which, they say, their White counterparts are exempt. White participants from this same social generation described their guilt and remorse for the historical system of Apartheid. They spoke of the emotional burden that they carry for it caused by their Whiteness. The study coins these different Black and White social experiences as the perceived ‘financial and socio- political costs of being Black in post-Apartheid South Africa’ and the perceived ‘socio-political cost of being White in post-Apartheid South Africa’. As a contribution to diversity management studies, the study introduces the term ‘placial planning’, which entails socially re-engineering the ambience in the workplace so that Black and White South Africans from different social generations have similar experiences of place in the workplace
The Periphery is a Crowded Space: Discourses of Inclusion and Exclusion in the Gatekeeping of South Africa’s Nursing Profession. 1874-1957
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-02) Fern, Casey Lee; Phillip, Laura; Devenish, Annie
Not Available
Rethinking the Logics of the Sex/Gender Anatomical Schema
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-03) Nqambaza, Palesa Rose; Dube, Siphiwe
This dissertation is an appraisal of the dominant gender discourse(s) in selected South African anthropological, gender and feminist texts. It challenges the uncritical adoption of colonial sex/gender frameworks when making sense of indigenous ways and modes of being and proposes an Afrocentric alternative that goes beyond bio-logical frameworks. This study is two pronged. Firstly, it problematises the uncritical application of Western feminist theories that have tended to impose European realities on the African context. Secondly, it mines the indigenous archive for Afrocentric ideas that contribute to creating a uniquely African theory of subject formation that considers aspects important to the African world-sense such as seniority, kinship status and ancestral links. I make use of critical discourse analysis to analyse the dominant discourse(s) and knowledge on sex and gender within the context of what is today known as South Africa. I do this employing the Azanian philosophical tradition as the theoretical framework that informs the perspective from which I read and make sense of these discourses, using a mixture of textual analysis, linguistics, archival work, and historical method. Based on my reading of dominant gender discourses against textual, linguistic and historical evidence, I make the following arguments. Firstly, I problematise the blanket usage of the conceptual category of ‘woman’ to refer to colonised subjectivities. I demonstrate that Black womxn have been discursively constructed as existing outside the bounds of the conceptual category ‘woman’ who is the key subject of feminist theorising. Secondly, I demonstrate that the logics of the sex/gender anatomical schema, that organises men and women in a hierarchy, cannot account for indigenous modes of social organising. I maintain that African subjectivities are fluid, complex and contingent, depending on aspects such as one’s seniority, kinship status and ancestral links. Likewise, I invoke the institution of ubungoma as an additional site to demonstrate the inadequacy of the sex/gender anatomical framework in making sense of sangoma subjectivities. I also problematise the tendency to use LGBTQ languaging as an alternative in making sense of the institution of ubungoma. I maintain that while noble, this alternative framing is also implicated in underscoring the existence of a coherent sex/gender regime within which the institution of ubungoma is then assumed to be ‘queer’. I maintain that there is a pressing need to mine indigenous linguistic archives for alternative ways of wording indigenous subjectivities in ways that are not distortive, nor mimic Eurocentric versions.
An intersectionality of race and ethnicity: the glass ceiling in the banking sector in Kenya and South Africa
(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021-12) Genga,Cheryl Akinyi Margaret
Even though progress has been made in the Kenyan and South African banking sector, Black African women remain a minority in Top Executive leadership positions. Previous research on the “glass ceiling” focuses on Black African women as one homogenous group not acknowledging the diversity dimensions of Black African women from Africa. Invisible factors such as race and ethnicity have been stated to contribute to the glass ceiling in the banking sector, yet this has not been investigated making Black African women more invisible. This research primarily aims to provide an understanding of the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, and career advancement of Black African women in the Kenyan and South African banking sector. This research further aims: to describe the obstacles that Black African women still face, to analyse the diversity of Black African women in management, to identify the reasons as to why some Black African women have been able to crack the glass ceiling in the Kenyan and South African banking sector and to give recommendations to stakeholders as to how they can help crack the glass ceiling for Black African women in the Kenyan and South African banking sector. To address the research objectives, this research applied a qualitative Intercatergorical Intersectionality Approach to provide an understanding of the relationship between race, ethnicity, and gender in the Kenyan and South African banking sector. This was facilitated by the use of semi-structured in-depth interviews and focus groups that were carried out with the participants being Black African women managers in the Kenyan and South African banking sector in Nairobi and Johannesburg, respectively. Data collected from the interviews were transcribed and analysed using thematic analysis in which themes and patterns were identified to address the research objectives. Firstly, findings from the research illustrated a relationship between race, ethnicity, and gender. The extent of the relationship between race, ethnicity, and gender was discussed by the role of race, the role of ethnicity, the intersectionality of race and gender, and the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, and gender in the career advancement of Black African women in the Kenyan and South African banking sector. Secondly, the findings identified the obstacles that Black African women still face in the banking sector, which were discussed and described into three groups: Black African women are their own worst enemies in the banking sector. Thirdly, the findings illustrated the diversity dimensions of Black African women managers from the Kenyan and South African banking sector in relation to their race, ethnicity, and the positions that they held in the banks they were working for. Fourthly, the findings highlighted reasons as to why some Black African women managers had cracked the glass ceiling (discussed with the use of the glass ceiling scale). Fifthly, the findings recommend that stakeholders have to be fully committed if they want to help Black African women crack the glass ceiling in the Kenyan and South African banking sector. In conclusion, through the findings, this research provides a conceptual framework to understand the glass ceiling in relation to the intersectionality of race, ethnicity, and gender of Black African women in the Kenyan and South African banking sector.

4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions

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