Faculty of Humanities (ETDs)
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Item Landscape, Rock Art Recording, Narrative: A Biography of The Harald Pager Archive(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2019) Moodley, Lemishka; Wintjes, JustineIn the early days of the discipline of archaeology, the archaeologist Sir Charles Thomas Newton stated, in a lecture at Oxford University in June 1880, that “the subject-matter of Archaeology is threefold – the Oral, the Written and the Monumental” (Newton 1880, p.3–7). By ‘oral’, he meant expressions of spoken language as a form of patterned communication passed down from the past, which he considered to be as significant as written texts and traces of the built environment. Newton’s statement also resonates with ongoing attempts to make sense of the fragmentary remains of the past by including living sources with links to those remains, often referred to as ‘oral traditions’. I argue that the domain of ‘oral’ could be extended in the contemporary context to refer to the realm of the ‘spoken word’. The spoken word is mobilised in the telling of personal histories of researchers engaged in making sense of the past, consistent with a move towards the study of the production of archaeological knowledge, and the broader context of the history of science. The past, and the investigation of that past, can be easily lost or erased with time, unless it is documented in some form. For as long as I can remember, I’ve had a keen interest in knowing about the world that preceded me. So naturally, movies like Raiders of the Lost Ark (1981), The Mummy (1999), Lara Croft: Tomb Raider (2001), 10 000 BC (2008), The Prince of Egypt (1998), Brother Bear (2003) and many others, fascinated and triggered my overactive imagination. These points of inspiration even prompted many crazy shenanigans and adventures that took place in my back yard. Needless to say, my mother was never impressed because her garden was in constant danger of being destroyed through micro-excavations (as I had to find the treasure I buried the previous evening!). However, it was a Pixar animated film — The Croods (2013) — that recently re-ignited my interest in deeper human history. Despite its status as a relatively mainstream commercial animated film, The Croods sparked my curiosity to find ways to visit the past and bring yesterday’s stories into our lives today. After their cave collapses, the first Crood family has to undertake a journey to find a new home. The father, provider and leader of his pack, recounts multiple stories that urge and caution his children to follow the rules described on the cave wall and to not try anything “new”, or generally be curious for that matter. He sees newness as dangerous, with potentially serious repercussions like death. He prefers for them to dwell in the “safe” compounds of the cave in which they live. He develops “cautionary” narratives through visual means by drawing pictures on the cave walls using pigment and dirt he scoops off the ground. The animated film highlights the ways in which a pictorial expression in the form of rock markings could be enlivened in its original context of performance and story-telling, and, also, the ways in which history is forged through personal experience. The film also prompted me to reconsider the academic realm in which rock art is primarily situated in southern Africa, which is archaeology, and the possible perspectives that other disciplines could bring to bear on these materials, such as art history. My understanding of the reasons why rock art (and its copies) can and should also be considered and studied as an art form, ultimately stems from my own experience in art education. The rock art works made by the San people are encoded with “the history and culture of a society” that is “thousands of years old” and “a testament of the displaced ancient African culture and the San presence in the world” (Solomon 2005). By studying these traces as artworks, researchers, historians and archaeologists are reminded to look at the visual features, but also beyond the physical aspects of the work. They begin to consider the processes that contributed to its making, and the various interpretations and meanings that the work had in its context of production, as well as in its subsequent readings. An examination of the process of knowledge production not only draws attention to the development of artmaking and the manner in which different materials were used to create artworks, but also demonstrates the precarious nature of the meaning of rupestrian imagery. An example of this instability of meaning is evidenced by a body of oral histories relevant to the San context, starting with Joseph Orpen’s documentation (1874) of a mountain Bushman called Qing’s account of the meaning behind particular rock art panels. Thereafter, in 1911, Wilhelm Bleek and Lucy Lloyd produced Specimens of Bushmen Folklore, a book of 87 recorded legends, myths and other traditional stories of the |Xam Bushmen in their now-extinct language (Solomon 2005). These resources integrated the “spoken word” with Bushman ethnographic research and laid the foundation for how we read and write about the art today, and they also provide numerous different ways into the question of interpretation. I have utilised my previous first-hand experience as an intern at the Origins Centre, where Simone Opperman and myself worked under the guidance of Steven Sack and Lara Mallen. In working towards the exhibition titled, The Origins of Walter Battiss: “Another Curious Palimpsest”, we worked closely with the Rock Art Research Institute (RARI), and my interest in rock art and its archive grew immensely. Here, I learned of the Harald Pager archive, which is physically located at RARI. After speaking to my supervisor, Dr Justine Wintjes, and listening to the way in which she briefly recounted the story of Harald Pager, who was an active rock art recorder and researcher during the 1960s and 1970s, I wanted to learn more about the man who seemingly died for his craft. Wintjes mentioned that Pager recorded San rock art in the Drakensberg area along with his wife for many years. The Pagers relied heavily on their personal resources in order to keep the recording and documentation process going, and ended up incurring financial debt. Harald Pager was passionate about archaeology and sought to understand the rock paintings he discovered in his travels across the region, which also included what was then South West Africa (now Namibia). In one of the conversations held in the course of my Masters research, Neil Lee explained that Pager dwelled for months on end in a shelter in order to finish the copies of rock paintings he sought to record. Pager’s adamance and determination, and even his belief that he could change his metabolism, apparently led to ill health while recording rock art in the Brandberg in 1985. He died a short time later in Windhoek (Neil Lee 2018, pers. comm.). 7 Given the scale and meticulousness of Pager’s archive, and in light of the conversations I had about him, it seemed strange that his work and story are engaged with so seldom within academia. Nevertheless, Pager’s vast archive lives on in the storerooms of RARI, and now also in the digital world. His recordings were recently digitised during the course of the South African Rock Art Digital Archive (SARADA) project, which sought to scan and make more accessible the content related to southern African rock art at RARI and other institutional and private archives. With the rapid rate at which technology is developing and progressing, physical archives are being turned into digital databases, while also being supplemented by newly created digital materials. However, like all archives, digital archives are not ‘permanent’. They have their own kind of media-specific fragility. The digital archive also has the potential to become obsolete and demonstrates a different kind of limited lifespan. Although digital files are also not physically present in the same way that a physical copy or photograph is, and “lose” a particular kind of materiality and stability, they gain a virtual presence and potentially greater accessibility. As with the ‘original’ archive of rock art that exists in the landscape, the traditional paper archive and the digital archive represent different kinds of longevity and fragility, and have a complex relationship with each other. While being subject to changes and deteriorations of various kinds, the archive is important as a record of archaeological materials in the landscape, but is also a site where knowledge is produced, and the practice of science is conducted. Thus, I set out to devise a project that would address some of these interests and problems, to find connections between the present and the past, and to focus on ‘process’ across the rock art archive in the broad sense of the term. I also wanted my project to address absences and silences within the archive, embedded within the documents and copies as well as the rock art itself. I approached the archive as a layered domain that extends beyond the strictly ‘documentary’ archive, and adopted a ‘personal histories’ approach as a way of forging connections across that archive. I explain this working strategy in more detail in the ‘Methodology’ section below, but first I explore some of the conceptual elements that frame the project.Item The Case of Analytic Philosophy as ‘the Philosophy’ and Its Problem for the Decolonization of the Curriculum(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2018) Ramaphala, Dorcus; Etieyibo, EdwinIn this research, I shall be examining two related issues. The first issue is about whether the presentation of analytic philosophy as the proper and only method of doing philosophy is justified. The second concerns the problems posed for the decolonization of the philosophy curriculum by this hegemonic and triumphant position of analytic philosophy as “the philosophy.” My motivation for engaging with these issues is to try and make the case for other philosophical traditions and methods, including African philosophy as legitimate and proper philosophical enterprises even when they do not share all or some of the traits and features of analytic philosophy. Success in making this case seems crucial to the project of decolonizing the philosophy curriculum.Item On The Nature and Rationality of Desire(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2018) Mtshali, Khondlo; Leon, MarkItem Men, Masculinity, Aggression and Dominance: An Exploration of How Young Men are Socialized to Deal with Situations of Man-on-Man Aggression and Dominance(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2019) Vilakazi, Zinhle; Davies, NickThere is a considerable body of research placing young South African men at the core of interpersonal violence. Within these studies they are frequently positioned as both perpetrators and victims of extreme and homicidal modes of aggression. In light of this gendered nature of interpersonal violence, this study was directed at exploring how young men’s responses to a situation of man-on-man aggression and dominance might be linked to how society encourages or expects a certain masculine performance from men in such situations. This study’s secondary goal was to offer some ideas about how young men might establish a masculine identity through aggression and dominance. In the pursuing research aims, a total of 14 young adult men attending university participated in this qualitative study. From the analysis what became evident was the continuous pressure that young adult men experience in society, through various social institutions, to somehow fit into dominant or hegemonic constructions of masculinity. Within the context of this study, the proximal cause of aggression and dominance was attributed to broader concerns regarding presentation of a masculine identity, self-worth and social status.Item Exploring the use of Process Drama in dialogues on Race and Memory among black ‘Born Frees’ of South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2018) Radebe, Tebogo; Lepere, RefiloeThis research project examines the use of Process Drama in creating dialogue about race and memory among Black Born Frees in South Africa. Process Drama was used as a dialogue facilitation tool, which involved both participants and a facilitator in role. The study further unpacks how process drama impacted participants’ attitudes on race and memory. Reflective practice is employed to interrogate how Process Drama creates empathy, to enable reflection on lived experiences, to lead to an examination of stereotypes around race and memory through constructive dialogue. The research focuses on the facilitation of improvised, episodic scenes and creation of images structured around themes of race and memory leading to post 1994 democratic South Africa. From the facilitation process, it emerged that improvisation in the dramatic action enables dialogue by allowing the participants to raise each other’s awareness by sharing various perspectives and understandings. Using a Process Recording as a tool for analysing the facilitator in action the paper makes a case for performative writing as way to present the process and findings of the research. The method of allowing the participants voices to be heard and validated began a process of healing psychological and emotional wounds among the black born frees.Item Social Constructions of Criminal Victimisation and Traumatic Stress Responses in Relation to Male Victims and Gender(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2017) Gqweta, Ntokozo; Eagle, GillianLiterature findings suggest that there are differences in male and female trauma exposure patterns (Norris & Slone, 2013). With this background in mind the aim of the study was to analyse the kinds of discursive patterns and themes that are prominent in conversing about male and female victims of crime related trauma and about their responses to being traumatised in this way. This aim was achieved through exploring the contributions of gender related attributions to constructions of victims of crime by university students in response to scenarios presented to them. The element of particular interest in this study was the gendering of victimisation and trauma related responses, focusing especially on male victims. The participants were first year psychology students and data was collected using focus groups in which participants were asked to comment on a vignette describing a fellow student’s victimisation by mugging and their subsequent trauma related responses. Four focus groups were conducted in two of which the victim was portrayed as female and in two of which as male. The discussions from the four groups were transcribed and subject to a thematic analysis and discursive reading of the material focusing particularly on gender related material. Seven core themes emerged which were referred to as: 1) Victim blame, 2) Legitimacy of trauma reactions; 3) Desensitisation, minimising of the nature of the event and related assessment of the responses 4) Victimisation as an identity position, 5) Evaluation of the role of social support and help-seeking, 6) Gender related constructions of victimisation and traumatisation, and 7) Evidence for contestation of gender stereotypes. The participants tended to construct both the male and female victim’s traumatic experience as resulting from irresponsibility, naivety and ignorance. Furthermore, the victim’s traumatic reactions were typed as either normal or abnormal, with intense and more enduring traumatic reactions being considered abnormal and dispositional. The perception of violence and crime as ubiquitous and uncontrollable within the South African context contributed to an underplaying of the significance of the victim’s experiences. There was some indication that perceptions of the victim’s identification with the victim role contributed to an emphasis on the need for self-reliance, control and circumscribed help-seeking in relation to peers. Although there was a degree of difference in response to the gender of the hypothetical victim these differences were less marked than might have been anticipated. While rather critical evaluations of trauma responses were made in respect of both male and female victims, male victims received more censorial responses in general. It was evident that male victims of crime were viewed and constructed somewhat differently from their female counterparts and that reference to patriarchy, gender socialisation, and stereotypic masculinity appeared to play a critical role in the construction of male victims. These findings have implications for the provision of support, care, sympathy and understanding of crime and violence victims generally, and male victims in particular. .Item Media coverage of South Africa reserve bank monetary policy commitee work: a case study of CNBC Africa 2014-2017(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2019) Segawa, ArnoldThis thesis examines how the media, particularly CNBC Africa covers the work of the South African Reserve Bank (SARB). The thesis takes a two-pronged approach to explore this with one arm inspecting the sociological and psychological aspects of engaging guests in the CNBC Africa Monetary Policy Committee (MPC) panel discussions and the other, looking at what CNBC Africa holds salient when covering the MPC panel discussions. By examining MPC panel discussion data from 2014 to 2017, the thesis contrasts both quantitative and qualitative methods to arrive at a quantitative dataset that shows what CNBC Africa holds salient during their coverage posing questions on whether this aligns with the SARB mandate. On the other hand, the thesis explores the sociological and psychological aspects of news and debate production, particularly how MPC panelists for the special broadcast are selected. The thesis aims to contribute to the scarce literature on monetary policy communication and media engagement as the adoption of inflation targeting has fast-fostered transparency in central banks in the past three decades. The thesis applies theories of Agenda Setting by McCombs and Shaw (1972) to examine the salient aspects of the CNBC Africa MPC panel discussion. In addition, it explores Tversky and Kahneman’s (1992) revolutionary work on dual process theory to inspect the psychological aspects of inviting panelists. The thesis finds that during the CNBC Africa MPC discussion, ‘interest rates’ as a key word in context dominates the conversation over and above any other topic and a closer examination of the data reveals a strong frequency of interest rates in a ‘global context’ further asserting South Africa’s exposure to global headwinds and external shocks. Furthermore, this shows a deviation between SARB’s mandate and CNBC Africa’s MPC panel discussions in regards to salience. This is because SARB pushes to achieve and maintain price stability in the interest of balanced and sustainable economic growth in South Africa through achieving price stability by setting an inflation target that serves as a yardstick against which price stability is measured. With this mandate, price stability and, therefore, inflation are the core focus of the SARB with interest rates being a mere tool to achieve price stability. The deviation of CNBC Africa’s and SARB’s frames is further illustrated in the data as ‘interest rates’ dominate the conversation during the CNBC Africa MPC panel discussion at the expense of ‘inflation.’ The thesis submits that in order to merge the SARB’s and CNBC Africa’s frames, the latter need cover the MPC announcement in a three-pronged approach that encloses SARB’s economic outlook with emphasis on the forward-looking stance, path of future policy rates and cover policy decisions in their entiretyItem Using mixed-method approaches to provide new insights into media coverage of femicide(2019) Brodie, Nechama R.South Africa has a femicide rate that is six times the world average. Over 2,500 women aged 14 years or older are murdered every year, the majority of these women killed by an intimate partner. Despite the prevalence of femicide, less than 20% of these murders are ever reported in South African news media. Studies on news-media coverage of femicide reveal a subjective and obscure process of media selection and exclusion, which contribute to an archive of crime reporting that is not reflective of actual crime rates and which actively distort the nature and frequency of certain types of crime. This influences public perceptions and fear of violent crime, including notions of who is a suspect and who is most at risk. This study uses mixed-method approaches to document and analyse the content and extent of commercial news media coverage of femicides that took place in South Africa during the 2012/2013 crime reporting year, through an original media database listing 408 femicide victims associated with 5,778 press articles. Victim and incident information is compared with epidemiological and statistical data, including mortuary-based studies and police crime statistics. Media data is explored through various media effects models, including a mixedmethods framing analysis, and is also examined by title, and by language. These analyses reveal how media constructs and depicts particular notions of gender, violence, race, and crime in South Africa.Item ‘They stood their ground!’ – Professional Gangsters in South African Indian Society, 1940 - 1970(2019) Heatlie, Damon; Menon, Dilip; Bloore, Peter; Kros, CynthiaThis thesis is one part of a Creative PhD that investigates the emergence of a new breed of South African Indian gangsters in Durban and Johannesburg in the early apartheid period. The second part, existing as a separate creative text, is a screenplay for a feature film loosely based on dynamics and events present in the Durban Indian underworld of the 1950s. In the thesis I argue that while prominent ‘professional’ Indian gangsters were similar to other ‘non-white’ gangsters in certain respects (their self-fashioning in relation to gangster films, for one), these ‘gentlemen gangsters’ were different in terms of their high level of social and economic integration into Indian society. Focusing on the Crimson League in Durban and Sherief Khan’s gang in Johannesburg, this research comprises reconstructions from (and analysis of) interviews and written sources. It shows how these hustlers positioned themselves as protectors of the Indian community, but also cultivated reputations as punishers, capable of brutal violence if opposed. In Chapter 1, I explore the world of changing South African Indian identity in the middle decades of the twentieth century, and the mobilisation of an ‘Indian’ identity by disparate groups to advance collective interests. In Chapter 2, I look at how subjugated Indian masculinity, a sense of vulnerable ‘territory’, and the rise of street gangs intersected in ritualised games of soccer and gang fights. Chapter 3 traces the rise of Durban’s dominant gang in the early apartheid period, the Crimson League, a vigilante outfit that turned to illicit activities and thuggery. Chapter 4 looks at some of the adversaries that the League engaged and ultimately defeated, including the Salots and the Michael John Gang – I dissect the John murder trial to show how the Crimson League seemingly bent the law to their will. In Chapter 5, I move on to a description of Sherief Khan’s rise to power over rival Old Man Kajee in the Indian areas of Johannesburg in the 1940s and early1950s, culminating in an analysis of his gang’s various ‘business’ activities. Chapter 6 finds Khan and company back on the streets in the 1960s - and examines a decisive conflict with contenders, the ‘Malay Mob’, that re- established Khan’s reputation as ‘South African king of the underworld’. In Chapter 7, I look at how mid-century Hollywood gangster films resonated with Indian gangsters, and how a convoluted conversation between Drum magazine, Hollywood films and Indian gangsters developed. Chapter 8 concludes the analysis with considering the thriving South African Indian cinema scene of this period, and how the cinemas functioned as multifaceted fantasy spaces for both gangsters and ordinary Indians.Item 'Credible' child perpetrators: A critical discourse analysis of South African juvenile murderers(2019) Masuku, KwaneleConstructions of violence constrain women and children to victims and men to perpetrators, and imply that children are, at all times pure, innocent and, vulnerable. As such, child perpetrated crimes contradict these normative constructions, thus rendering child perpetrators inconceivable. The aim of this research was thus to identify resistance discourse that oppose these normative constructions of violence. This was achieved by interviewing incarcerated juvenile-offenders from juvenile correctional centres in South Africa. After the interviews were transcribed, the transcripts were subjected to Parker’s (1992, 2004) critical discourse analysis. The findings illustrate how normative constructions of childhood and violence render child perpetrators inconceivable. Additionally, the analysis surfaced resistance discourse which challenge normative constructions of childhood and violence, and provide counter-knowledge on violence and crime within South Africa.