Imagine/nation : mediating 'xenophobia' through visual and performance art
- Machona, Gerald Ralph Tawanda
- Authors: Machona, Gerald Ralph Tawanda
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Xenophobia -- South Africa , Xenophobia in mass media , Performance art , Immigrants in art , Violence in art , Race in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:2480 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011106 , Xenophobia -- South Africa , Xenophobia in mass media , Performance art , Immigrants in art , Violence in art , Race in art
- Description: This half-thesis has developed as a supporting document to an exhibition titled Vabvakure, people from far away, which responds to the growing trends of violence perpetrated against African foreign nationals living in South Africa. This violence which has generally been termed as 'xenophobia' has been framed within this discourse as 'afrophobia', as it is fraught with complexities of race, ethnicity and class. Evidently, not all foreign nationals are at risk but selective targeting of working class black African foreign nationals seems to be the modus operandi. Fanning these flames of prejudice are stereotypes and negative perceptions of Africa and African immigrants that have permeated into the national consciousness of South Africa, which the mainstream media has been complicit in cultivating. My practice is concerned with challenging this politic of representation in relation to the image of the African foreign national within South African society, who have been presented negatively and labelled as the 'Makwerekwere', the 'bogeymen' that have been blamed for the country’s current woes. In response to this, my research adopts the premise that forms of cultural mediation such as visual and performance art can offer further insights and possibly yield solutions that can be used to address these sentiments. As globalisation and neoliberal ideologies reshape the world, there is a growing need in the post-colonial state to revisit and re-construct notions of individual and collective identity, especially that of the nation. Nations, nationalisms and citizenry can no longer be defined solely through indigeneity, for as a result of radical shifts in the flow of migration and immigration policies that allow for naturalisation of aliens and foreign nationals, we are now faced with burgeoning levels of social diversity to the extent that constructions of nationhood that are based on the concept of autochthony have resulted in the persecution of the ‘other’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Machona, Gerald Ralph Tawanda
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Xenophobia -- South Africa , Xenophobia in mass media , Performance art , Immigrants in art , Violence in art , Race in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:2480 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1011106 , Xenophobia -- South Africa , Xenophobia in mass media , Performance art , Immigrants in art , Violence in art , Race in art
- Description: This half-thesis has developed as a supporting document to an exhibition titled Vabvakure, people from far away, which responds to the growing trends of violence perpetrated against African foreign nationals living in South Africa. This violence which has generally been termed as 'xenophobia' has been framed within this discourse as 'afrophobia', as it is fraught with complexities of race, ethnicity and class. Evidently, not all foreign nationals are at risk but selective targeting of working class black African foreign nationals seems to be the modus operandi. Fanning these flames of prejudice are stereotypes and negative perceptions of Africa and African immigrants that have permeated into the national consciousness of South Africa, which the mainstream media has been complicit in cultivating. My practice is concerned with challenging this politic of representation in relation to the image of the African foreign national within South African society, who have been presented negatively and labelled as the 'Makwerekwere', the 'bogeymen' that have been blamed for the country’s current woes. In response to this, my research adopts the premise that forms of cultural mediation such as visual and performance art can offer further insights and possibly yield solutions that can be used to address these sentiments. As globalisation and neoliberal ideologies reshape the world, there is a growing need in the post-colonial state to revisit and re-construct notions of individual and collective identity, especially that of the nation. Nations, nationalisms and citizenry can no longer be defined solely through indigeneity, for as a result of radical shifts in the flow of migration and immigration policies that allow for naturalisation of aliens and foreign nationals, we are now faced with burgeoning levels of social diversity to the extent that constructions of nationhood that are based on the concept of autochthony have resulted in the persecution of the ‘other’.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
The fantastic subject: a visio-cultural study of Nollywood video-film
- Authors: Makhubu, Nomusa Mary
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Motion picture industry -- Nigeria , Motion pictures -- Nigeria , Supernatural in motion pictures , Art and popular culture -- Nigeria , Fantasy in motion pictures , Fantasy in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2516 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021166
- Description: The increasing popularity of Nigerian video-film, defined as the ‘Nollywood phenomenon’ (Barrot 2008, Haynes 2010, Adesokan 2011), has attracted recent interdisciplinary academic attention, now known as ‘Nollywood Studies’. The aesthetics and ideological approach of Nollywood video-film are often differentiated from those of the long-established and illustrious African Cinema. Films of Africa are, however, generally characterised by seemingly unique forms of the fantastic – an uneasy theme in scholarship on Nollywood. Although Nollywood video-film is commended by some scholars, its representation of the supernatural and the fantastic is often perceived to be demeaning. Considering the complexity of fantastic themes in creative arts of Africa, this study contributes to this field of study by positioning Nollywood as an interventionist artistic practice that subverts the division between art and popular culture. Further, it considers how this positioning could shift our thinking about what constitutes art and creative practice in Africa. The distinctions between art and popular culture have been inherited from particularly Western disciplines. A critical analysis of the fantastic in Nollywood could expand interpretations of the broader uses of new media and appropriation and develop the discourse on contemporary creative practices of Africa and the parameters of the art history discipline. I interrogate the visual language of the video-film medium through a discussion of other forms of artistic media such as photography, video art, and performance art. The fantastic themes, such as ‘magic’, ‘fetishism’ and violence, conveyed through new media open up a field of questions regarding contemporary social-political dynamics. The cultural value of Nollywood video-film is often based on who makes it. As a proletarian product, Nollywood has been underestimated as a ‘low’ form of culture. Its use of appropriated material connotes the complex dialectics that formulate class difference. I consider how a positioning of video-film as a creative practice could be complicated by the fact that it also operates as a theocentric implement that is used by churches to evangelise. Moreover, I examine how ‘epic’ films construct idyllic notions of ‘ethnicity’ based on dialectics of rational/irrational or real/fantastic. Nollywood video-film also creates images of fantastic spaces. In this thesis, I address concepts of space in Nollywood from which fantastic desire is constructed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Makhubu, Nomusa Mary
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Motion picture industry -- Nigeria , Motion pictures -- Nigeria , Supernatural in motion pictures , Art and popular culture -- Nigeria , Fantasy in motion pictures , Fantasy in art
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2516 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021166
- Description: The increasing popularity of Nigerian video-film, defined as the ‘Nollywood phenomenon’ (Barrot 2008, Haynes 2010, Adesokan 2011), has attracted recent interdisciplinary academic attention, now known as ‘Nollywood Studies’. The aesthetics and ideological approach of Nollywood video-film are often differentiated from those of the long-established and illustrious African Cinema. Films of Africa are, however, generally characterised by seemingly unique forms of the fantastic – an uneasy theme in scholarship on Nollywood. Although Nollywood video-film is commended by some scholars, its representation of the supernatural and the fantastic is often perceived to be demeaning. Considering the complexity of fantastic themes in creative arts of Africa, this study contributes to this field of study by positioning Nollywood as an interventionist artistic practice that subverts the division between art and popular culture. Further, it considers how this positioning could shift our thinking about what constitutes art and creative practice in Africa. The distinctions between art and popular culture have been inherited from particularly Western disciplines. A critical analysis of the fantastic in Nollywood could expand interpretations of the broader uses of new media and appropriation and develop the discourse on contemporary creative practices of Africa and the parameters of the art history discipline. I interrogate the visual language of the video-film medium through a discussion of other forms of artistic media such as photography, video art, and performance art. The fantastic themes, such as ‘magic’, ‘fetishism’ and violence, conveyed through new media open up a field of questions regarding contemporary social-political dynamics. The cultural value of Nollywood video-film is often based on who makes it. As a proletarian product, Nollywood has been underestimated as a ‘low’ form of culture. Its use of appropriated material connotes the complex dialectics that formulate class difference. I consider how a positioning of video-film as a creative practice could be complicated by the fact that it also operates as a theocentric implement that is used by churches to evangelise. Moreover, I examine how ‘epic’ films construct idyllic notions of ‘ethnicity’ based on dialectics of rational/irrational or real/fantastic. Nollywood video-film also creates images of fantastic spaces. In this thesis, I address concepts of space in Nollywood from which fantastic desire is constructed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
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