Where dreams become reality: professionalism in flight training in the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Allison, Martin
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Professional socialization , Flight training -- South Africa , Flight schools -- South Africa -- Case studies , Air pilots -- Training of -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/95376 , vital:31150
- Description: This study explores the construction of the identity of professional pilots through a case study of a flying school in South Africa. Here, a 15-20-month period of intensive study and training of students, fresh from school or college, leads in most cases to the attainment of a Commercial or Airline Transport Pilot’s Licence. The construction of identity is a continuous process and a lifelong project and hence this study can only reflect upon the factors influencing the early stages of a pilot’s career, until the point where the licenced Pilot leaves the Air School and enters full time employment with a commercial undertaking, but it is argued that this is a crucial step in the formation of professional identity, habitus in Bourdieu’s terms. The culture of the air School reflects the military background of the founders of the school and the staff employed in senior positions. The school, which is residential, observes a strict regime of Ground School and Practical Flying Training and a high standard of performance and personal conduct is demanded, both during training and in off duty hours and excessive consumption of alcohol and smoking are discouraged, and drug use absolutely taboo. Progress with training at the school is closely monitored and a disciplined environment maintained by surveillance cameras, house monitors and security guards; in Foucauldian terms, a modern version of the Panopticon, but somewhat less than Goffman’s Total Institution. It was found that the construction of a flying identity for most of the students entering the air school commenced in childhood or early adulthood, through the influence of friends and relatives and they enter the school with the firm intention of becoming Professional pilots. Full participation of the author in the Ground School revealed how professionalization is implemented through the discipline and rigor of the training methods employed. Through mastery of a complex body of theoretical knowledge in the Ground School and the practical skill of learning to fly in a one-on-one relationship with an instructor, the students gain confidence and efficacy which contributes to their self-respect and maturity. The international reputation of the school, confers prestige upon its graduates and they benefit from membership of a profession which commands respect and a high level of income. In large measure, the thesis shows, the success of the School is a function of the founders’ ‘invention of tradition’ focusing on the wartime training school that existed on the site and the many echoes of those times in the (re)construction of its buildings and facilities, continuing in the approach of the multinational that now owns the School.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Allison, Martin
- Date: 2019
- Subjects: Professional socialization , Flight training -- South Africa , Flight schools -- South Africa -- Case studies , Air pilots -- Training of -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/95376 , vital:31150
- Description: This study explores the construction of the identity of professional pilots through a case study of a flying school in South Africa. Here, a 15-20-month period of intensive study and training of students, fresh from school or college, leads in most cases to the attainment of a Commercial or Airline Transport Pilot’s Licence. The construction of identity is a continuous process and a lifelong project and hence this study can only reflect upon the factors influencing the early stages of a pilot’s career, until the point where the licenced Pilot leaves the Air School and enters full time employment with a commercial undertaking, but it is argued that this is a crucial step in the formation of professional identity, habitus in Bourdieu’s terms. The culture of the air School reflects the military background of the founders of the school and the staff employed in senior positions. The school, which is residential, observes a strict regime of Ground School and Practical Flying Training and a high standard of performance and personal conduct is demanded, both during training and in off duty hours and excessive consumption of alcohol and smoking are discouraged, and drug use absolutely taboo. Progress with training at the school is closely monitored and a disciplined environment maintained by surveillance cameras, house monitors and security guards; in Foucauldian terms, a modern version of the Panopticon, but somewhat less than Goffman’s Total Institution. It was found that the construction of a flying identity for most of the students entering the air school commenced in childhood or early adulthood, through the influence of friends and relatives and they enter the school with the firm intention of becoming Professional pilots. Full participation of the author in the Ground School revealed how professionalization is implemented through the discipline and rigor of the training methods employed. Through mastery of a complex body of theoretical knowledge in the Ground School and the practical skill of learning to fly in a one-on-one relationship with an instructor, the students gain confidence and efficacy which contributes to their self-respect and maturity. The international reputation of the school, confers prestige upon its graduates and they benefit from membership of a profession which commands respect and a high level of income. In large measure, the thesis shows, the success of the School is a function of the founders’ ‘invention of tradition’ focusing on the wartime training school that existed on the site and the many echoes of those times in the (re)construction of its buildings and facilities, continuing in the approach of the multinational that now owns the School.
- Full Text:
Ngomso 'special school': contestations of morality and education in the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Pattenden, Oliver
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/65200 , vital:28704
- Description: Expected release date-May 2019
- Full Text:
- Authors: Pattenden, Oliver
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/65200 , vital:28704
- Description: Expected release date-May 2019
- Full Text:
Borderline hospitality: homestays as a commercial hospitality development project in Grahamstown, Eastern Cape
- Von Lengeling, Volkher Heinrich Christoph
- Authors: Von Lengeling, Volkher Heinrich Christoph
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/706 , vital:19983
- Description: This study started as an anthropological investigation of commercial hospitality from the point of view of the hands-on host. The chosen case study for this investigation was the Kwam eMakana Government Initiated Poverty Alleviation Project which offered homestays in the townships of Grahamstown East since 2004. Homestays are the most intimate form of commercial hospitality, one step removed from non-commercial or social hospitality. Even at the homestay level there is a conceptual conflict between poverty and (Westernized) commercial hospitality, however, Kwam homes are more middle class than poor. Later the investigation revealed the deeper-seated form of poverty of the Kwam participants being (almost) illiterate. Kwam was a development project like many others, in which huge amounts of money were spent in the name of the project but very little of the benefits reached the intended beneficiaries. Thus, as fieldwork ensued, the emphasis of research migrated from an empirical study of homestay hospitality, to actively assist with the struggle of the Kwam hostesses to maintain the project and gain autonomy for themselves. This study was from the outset reflexive, as the host’s point of view could technically only be presented by auto-ethnography. Then the investigation shifted to a form of engaged anthropology far exceeding advocacy as it is usually understood. The presentation of this can be called radical reflexivity, while it is simultaneously an ethnographical account in the sense of anthropology ‘at home’. It also implied, besides ethical concerns, revisiting literary sensibilities, such as the use of a third person narrative for the reflexive account. To conceptualize the development process of both Kwam and the research interventions Bourdieu’s ‘totality of capital’ (in which the strands of economic, symbolic, cultural and social capitals intertwine) proved most useful. By assessing the various capitals the development of the project and the power struggles central to it can be understood. This study confirms that long-term anthropological investigation is best suited to the study of development projects, if not necessary for real development to be effected. Reflexivity and ethnography are complementary methods to reveal truths which under certain research circumstances may have been very difficult or even impossible to research.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Von Lengeling, Volkher Heinrich Christoph
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/706 , vital:19983
- Description: This study started as an anthropological investigation of commercial hospitality from the point of view of the hands-on host. The chosen case study for this investigation was the Kwam eMakana Government Initiated Poverty Alleviation Project which offered homestays in the townships of Grahamstown East since 2004. Homestays are the most intimate form of commercial hospitality, one step removed from non-commercial or social hospitality. Even at the homestay level there is a conceptual conflict between poverty and (Westernized) commercial hospitality, however, Kwam homes are more middle class than poor. Later the investigation revealed the deeper-seated form of poverty of the Kwam participants being (almost) illiterate. Kwam was a development project like many others, in which huge amounts of money were spent in the name of the project but very little of the benefits reached the intended beneficiaries. Thus, as fieldwork ensued, the emphasis of research migrated from an empirical study of homestay hospitality, to actively assist with the struggle of the Kwam hostesses to maintain the project and gain autonomy for themselves. This study was from the outset reflexive, as the host’s point of view could technically only be presented by auto-ethnography. Then the investigation shifted to a form of engaged anthropology far exceeding advocacy as it is usually understood. The presentation of this can be called radical reflexivity, while it is simultaneously an ethnographical account in the sense of anthropology ‘at home’. It also implied, besides ethical concerns, revisiting literary sensibilities, such as the use of a third person narrative for the reflexive account. To conceptualize the development process of both Kwam and the research interventions Bourdieu’s ‘totality of capital’ (in which the strands of economic, symbolic, cultural and social capitals intertwine) proved most useful. By assessing the various capitals the development of the project and the power struggles central to it can be understood. This study confirms that long-term anthropological investigation is best suited to the study of development projects, if not necessary for real development to be effected. Reflexivity and ethnography are complementary methods to reveal truths which under certain research circumstances may have been very difficult or even impossible to research.
- Full Text:
"On se Débrouille": Congolese migrants' search for survival and success in Muizenberg, Cape Town
- Authors: Owen, Joy N
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Foreign workers, Congolese -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- Muizenberg Social capital (Sociology) Immigrants -- Social networks -- South Africa -- Muizenberg South Africa -- Emigration and immigration -- Social aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2094 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002657
- Description: Situated in a Congolese transnational 'community' in Muizenberg, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, the thesis focuses on the lives of three middle class Congolese male informants. Their contingent acquaintance with a South African white Christian man gave them access to valuable social capital; social capital that positioned them advantageously to date and eventually marry European white women and thereby further their culturally-defmed economic/material career goals. To demonstrate the socio-economic trajectory of the three, I compare their social positioning with other Congolese men and women resident in Muizenberg. I show how these men and women, like my three main informants, activate their Congolese 'habitus' to secure access to social networks and the social capital therein. The difference between these Congolese men and women and my three main informants, however, is their strategic use of contingency, and the instrumental capitalisation of their cultural capital through the creation of a client-patron relationship with a South African in order to further their life goals. The thesis reorientates the migration literature on African migration from a focus on the implications of migrant remittances to the home country, to a focus on individual migrants' agency in the host country and the cultural influence of the society of origin. While I acknowledge that my research participants are part of a transnational social field, the focus on one locality and the relatively longitudinal approach of the study grounds the analysis both in the day-to-day lives of these migrants and in their migrant careers in and beyond Muizenberg and South Africa. With this orientation, the thesis is able to reveal that some Congolese migrants are comfortable to create a holding place for themselves in South Africa, while others - ever aware of the Congolese ambition to travel overseas - migrate beyond South African borders. For these Congolese migrants, South Africa is then a transit space. Fundamentally, all of my research participants give expression to Mobutu's edict of on se debrouille (literally, 'one fends for oneself), but some are more able to achieve the ultimate aspiration of settling in the First World -lola.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Owen, Joy N
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Foreign workers, Congolese -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- Muizenberg Social capital (Sociology) Immigrants -- Social networks -- South Africa -- Muizenberg South Africa -- Emigration and immigration -- Social aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2094 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002657
- Description: Situated in a Congolese transnational 'community' in Muizenberg, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, the thesis focuses on the lives of three middle class Congolese male informants. Their contingent acquaintance with a South African white Christian man gave them access to valuable social capital; social capital that positioned them advantageously to date and eventually marry European white women and thereby further their culturally-defmed economic/material career goals. To demonstrate the socio-economic trajectory of the three, I compare their social positioning with other Congolese men and women resident in Muizenberg. I show how these men and women, like my three main informants, activate their Congolese 'habitus' to secure access to social networks and the social capital therein. The difference between these Congolese men and women and my three main informants, however, is their strategic use of contingency, and the instrumental capitalisation of their cultural capital through the creation of a client-patron relationship with a South African in order to further their life goals. The thesis reorientates the migration literature on African migration from a focus on the implications of migrant remittances to the home country, to a focus on individual migrants' agency in the host country and the cultural influence of the society of origin. While I acknowledge that my research participants are part of a transnational social field, the focus on one locality and the relatively longitudinal approach of the study grounds the analysis both in the day-to-day lives of these migrants and in their migrant careers in and beyond Muizenberg and South Africa. With this orientation, the thesis is able to reveal that some Congolese migrants are comfortable to create a holding place for themselves in South Africa, while others - ever aware of the Congolese ambition to travel overseas - migrate beyond South African borders. For these Congolese migrants, South Africa is then a transit space. Fundamentally, all of my research participants give expression to Mobutu's edict of on se debrouille (literally, 'one fends for oneself), but some are more able to achieve the ultimate aspiration of settling in the First World -lola.
- Full Text:
The nexilitas factor: host-guest relationships in small owner managed commercial accommodation facilities in contemporary South Africa
- Von Lengeling, Volkher Heinrich Christoph
- Authors: Von Lengeling, Volkher Heinrich Christoph
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Hospitality industry -- South Africa Interpersonal relations Social interaction Liminality Consumer behavior Home-based businesses -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2093 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002656
- Description: The commercialization of hospitality established arguably the oldest profession. Historically small commercial hospitality establishments, known as inns in the western world, were of ill repute. Perhaps connected to their reputation, this category of accommodation facility has been seriously neglected as an area of academic inquiry, particularly from the perspective of the host. While there has been a huge growth in the interdisciplinary field of tourism studies in recent decades, little attention has been paid to the role of the host in the host-guest relationship at whatever level of analysis. This thesis seeks to redress the balance. Hospitality is a basic form of social bonding. This type of bonding, where a hierarchy between strangers is implicit (as with hosts and guests), may be termed ‘nexilitas’; nexilitas is a form of social bonding in liminal circumstances. To that extent it is comparable to ‘communitas’ which describes social bonding between equals in certain liminal circumstances. The difference is that nexilitas is a form of bonding between individuals in a complex power relationship. The host controls the hospitality space, but custom also empowers the guest with certain expectations, especially in the commercial context. The thesis identifies the various forms of hospitality – traditional ‘true’ or ‘pure’ hospitality, social hospitality, cultural hospitality and commercial hospitality – and discusses these critically in their historical and cross-cultural contexts, with emphasis on the perspective of the host. The passage of hospitality is then traced through the three phases of preliminality, liminality and post-liminality and discussed along the themes anticipation, arrival and accommodation and finally departure of the guest. While the historical and ethnographic review is mainly based on written histories and the experiences of other anthropologists as guests as well as ethnographers, the passage of hospitality draws on the multi-sited auto-anthropological experiences of the author, both as host and as ethnographer of contemporary South African hosts in small owner-managed commercial hospitality establishments.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Von Lengeling, Volkher Heinrich Christoph
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Hospitality industry -- South Africa Interpersonal relations Social interaction Liminality Consumer behavior Home-based businesses -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2093 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002656
- Description: The commercialization of hospitality established arguably the oldest profession. Historically small commercial hospitality establishments, known as inns in the western world, were of ill repute. Perhaps connected to their reputation, this category of accommodation facility has been seriously neglected as an area of academic inquiry, particularly from the perspective of the host. While there has been a huge growth in the interdisciplinary field of tourism studies in recent decades, little attention has been paid to the role of the host in the host-guest relationship at whatever level of analysis. This thesis seeks to redress the balance. Hospitality is a basic form of social bonding. This type of bonding, where a hierarchy between strangers is implicit (as with hosts and guests), may be termed ‘nexilitas’; nexilitas is a form of social bonding in liminal circumstances. To that extent it is comparable to ‘communitas’ which describes social bonding between equals in certain liminal circumstances. The difference is that nexilitas is a form of bonding between individuals in a complex power relationship. The host controls the hospitality space, but custom also empowers the guest with certain expectations, especially in the commercial context. The thesis identifies the various forms of hospitality – traditional ‘true’ or ‘pure’ hospitality, social hospitality, cultural hospitality and commercial hospitality – and discusses these critically in their historical and cross-cultural contexts, with emphasis on the perspective of the host. The passage of hospitality is then traced through the three phases of preliminality, liminality and post-liminality and discussed along the themes anticipation, arrival and accommodation and finally departure of the guest. While the historical and ethnographic review is mainly based on written histories and the experiences of other anthropologists as guests as well as ethnographers, the passage of hospitality draws on the multi-sited auto-anthropological experiences of the author, both as host and as ethnographer of contemporary South African hosts in small owner-managed commercial hospitality establishments.
- Full Text:
Contested rights : the impact of game farming on farm workers in the Bushmen's River area
- Authors: Luck, Kelly
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Game farms -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Agricultural laborers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Social conditions Agricultural laborers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Economic conditions Agricultural laborers -- Political aspects -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Agricultural laborers -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Agricultural laborers -- Protection -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2104 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004144
- Description: This thesis is an investigation of the impact of commercial game farming on former farm workers in the Bushman's River area of the Eastern Cape. In its examination of the broader economic and political changes that have facilitated a move from agriculture to game farming, it analyses how these changes affect farm workers. The main concern of the thesis is the ways in which farm workers (at the local level) respond to changes at the national and global level (legal and political changes, the advent of tourism, and the injection of foreign capital and businessmen into the area). Lack of knowledge about their rights under the current political dispensation, as well as the perceived need for mediation between themselves and foreign landowners, points to a general sense of powerlessness. Feelings of alienation from local government structures aimed at fulfilling this function indicate a significant gap between the statute at the national level and the local reality. Local reality is informed by a strong conservatism which is generated by African Independent Church structures and local Xhosa perceptions of manhood and respectability. This conservative discourse leads to a frame of reference which is largely informed by pre-1994 interactions with farmers and government. This results in a situation in which farm workers, largely unaware of their rights in the new dispensation, operate as they did in the past; waiting for landowners to decide their fate for them. What ensues is a lack of meaningful interaction with government and landowners, perpetuating their subjugation and cynicism as to whether government structures are in fact working in their interests. The thesis comes to three main conclusions. The first is that game farming has been negatively received by farm workers due to the associated threats of unemployment and eviction. The second is that despite high levels of subjugation, even the very poor are agents to some degree. The creation of a masculine identity which is internally articulated, as opposed to outwardly expressed, and the grounding of reputation in the family suggest that farm workers have developed mechanisms to deal with their disempowered position. Lastly, farm workers are in possession of social capital which has made it possible for them to deal with their low status in the societal hierarchy. This includes the Church, family and fellow community members. These coping strategies have however proved a disadvantage in the current era because they prevent direct communication with landowners, government and NGOs.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Luck, Kelly
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Game farms -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Agricultural laborers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Social conditions Agricultural laborers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Economic conditions Agricultural laborers -- Political aspects -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Agricultural laborers -- Legal status, laws, etc. -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Agricultural laborers -- Protection -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2104 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1004144
- Description: This thesis is an investigation of the impact of commercial game farming on former farm workers in the Bushman's River area of the Eastern Cape. In its examination of the broader economic and political changes that have facilitated a move from agriculture to game farming, it analyses how these changes affect farm workers. The main concern of the thesis is the ways in which farm workers (at the local level) respond to changes at the national and global level (legal and political changes, the advent of tourism, and the injection of foreign capital and businessmen into the area). Lack of knowledge about their rights under the current political dispensation, as well as the perceived need for mediation between themselves and foreign landowners, points to a general sense of powerlessness. Feelings of alienation from local government structures aimed at fulfilling this function indicate a significant gap between the statute at the national level and the local reality. Local reality is informed by a strong conservatism which is generated by African Independent Church structures and local Xhosa perceptions of manhood and respectability. This conservative discourse leads to a frame of reference which is largely informed by pre-1994 interactions with farmers and government. This results in a situation in which farm workers, largely unaware of their rights in the new dispensation, operate as they did in the past; waiting for landowners to decide their fate for them. What ensues is a lack of meaningful interaction with government and landowners, perpetuating their subjugation and cynicism as to whether government structures are in fact working in their interests. The thesis comes to three main conclusions. The first is that game farming has been negatively received by farm workers due to the associated threats of unemployment and eviction. The second is that despite high levels of subjugation, even the very poor are agents to some degree. The creation of a masculine identity which is internally articulated, as opposed to outwardly expressed, and the grounding of reputation in the family suggest that farm workers have developed mechanisms to deal with their disempowered position. Lastly, farm workers are in possession of social capital which has made it possible for them to deal with their low status in the societal hierarchy. This includes the Church, family and fellow community members. These coping strategies have however proved a disadvantage in the current era because they prevent direct communication with landowners, government and NGOs.
- Full Text:
Coping in two cultures: an ecological study of mentally ill people and their families in rural South Africa
- Authors: Cumes, Heide Ulrike
- Date: 1995
- Subjects: Mental illness -- South Africa Xhosa (African people) -- Psychology Xhosa (African people) -- Religion Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2958 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002467
- Description: This study explores severe mental illness in a South African ru~al district, moving, as with a zoom lens, from the macroperspectives of (i) Xhosa culture, and (ii) biomedicine, to the lived experience of the individual. Its methodology, predominantly qualitative, employed anthropological and psychological procedures. The fieldwork (1988-1989)encompassed a three month stay in the village of Msobomvu. Patients continued to be tracked informally until June, 1995. The empirical research has three parts. In part one, the person with a mental illness was contextualized within Xhosa cosmology and social attitudes. The cognitive and social ecologies were tapped through the narratives of high school and university students at different stages of a Western-biased education. Social attitudes regarding mental illness, and confidence in treatment by traditional healers and the hospital, were also evaluated. Traditional attitudes and supernatural beliefs of illness causation persisted in spite of Eurocentric education, with a concurrent increase in the acceptance of Western-type causal explanations commensurate with continued education. Part two considered the the patients in relation to (i) the biomedical framework (the mental and local hospitals), and (ii) their readjustment to the community after hospitalization. Data came from patient charts, interviews with medical staff, and follow-up visits in the villages. Socio-political and economic issues were salient. Part three case-studied people identified by the village residents as having a mental illness. Resources for treatment - traditional healers, mobile clinic, and village health workers - were the focus. The traditional healing system, and biomedicine, were compared for effectiveness, through the course of illness events. While biomedicine was more effective in containing acute psychotic episodes than treatment by the traditional healer, lack of appropriate resources within the biomedical setting had disastrous results for patient compliance and long-term management of the illness, particularly in people with obvious symptoms of bipolar disorder. The mental hospital emerged as an agent of control. While Xhosa culture provided a more tolerant setting for people with a mental illness, the course of severe mental illness was by no means benign, despite research suggesting a more positive outcome for such conditions in the developing world.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Cumes, Heide Ulrike
- Date: 1995
- Subjects: Mental illness -- South Africa Xhosa (African people) -- Psychology Xhosa (African people) -- Religion Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2958 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002467
- Description: This study explores severe mental illness in a South African ru~al district, moving, as with a zoom lens, from the macroperspectives of (i) Xhosa culture, and (ii) biomedicine, to the lived experience of the individual. Its methodology, predominantly qualitative, employed anthropological and psychological procedures. The fieldwork (1988-1989)encompassed a three month stay in the village of Msobomvu. Patients continued to be tracked informally until June, 1995. The empirical research has three parts. In part one, the person with a mental illness was contextualized within Xhosa cosmology and social attitudes. The cognitive and social ecologies were tapped through the narratives of high school and university students at different stages of a Western-biased education. Social attitudes regarding mental illness, and confidence in treatment by traditional healers and the hospital, were also evaluated. Traditional attitudes and supernatural beliefs of illness causation persisted in spite of Eurocentric education, with a concurrent increase in the acceptance of Western-type causal explanations commensurate with continued education. Part two considered the the patients in relation to (i) the biomedical framework (the mental and local hospitals), and (ii) their readjustment to the community after hospitalization. Data came from patient charts, interviews with medical staff, and follow-up visits in the villages. Socio-political and economic issues were salient. Part three case-studied people identified by the village residents as having a mental illness. Resources for treatment - traditional healers, mobile clinic, and village health workers - were the focus. The traditional healing system, and biomedicine, were compared for effectiveness, through the course of illness events. While biomedicine was more effective in containing acute psychotic episodes than treatment by the traditional healer, lack of appropriate resources within the biomedical setting had disastrous results for patient compliance and long-term management of the illness, particularly in people with obvious symptoms of bipolar disorder. The mental hospital emerged as an agent of control. While Xhosa culture provided a more tolerant setting for people with a mental illness, the course of severe mental illness was by no means benign, despite research suggesting a more positive outcome for such conditions in the developing world.
- Full Text:
Authority, avoidances and marriage: an analysis of the position of Gcaleka women in Qwaninga, Willowvale District, Transkei
- Authors: Liebenberg, Alida
- Date: 1994
- Subjects: Marriage customs and rites -- South Africa -- Transkei , Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs , Women -- Developing countries
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2100 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002663 , Marriage customs and rites -- South Africa -- Transkei , Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs , Women -- Developing countries
- Description: Authority as it operates in the daily lives of married women in Gcaleka society is reinforced and maintained by a body of avoidances which women need to observe during their married lives. Avoidances constitute part of the control system in the society whereby wives are being 'kept in their place'. Avoidances do not only restrict her, but also safeguard her position and her interests. Lines of authority emerge through the process of interaction; the structure reveals itself as avoidances are acted out in time and space. This study was conducted in Qwaninga, an administrative area in the coastal area of the Willowvale district, Transkei. The research started out as a study of ritual impurity and the status of women in a traditional, 'red' Gcaleka society. It soon became clear that pollution practices and beliefs associated with women form part of a greater body of avoidances which women need to observe during their married lives. Avoidances entail economic, dietary, sexual, linguistic and spatial prohibitions; as well as restrictions concerning what a woman is supposed to wear, and her withdrawal from social life. These restrictions are enforced through certain ritual and other sanctions. Three forms of avoidances are identified in this study, and are discussed and analysed. Avoidances are found in the everyday male/female division in society; in the ways through which the wife shows respect towards her husband and her in-laws (especially her husband's ancestors); and in the reproductive situations a woman finds herself in from time to time. In many anthropological studies in the past women have often been hidden in the background. This study is an attempt to give women the prominence they should be given, to show that nonwestern women are not as subordinated as people in Western society like to assume. In Gcaleka society the authority structure affecting the position of women is not only based on a distinction being made between males and females. It will be shown that a finer authority structure operates in this society whereby gender as well as age and kinship distinctions are being made. These distinctions constitute a system of classification which is safeguarded and protected by the avoidances and other restrictions imposed on women.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Liebenberg, Alida
- Date: 1994
- Subjects: Marriage customs and rites -- South Africa -- Transkei , Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs , Women -- Developing countries
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2100 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002663 , Marriage customs and rites -- South Africa -- Transkei , Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs , Women -- Developing countries
- Description: Authority as it operates in the daily lives of married women in Gcaleka society is reinforced and maintained by a body of avoidances which women need to observe during their married lives. Avoidances constitute part of the control system in the society whereby wives are being 'kept in their place'. Avoidances do not only restrict her, but also safeguard her position and her interests. Lines of authority emerge through the process of interaction; the structure reveals itself as avoidances are acted out in time and space. This study was conducted in Qwaninga, an administrative area in the coastal area of the Willowvale district, Transkei. The research started out as a study of ritual impurity and the status of women in a traditional, 'red' Gcaleka society. It soon became clear that pollution practices and beliefs associated with women form part of a greater body of avoidances which women need to observe during their married lives. Avoidances entail economic, dietary, sexual, linguistic and spatial prohibitions; as well as restrictions concerning what a woman is supposed to wear, and her withdrawal from social life. These restrictions are enforced through certain ritual and other sanctions. Three forms of avoidances are identified in this study, and are discussed and analysed. Avoidances are found in the everyday male/female division in society; in the ways through which the wife shows respect towards her husband and her in-laws (especially her husband's ancestors); and in the reproductive situations a woman finds herself in from time to time. In many anthropological studies in the past women have often been hidden in the background. This study is an attempt to give women the prominence they should be given, to show that nonwestern women are not as subordinated as people in Western society like to assume. In Gcaleka society the authority structure affecting the position of women is not only based on a distinction being made between males and females. It will be shown that a finer authority structure operates in this society whereby gender as well as age and kinship distinctions are being made. These distinctions constitute a system of classification which is safeguarded and protected by the avoidances and other restrictions imposed on women.
- Full Text:
An analysis of some variables of in-camera editing of anthropological video: a case study
- Authors: Hayman, Graham Peter
- Date: 1993
- Subjects: Ethnology -- Methodology -- Case studies , Motion pictures in ethnology -- Case studies , Anthropology -- Study and teaching -- Audio-visual aids -- Case studies , Video tapes -- Editing -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3433 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002887 , Ethnology -- Methodology -- Case studies , Motion pictures in ethnology -- Case studies , Anthropology -- Study and teaching -- Audio-visual aids -- Case studies , Video tapes -- Editing -- Case studies
- Description: Anthropological film and videomakers use their media for both research and education. In both cases, a formal technique of observational camerawork is required. In this thesis, appropriate continuity methods and a model of decision-making in camerawork are proposed, which are designed to deal with the certainties and uncertainties encountered in the observational type of ethnographic film. The ethnographic context of the research is the community in the Shixini area of the Transkei, where the author made video-recordings of a number of ritual and everyday events between 1981 and 1984. The model is tested on the case study of a "small event". There is an extensive amount of video material of a four-day mortuary ritual. The model is examined through a first-person account of the influences on decisions during shooting, and through formal analysis. Both of these examinations refer in detail to the unedited video material which accompanies the thesis, and assess how the decisions deal with time and space: with regard to the ritual markers and the continuity method. The thesis concludes that the model of camera work can be used to provide a coherent observation of the small event. The suitability of the model for editing is then tested. The unedited material of the case study is compared with an edited version. The ritual is represented in a narrative segment within a longer documentary, "Shixini December: Responses to Poverty in the Transkei". The complexity of editing operations is examined in detail by a variety of methods, and refers closely to the longer documentary. The fit between continuity in the unedited camera work and the edited version is established. A video copy of this documentary also accompanies the thesis. The unedited observational material is then tested for its use in research. An anthropologist screened the unedited material to ritual participants to elicit their responses, and with the results wrote a dissertation combining interpretation and ethnography. The detail of the ethnography and the consistency of the interpretation demonstrates the value of an observational video record. It does not conclusively demonstrate its validity for research, because the effect of video on memory needs further exploration. Instead of stimulating memory of off-camera action as may be expected, the video seems to anaesthetise it. Continuity methods can provide a clear but partial and fragmented observational record. This record has formal characteristics which are a necessary but not sufficient condition for editing into narrative. Continuity methods may provide a video record that is useful for research. If the video is used for reflexive validation, then a possible effect on the memory of off-camera events must be taken into account. The continuity characteristics of unedited video which result from in-camera editing can, but need not be, evident in subsequent texts based on them.
- Full Text:
- Authors: Hayman, Graham Peter
- Date: 1993
- Subjects: Ethnology -- Methodology -- Case studies , Motion pictures in ethnology -- Case studies , Anthropology -- Study and teaching -- Audio-visual aids -- Case studies , Video tapes -- Editing -- Case studies
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3433 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002887 , Ethnology -- Methodology -- Case studies , Motion pictures in ethnology -- Case studies , Anthropology -- Study and teaching -- Audio-visual aids -- Case studies , Video tapes -- Editing -- Case studies
- Description: Anthropological film and videomakers use their media for both research and education. In both cases, a formal technique of observational camerawork is required. In this thesis, appropriate continuity methods and a model of decision-making in camerawork are proposed, which are designed to deal with the certainties and uncertainties encountered in the observational type of ethnographic film. The ethnographic context of the research is the community in the Shixini area of the Transkei, where the author made video-recordings of a number of ritual and everyday events between 1981 and 1984. The model is tested on the case study of a "small event". There is an extensive amount of video material of a four-day mortuary ritual. The model is examined through a first-person account of the influences on decisions during shooting, and through formal analysis. Both of these examinations refer in detail to the unedited video material which accompanies the thesis, and assess how the decisions deal with time and space: with regard to the ritual markers and the continuity method. The thesis concludes that the model of camera work can be used to provide a coherent observation of the small event. The suitability of the model for editing is then tested. The unedited material of the case study is compared with an edited version. The ritual is represented in a narrative segment within a longer documentary, "Shixini December: Responses to Poverty in the Transkei". The complexity of editing operations is examined in detail by a variety of methods, and refers closely to the longer documentary. The fit between continuity in the unedited camera work and the edited version is established. A video copy of this documentary also accompanies the thesis. The unedited observational material is then tested for its use in research. An anthropologist screened the unedited material to ritual participants to elicit their responses, and with the results wrote a dissertation combining interpretation and ethnography. The detail of the ethnography and the consistency of the interpretation demonstrates the value of an observational video record. It does not conclusively demonstrate its validity for research, because the effect of video on memory needs further exploration. Instead of stimulating memory of off-camera action as may be expected, the video seems to anaesthetise it. Continuity methods can provide a clear but partial and fragmented observational record. This record has formal characteristics which are a necessary but not sufficient condition for editing into narrative. Continuity methods may provide a video record that is useful for research. If the video is used for reflexive validation, then a possible effect on the memory of off-camera events must be taken into account. The continuity characteristics of unedited video which result from in-camera editing can, but need not be, evident in subsequent texts based on them.
- Full Text:
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »