A way home: performing auto-ethnography to inspirit liberatory agency and to transcend the estrangement effects of exile
Date
2016-03-02
Authors
Ndebele, Makhaola-Mosuoe Siyanda Njabulo
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Abstract
By and large, not much research has been done around the effects of cultural and
political exile on South African citizens exiled during Apartheid. This study intends,
firstly, to explore the effects of estrangement on a second-generation South African
exile; and secondly, to explore how theatre and performance practice can assist the
exile to inspirit liberatory agency to regain a sense of belonging/home. The study is
conducted through a performance auto-ethnography research paradigm and
methodology. The creative performance work chronicles a South African life in
exile in search of belonging/home. Aesthetically, it draws from a variety of theatre
and performance influences, but more specifically it is rooted in indigenous
Southern African performance genres, namely iiNgoma (healing rituals), iziBongo
(praise poetry), and iiNtsomi (storytelling).
Description
Research Report submitted to the Wits School of Arts
University of the Witwatersrand
Faculty of Humanities
In partial fulfilment of the requirements for the
Degree of Master of Arts in Dramatic Art
2015