4. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - Faculties submissions
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Item The Exploration of the experiences and perceptions of service providers on the implementation of the Amendments to the Criminal Law (Sexual Offenses and Related Matters) Amendment Act 13 of 2021: The case of statutory rape in Johannesburg, Gauteng(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Doodhnath, Sirishka; Nkala-Dlamini, BusisiweThis study aims to explore service providers’ perceptions and experiences regarding the implementation of the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 13 of 2021 in South Africa. The study examined the regulations concerning the age of consent for sexual activity involving minors, which are considered essential in addressing statutory rape. Using a qualitative research approach and exploratory study design, the study sought to gain an in-depth understanding of service providers on the effectiveness of the Act in addressing statutory rape and related issues. 12 service providers who have worked on the Amended Act were recruited and sampled for the study with the assistance of the Department of Community Safety. The department provided the researcher with a list of multi-disciplinary team professionals involved in the Victim Empowerment program. The study employed semi- structured interviews using interview guides to collect data from all service providers involved in the implementation of the Act. Thematic analysis was used to analyse the data and to identify recurring themes. The study findings offer insights that can assist policymakers in addressing the challenges and gaps in the implementation of the Act, with the goal of protecting minors and combating statutory rape in South Africa.Item The 1995 Shobashobane Christmas Day massacre: political mass murder that shook the new South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Khumalo, SibongileThis research report tells the story of the killing of 18 African National Congress (ANC) supporters in the village of Shobashobane on the KwaZulu-Natal south coast by an Inkatha Freedom Party (IFP) aligned mob. It is one of the earliest episodes of political conflict that marred post-apartheid South Africa in what was a climax of instability in the region with a long history of violence. The survivors of the massacre still bear the scars of the onslaught and question whether the political change they fought for has brought them the future they envisaged. The gruesome attack, which took place on 25 December 1995, was a consequence of a fight for political hegemony between the IFP and the ANC. Twenty-eight years after the massacre, the events of that fateful Christmas day are still etched in the memory of the survivors and aggravated by the challenging socio-economic conditions of the present. The court found the massacre to be politically motivated by the rival supporters. Those convicted and jailed for their role in the massacre described by the court as ‘well-orchestrated’ have all been released from prison, while others had their convictions overturned on appeal shortly after sentencing. Political violence continues to plague parts of KwaZulu-Natal in different forms, and Shobashobane remains a mishmash of complex socio-political contrasts.Item A Critical Inquiry into The Ethical Justification(s) For Decriminalising Cannabis Use In South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Moolla, Sadiyyah; Attoe, Aribiah DavidThe right to privacy, as contained in the Constitution of the Republic of South Africa, grants individuals the right to engage in certain activities, insofar as those activities are private, without infringement by individuals or the state. The said right is what was relied upon by the Constitutional Court in the decision to decriminalize Cannabis, for private use. However, there is a marked difference between that which is legal and that which is moral. In this thesis, I will grapple with the ethical justifications for the decriminalization of Cannabis. Using the Ubuntu ethical theory, I will show that there is in fact no ethical justification for impeding on a moral agent’s right to consume cannabis. I will begin by providing some arguments for and against the legalisation of cannabis use, showing their merits and their demerits. I will then provide an account of Ubuntu ethics and show how its tenets bear on the right to consume cannabis.Item The Role of International Commitments in Combating the Illicit Distribution of Cocaine(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Bacta, Raquel; Alence, RodTheoretical studies claim that states’ adherence to international drug control treaties may impact the enforcement of cocaine seizure regulations. However, this study found no significant relationship between commitment to United Nations Conventions and cocaine seizures. The study employed two multi-level regression models to investigate the poten- tial correlation between state adherence to drug control conventions and cocaine seizures between 1996 and 2019. The results suggest that other factors, such as Gross Domestic Product (GDP), trade openness, military expenditure, and governance indicators, may play a more important role in explaining the variation in cocaine seizures. Furthermore, the findings imply that practical outcomes may not meet expectations despite efforts to ad- here to international agreements on drug control. Other factors such as national interests, domestic politics, and resource allocation might play a more crucial role in determining the effectiveness of drug control measures. Therefore, comprehensive strategies beyond gov- ernance indicators alone are necessary to address drug trafficking, requiring multifaceted approaches considering socio-economic dynamics, law enforcement capabilities, and inter- national cooperation.Item Food Riot? Analyzing the July 2021 Unrest in South Africa Using Topic Modeling(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Khoza, Palesa; Kesselman, BrittanyThe July 2021 unrest in South Africa trended on Twitter between the 9th and 31st of July 2021. The unrest received attention from different groups of society, it was interpreted by the media, government, and scholars. This paper explores whether the July 2021 unrest was framed as a food riot by the affected communities across KwaZulu–Natal and Gauteng provinces in South Africa. A dictionary-based analysis and STM topic modeling were conducted on 8264 geo-tagged tweets extracted from the 9th to the 31 of July 2021 to capture the views of the communities in areas affected by the unrest. The findings indicate that conversations concerning the unrest were around collective action, food disturbances, political dissatisfaction, looting, and socio-economic stressors. This study found that political dissatisfaction is linked to a lack of governance response to the deteriorating socio-economic conditions associated with the COVID-19 pandemic. The findings of this study suggest that loss of income and high food prices associated with the pandemic contributed to food disturbances. In addition, food price increases were expected in the aftermath of the social unrest. In conclusion, the views on Twitter revealed conversations around multiple interlinked issues.Item Caste and Colourism: Constructions of beauty among women in the historically Indian area of Chatsworth, Durban(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Moodley, Paalini Jasanthini; Mngomezulu, NosiphoThis research study has set out to uncover the silences surrounding caste and colourism, and the influence of this on constructions of beauty standards among women in the Chatsworth Indian community. My fieldwork consisted of participant observations and interviews over the course of four weeks at a beauty parlour in Chatsworth, with a predominantly Indian women clientele. There were six participants in this study who consisted of the owner of the beauty parlour, Sandhya, the nail technicians, Mahati and Nidhi, the threaders, Yukti and Kalyani, and the hairdresser, Lavana. Throughout the chapters within this study, I argue that despite the language of caste rarely spoken, it exists as a reconfigured caste system determined by culture and colour, significantly influencing women’s perceptions of beauty. Moreover, certain standards of beauty that favour lighter skin tones as a result of systemic prejudice, influence women to partake in beauty treatments that feed into this ideal. Lastly, women’s choices in certain treatments are severely influenced by their desire to please a man, impress a mother-in-law, flaunt social status to family through a lighter skin tone, and fit an ideal standard of beauty. In theorising beauty, I draw on feminist and postcolonial perspectives, contextualising beauty within historical, socio-cultural, socio-economic, and socio-political dimensions. I use Hauntology as a framework in unmasking the recursive force of caste which consumes women’s everyday lives, dictating marriage criterion, popularity, status, affluence, and beauty standardsItem Intimacy, sadness-as-courage and post-apartheid disillusionment in Nhlanhla P. Maake’s Mangolo a Nnake(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Mochechane, Khumo Sophia; Musila, Grace A.In this thesis, I analyse Nhlanhla P. Maake’s 1999 novella, Mangolo a Nnake. While Mangolo readily constitutes apartheid literature, I make a discussion around its prescient nature; that is to say, the ways in which it predicts post-apartheid neocolonialism and ‘ruined time’. The overarching subject matter being black female self-actualisation, I explore Professor Roger Coulibaly’s question, “What do African women need in order to write?”, making a case for the responses space, time and affective prompting. The broad subject of psychosocial support, female solidarity and female social capital is also discussed in line with the ways in which sadness sometimes births the courage to initiate and maintain self-actualisation. By way of close reading of the novella, I discuss various literary devices that are able to cultivate intimacy in a reader. The reader of an epistolary novel can be considered an ‘eavesdropper’, and I show the ways in which literary ‘eavesdropping’ makes way for simulation with a literary character to take place as abstract spectator – that is to say, as reader. I also discuss psychosocial support vis-a-vis female solidarity as an additional need for black women writers. These sometimes find expression by way of storytelling and humour. The latter two are explored in this thesis for their therapeutic and healing abilities. I also read Ntshebo’s disappointment and hurt as allegorical of the larger disappointment of the post-apartheid nation as a result of neocolonialism. A running trope throughout this thesis is the ways in which the concept of the ‘New Woman’ found place and proliferation under the apartheid regime.Item Encountering apartheid publics: an essay film on Hendrik Verwoerd as public symbol 1958-1966 and implications for counter-publics today(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023) Effendi, Karima; Louw , LiezaThe policies of separate development under Verwoerd created the material conditions for apartheid and capitalism to thrive, but it's the hypothesis of this project that the pomp and ceremony, the suit, his speeches and performative statecraft, created the affective conditions for his thinking to make its way from the past into our present-time. This is a discursive inquiry that draws on political theory, psychoanalysis, feminist theory and essayistic film theory to explore how the slipperiness of apartheid discourse makes it impossible to counter it on its own terms. Verwoerd symbolised a pernicious ‘covering over’ of irreconcilable ambiguities in apartheid discourse that was used to construct and stabilise whiteness against ‘other’ constitutive subject formations. The second part of the creative project is an essay film, Verwoerd’s Smile, that uses an ‘apartheid’ and colonial archive to attempt to show up its own discriminatory logic. The film’s failure in doing this has a productive value that is instructive for understanding how the cloak of invisibility that shrouds whiteness from being seen doing its work, also protects it from being dismantled. Understanding this has implications for radical projects concerned with undoing apartheid.Item The Legacy of Parental Divorce as an Adverse Childhood Experience on Emerging Adults(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Presence, Jewel ChristinaThe impact of parental divorce on children is well documented, yet there is a significant gap in literature regarding its long-term effects on emerging adults. This qualitative study addresses this gap by exploring how emerging adults narrate and make meaning of their experiences of parental divorce during childhood. The study aims to understand how emerging adults interpret their childhood experiences of parental divorce and how it has affected their emotional, psychological, and social development in emerging adulthood. The study uses Arnett’s theory of emerging adulthood and Erikson’s theory of psychosocial development as theoretical frameworks. Data was collected using semi-structured interviews with 11 emerging adults, aged 18 to 24 years, who experienced parental divorce during childhood. Reflexive thematic analysis was employed to analyse the data. Three overarching themes emerged from the study: (1) navigating interpersonal relationships, (2) developmental transitions and parental divorce impact; as well as (3) family dynamics and support shifts. Findings reveal that parental divorce, during childhood, has emotional implications, leading to maladaptive coping strategies, difficulties within the home environment, and challenges in forming secure attachments in emerging adulthood. Despite these hardships, participants demonstrated resilience and adaptability, often reinterpreting their experiences in a positive light as they navigated self- identity and emerging adulthood. The effects of parental divorce on emerging adults were deeply embedded in their individual experiences including how they related to their parents during their childhood. This study provides valuable subjective insights into the long-term impacts of parental divorce on emerging adults by presenting data derived from participants’ experiences and includes recommendations for future research and practical applications.Item Changing Patterns of violence in the Western Sahel(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Krienke, HannahThis dissertation investigates how changing patterns of violence in Mali and Burkina Faso have resulted in the formation of alternative government systems by jihadist groups and community militias. By analysing the interactions between these non -state actors, state institutions, and foreign intermediaries, the study highlights the significant impacts of socioeconomic problems, corruption, ethnic and religious tensions, and climate change, which have given rise to space where power and control of the state is contested. In Mali, violence erupted in 2012 with an insurgent movement that was exacerbated by subsequent coups and political crises, eroding state authority and supporting the growth of multiple armed groups most notably via jihadist insurgency. Violence in Burkina Faso began to grow in 2015, and it was exacerbated with the 2022 coup, which altered the dynamics of domestic and foreign alliances, including the Russian Wagner Group's involvement. Both countries are currently governed by the military, although in both cases the military has struggled to calm violence. The frequency of attacks increasing drastically between 2015 and 2024. Therefore, the dynamics of violence in both countries are examined in relation to the restructuring of local and state interactions and the emergence of new forms of governance. This involves drawing on theories such as Mary Kaldor's t "new wars," who emphasises the relationship between identity politics and armed conflict. Through a comparative examination, the study reveals parallels as well as differences in the ways that violence has impacted state formation and impacted Sahelian populations in Mali and Burkina Faso.