Faculty of Humanities (ETDs)
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Item 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.Item Is There a Moral Right for Civilian Gun Ownership?(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Lowe, Graham MarkThe topic of firearm ownership is a current and topical one, with compelling arguments both for and against. In this paper, I set out to prove the existence of a moral right to civilian firearm ownership. In order to achieve this, I selected the strongest (and only) rights based argument for the complete banning of firearms as put forward by Jeff McMahan, and proceeded to analyse and critique his arguments, with the intention of presenting flaws in the arguments, and thus proving the existence of a moral right for firearm ownership through discounting the strongest argument against it.Item Bubblewrapped: (Queered) Exhibition Making as a Means of Creating Spaces in Johannesburg Which Balance Intimacy, Safety and Access(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Nyathi, Denzel; Twalo, SinethembaWhile the exhibition, as perhaps the main tool of curating, is an excellent space for symbolic generation, I venture to draw close parallels to the internet, as a possible exhibition site of its own, to question how better the traditional art exhibition can be configured to make room for intimacy in the face of capitalism and its subsequent implications on how it is the contemporary Johannesburg art ecosystem operates and dictates professional interaction. It maintains the ever-relational position of contemporary curatorial practice, while complicating the issue of proximity (between disciplines and between people) even further by looking into what role controlling access plays in ensuring an intimate experience feels safe, and doesn’t border on being an experience which makes one feel unnecessarily vulnerable. The affective fine-tuning of this venture becomes a precarious task, which I undertake collaboratively with the interviewee respondents of this research. In consideration of these people and the overdetermination of the commercial sector in the Johannesburg art scene, the research report below asks the question of how it is that exhibition making can be reconfigured by the curator to work in more intimate ways to therefore make space for the various members involved in exhibition-making to feel a sense of safety and belonging in their work. bubblewrapped, as a queered exhibition, takes further this research and continues to think with the various practitioners in a public exhibition format, and thus continues to experiment with means of preserving intimacyItem Interactional Dynamics During Residential Robbery: Victims’ Accounts and Reflections(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2021) Quinn, Caroline; Eagle, GillianSeveral studies highlight the importance of documenting interactional elements of violent crime. While a range of studies focus on perpetrators’ accounts of what transpired during the commission of robberies and other forms of violent crime, there has been a notable oversight in establishing victims’ narratives surrounding such events. This study had a broad over- arching focus on establishing what appeared to either escalate or deescalate violence during a residential robbery from the survivors/victims’ perspective. In addition to this focus, it was further aimed to establish the cognitive appraisals that victims/ survivors reported as salient during the incident, as well as their reported motivations for behaviours they exhibited. Moreover, the study aimed to highlight any socio-demographic features that the victims perceived to be significant in their interaction with perpetrators. An exploratory approach to the research study was undertaken whereby semi-structured interviews were conducted with eight adult South African participants. The data was processed and presented by means of a thematic analysis and contextualized from a primarily realist paradigm. Five superordinate themes were identified across participants’ accounts, including: (1) Comprehending the Nature of the Interpersonal Interaction, (2) Negotiation of Dominance and Submission, (3) Cognitive Processing and Evaluation during the Event, (4) Awareness of Demographic and Socio-Cultural Aspects of the Interchange, and (5) Advice & Post Hoc Observations. These main themes were elaborated through subthemes that aimed to capture nuances across participants’ narratives. The findings suggested that although positioned in a subjugated role participants attempted to moderate or affect the interaction between themselves and the perpetrators. This was mainly achieved by verbally and behaviorally demonstrating compliance in order to mitigate further risk. In addition, participants described more complex ways of responding to perpetrators which appeared to be based on idiosyncratic evaluations of their particular situation. Participants were aware of limited agency but appear to have negotiated some means of retaining or displaying agency within situational constraints. Across all eight participants’ accounts, it was evident that participants acted in accordance with an assessment of their situation and responded in a manner that was perceived to result in ensuring the greatest likelihood of survival. References to race, gender, age and socioeconomic status did not feature as strongly in participants’ accounts as anticipated.Item Always looking’: visual and artistic explorations of the living legacies of enslavement in South Africa(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Soudien, Amie Lindiwe Hanan; Cloete, NicolaIn the context of marginalised slave histories in South Africa, I explore the poetic and artistic strategies of artists and cultural organisations in evoking slave memory in the present. I examine how the work of contemporary artists such as Gabrielle Goliath, Bronwyn Katz and Berni Searle, among others, eschew colonially-informed practices of commemoration in favour of artistic methodologies that centre care, recuperation and repair. I look to the work of independent, activist cultural organisations such as the District Six Museum and the Prestwich Place Committee that evoke the memory of enslavement in the present through collective, public-oriented acts of remembrance. I draw direct correlations between historic, VOC-era Cape of Good Hope and contemporary Cape Town, to elucidate how the living legacies of enslavement shape urban space, aesthetics, and social stratification. I employ an interdisciplinary, Black feminist-informed research methodology to centre the life stories of enslaved women and to reappraise narratives concerning the VOC settler-colony. Through engagements with the speculative, as proposed by scholars such as Saidiya Hartman (2008), Yvette Abrahams (1996) and others, and Jennifer Nash’s theorisation on “beautiful writing” as a reparative tool (2019b), I engage with the political underpinnings of historiography and interrogate the ethics of knowledge production. My analysis demonstrates that in content and methodology, the artistic, speculative and commemorative work explored provides new insight into the legacies of enslavement and the implications of these legacies for those living in Cape Town today.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 (Il)legitimacy of Freelance Artists: Exploring Current Government Legislation and Policies that Influence Economic Exclusion and Inclusion of South African Freelance Artists(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024-03) Mmeti, Lehlohonolo Tebalelo Rudy Matome; Chatikobo, MunyaradziThe prevailing descriptors—such as "illegitimate," "non-compliant," "unprofessional," and "informal"—resonate globally, attributing a lack of structure to freelance artistry. This characterization places these artists in precarious legal and economic positions, hindering access to fundamental employment benefits, credit, loans, and housing. Therefore, it is imperative to answer the central questions, Which legislative measures and policies currently influence the economic integration, compliance and legitimacy of freelance profession within Cultural Creative Industry and Economy in South Africa? The scarcity of literature on the subject prompts an exploration into the legislative landscape, framed by the notion that policy acts as a guiding roadmap. The central argument is that existing policies failure to adequately address the unique challenges faced by South African freelance artists, leaving a critical void in understanding their economic participation. Focused on a qualitative methodology, the research examines documents and policies to unravel the impact on freelance artists' economic standing, employing lenses that navigate the intersections of formality and informality within the Cultural Creative Industries. The research underscores the imperative to bridge this knowledge gap, arguing for targeted interventions to rectify the economic disparities and (il)legitimacy associated with freelance artists in South Africa. It is through the aims and objectives of this research that I was be able to come with a concrete understating of the landscape so appropriate intervention measures can be suggested.