The effects of graphene and other nanomaterials on the electrocatalytic behaviour of phthalocyanines
- Authors: Shumba, Munyaradzi
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/37952 , vital:24712
- Description: Carbon based nanomaterials, gold nanorods and metallophthalocyanine nanoconjugates have been developed for electrocatalysis. Carbon based nanomaterials used are multiwalled carbon nanotubes, pristine graphene oxide nanosheets, nitrogen, boron, sulphur, phosphorus doped graphene oxide nanosheets. Cobalt phthalocyanine (CoPc), cobalt tetra aminophenoxy phthalocyanine (CoTAPc), cobalt tetra aminophenoxy phthalocyanine (CoTAPhPc), cobalt mono carboxyphenoxy phthalocyanine (CoMCPhPc) and cobalt tetra carboxyphenoxy phthalocyanine (CoTCPhPc) are the phthalocyanines employed in this work. Metallophthalocyanines were employed either in their bulk form or in their nanosized form. Electrode modification by these nanomaterials was either done sequentially, premixed or linked nanoconjugates. In all sequential modification, phthalocyanines were employed on top of other nanomaterials. Sequentially modified electrodes gave higher detection currents than both premixed and covalently bonded nanoconjugates. The nanomaterials reported here were characterised by transmission electron microscopy, Raman spectroscopy, time of flight secondary ion mass spectrometry, and X-ray diffraction among other techniques. The modified electrodes were further characterised by scanning electron microscopy, scanning electrochemical microscopy, X-ray photoelectron spectroscopy and cyclic voltammetry, while square wave, linear scan and cyclic voltammetry, rotating disc electrode and chronoamperometry have been used to evaluate the electrocatalytic behaviour of the previously mentioned towards either oxidation or reduction of L-cysteine and/or hydrogen peroxide respectively. Generally, the nanoconjugates resulted in superior catalytic performance compared to the performance of individual nanomaterials. Zinc octacarboxy phthalocyanine (ZnOCPc) conjugated to either GONS or rGONS were employed to compare electrocatalytic detection of hydrogen peroxide to its luminescence sensing.
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- Date Issued: 2017
The emergence and expression of teachers’ identities in teaching foundation phase mathematics
- Authors: Westaway, Lise
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7000 , vital:21208
- Description: The assertion that learner performance in South African schools is in crisis may be cliched but it is certainly true. The majority of learners in the schooling system are not achieving the required outcomes, particularly in language and mathematics. I use the underperformance of learners in mathematics as the impetus for my research which seeks to understand how teachers’ identities emerge and are expressed in teaching Foundation Phase mathematics. The research contributes to an emerging scholarship that strives to explain underperformance and quality in mathematics classrooms beyond structuralist theorising. Recently research, particularly in South Africa, has begun to look more closely at who the teacher is and how the teacher is key in understanding what happens in the mathematics classroom. This emerging scholarship focuses on teacher identities. Research that foregrounds teacher identities within the field of mathematics education tends to be situated within a social constructionist orientation, which assumes that our knowledge of self and the world comes from our interactions with people and not some ‘objective’ reality (Berger & Luckman, 1966). Such a perspective appears to conflate questions of how we know something with what is. In other words, it elides structure and agency, thereby making research that seeks to examine the interplay between the two in the formation and expression of teachers’ identities, practically impossible. It is for this reason, as well as the need to move beyond the hermeneutic, that my research draws on Margaret Archer’s (1995, 1996, 2000) social realist framework. Social realism posits a relativist epistemology but a realist ontology. It is underpinned by the notion of a stratified reality with structural mechanisms giving rise to events in the world whether we experience them or not. It is only through the (inter)actions of persons that such mechanisms have the tendential power to constrain or enable the projects of persons. As such, my research seeks to identify the structural and agential mechanisms that give rise to teachers’ identities and how these identities are expressed in teaching Foundation Phase mathematics. In my research, teacher identity refers to the manner in which teachers express their social roles as teachers. In the research I use a case study methodology. I provide rich data on four isiXhosa teachers teaching in low socio-economic status schools. This data is gleaned through interviews and classroom based observations which were recorded as field notes and video transcripts. Analysis of the data occurs through the thought processes of abduction and retroduction (Danermark, Ekstrom, Jakobsen, & Karlsson, 2002). These thought process enable me to (re)describe and (re)contextualise the object of study. Through the process of asking transfactual questions I identify the structural, cultural and agential mechanisms giving rise to teachers’ identities and their expression in teaching foundation phase mathematics. There are three significant findings in my research. Firstly, research that attempts to understand the emergence and expression of teacher identities should consider their broad contextual realities. The historical, economic, social and political contexts in which the teachers are born and live, influences their sense of self, personal identities and social identities (teacher identities) and as such, influences their decision to become teachers and how they express their roles as teachers of Foundation Phase mathematics. Secondly, my research suggests that teachers’ mode of reflexivity is key to understanding the decisions that they make in the classroom and how they deal with the structures that condition the manner in which they express their roles as teachers. Thirdly, collective agency is necessary to bring about change in the way in which teachers express their roles in teaching Foundation Phase mathematics. My research produces new knowledge by examining the interplay of structure, culture and agency in the constitution of foundation phase teachers’ identities and their expression in teaching foundation phase mathematics. I use a social realist orientation to examine this interplay and provide an understanding of the mechanisms giving rise to the phenomenon under consideration. In this way I contribute to the extensive research on learner underperformance by focusing more explicitly on who the teacher is in the classroom.
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- Date Issued: 2017
The epidemiology of African horse sickness in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Authors: Riddin, Megan Amy
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/64460 , vital:28546
- Description: Expected release date-May 2019
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- Date Issued: 2017
The isolation and genetic characterisation of a novel alphabaculovirus for the microbial control of Cryptophlebia peltastica and closely related tortricid pests
- Authors: Marsberg, Tamryn
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/59292 , vital:27543
- Description: Cryptophlebia peltastica (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae) is an economically damaging pest of litchis and macadamias in South Africa. Cryptophlebia peltastica causes both pre- and post-harvest damage to litchis, reducing overall yields and thus classifying the pest as a phytosanitary risk. Various control methods have been implemented against C. peltastica in an integrated pest management programme. These control methods include chemical control, cultural control and biological control. However, these methods have not yet provided satisfactory control as of yet. As a result, an alternative control option needs to be identified and implemented into the IPM programme. An alternative method of control that has proved successful in other agricultural sectors and not yet implemented in the control of C. peltastica is that of microbial control, specifically the use of baculovirus biopesticides. This study aimed to isolate and characterise a novel baculovirus from a laboratory culture of C. peltastica that could be used as a commercially available baculovirus biopesticide. In order to isolate a baculovirus a laboratory culture of C. peltastica was successfully established at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. This is the first time a laboratory culture of C. peltastica has been established. This allowed for various biological aspects of the pest to be determined, which included: length of the life cycle, fecundity and time to oviposition, egg and larval development and percentage hatch. The results obtained from these studies found that the biology of C. peltastica was similar to that of Thaumatotibia leucotreta (Meyrick) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae). Once the laboratory culture had reached high densities, larvae showing symptoms of baculovirus infection were observed. Symptomatic larvae were collected and examined for the presence of a baculovirus. An alphabaculovirus (NPV) was successfully isolated and morphologically identified using purified OBs that were sectioned and observed by transmission electron microscopy. This was then confirmed by amplifying the polyhedrin gene region using degenerate primers. A BLAST analysis found a 93% similarity to a partial polyhedrin gene sequence to be that of Epinotia granitalis (Butler) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae). The alphabaculovirus was then genetically characterised by generating restriction profiles and sequencing the whole genome. Due to the novelty of the virus, no comparison could be made. The biological activity of the alphabaculovirus was then tested against C. peltastica and two closely related Tortricidae pests: T. leucotreta and Cydiapomonella (Linnaeous) (Lepidoptera: Tortricidae). The alphabaculovirus was highly virulent against all three species. The lethal concentrations (LC50 and LC90) for the virus against C. peltastica was 8.19 x 103 and 3.33 x 105 OBs/ml. The LC50 and LC90 for T. leucotreta was 2.29 x 103 and 9.97 x 104 OBs/ml, respectively and C. pomonella had a LC50 of 1.43 x 103 OBs/ml and LC90 1.26 x 104 OBs/ml. The virus was particularly virulent against T. leucotreta and C. pomonella as compared to C. peltastica. The biological activity of the alphabaculovirus was also tested against CpGV resistant European C. pomonella. From the results it was observed that the virus had the ability to overcome the resistance in C. pomonella and could potentially be used in the resistance management of C. pomonella. With the successful biological activity results obtained from this study, preliminary investigation were made into the mass production of the alphabaculovirus using both the in vivo and in vitro production methods. For in vivo production both the homologous host (C. peltastica) and a heterologous host (T leucotreta) were investigated. Preliminary studies focused on determining the biological activity in fifth instars of both hosts. Fifth instar LC50 and LC90 values for C. peltastica were 3.43 x 103 and 1.11 x 107 OBs/ml and for T. leucotreta the LC50 and LC90 values were 2.53 x 103 and 8.82 x 106 OBs/ml, respectively. The average yield of virus produced in each species was also determined. Cryptophlebia peltastica had the highest viral yield of 5.37 x 1010 OBs/larva and 2.93 x 1010 OBs/larva for T. leucotreta. The results obtained, from the preliminary investigation concluded that the virus could be produced in vivo in both C. peltastica and T. leucotreta, however further research is required into the mass production in both hosts. The in vitro production of the virus was also considered and the susceptibility of the virus was tested against the C. pomonella cell line, Cp14R. After infection of the Cp14R cells with budded virus collected from fifth instar C. peltastica larvae, OBs could be observed after three days. Thus, the alphabaculovirus is susceptible to the Cp14R cell line, thus has the potential to be produced in vitro and further characterised. This study is the first to report of the identification and characterisation of a novel alphabaculovirus isolated from a laboratory reared culture of C. peltastica and the potential for it to be commercially developed into a bipoesticide and used against Tortricidae pests.
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- Date Issued: 2017
The life and literary works of Peter Tshobiso Mtuze: a critical analysis
- Authors: Mafrika, Andile Ernest
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Mtuze, P T -- Criticism and interpretation , Mtuze, P T -- UDingezweni , Mtuze, P T -- Alitshoni lingaphumi , Mtuze, P T -- Amathol’ eendaba. , Authors, Xhosa , Xhosa literature -- History and criticism
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/4400 , vital:20658
- Description: This thesis is an exploration of the concept of Mphahlele’s African Humanism, against the backdrop of the life and work of Peter Tshobiso Mtuze, well-known author of isiXhosa books, critic, academic and spiritual leader. Mtuze’s commitment to the collective rather than the individual is clearly illustrated in the thesis, suggesting that his early life of struggle, his belated development as an acclaimed academic, as well as his spiritual growth are all intertwined and underpinned by African Humanism and an Afrocentric ethos.The thesis consists of six chapters with each chapter focusing on a particular aspect of the research topic. Chapter One deals with the introduction to the research topic. Part of the introductory material consists of conventional preliminaries such as a research statement, aim of study, methodology, main assumptions of the study and the significance and benefit of the study. Chapter Two is the theoretical foundation of the thesis. It covers the origin of African Humanism as consciousness and as a system of society, oral and written literature in Africa and the early Xhosa literary humanism. Chapter Three is an overview of the biographical background of Peter Tshobiso Mtuze, his Pass Law battles in different towns of South Africa, how he joined the African National Congress (ANC) and his working life and writing life. Chapter Four analyses two major novels, UDingezweni and Alitshoni lingaphumi, and a short story book, Amathol’ eendaba. The analysis aims at revealing African consciousness and African way of life with specific reference to Xhosa people. Chapter Five deals with Xhosa spirituality, its aspects and symbols, Mtuze’s Spirituality and Anglicanism and his writings. Chapter Six is a general conclusion that highlights the main aspects of the thesis, the African personality and the prospects of African humanism in today’s world.
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- Date Issued: 2017
The making of ‘loyals’ and ‘rebels’: the 1880 Transkei Rebellion and the Subversion of the chieftaincies of East Griqualand, 1874-1914
- Authors: Snell, Milner Charles
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/41860 , vital:25142
- Description: In the mid-1870s, influenced by the mineral revolution in southern Africa, the Cape responsible government began to extend colonial rule over the chiefdoms that inhabited the Mthatha- Mzimkhulu region. Although white officials initially negotiated with the leadership of these chiefdoms to accept colonial rule and depended heavily on them to implement new laws, ultimately the Cape government aimed to side-line indigenous political systems and replace them with magistrates and headmen. Colonial officials mistakenly equated indigenous political structures with dictatorial chiefs whose followers were subject to their personal ambitions. In fact chiefs were part of a collective leadership and were very aware and influenced by the needs of their adherents. This work is concerned with how the chieftaincies, or indigenous political systems, of the Mthatha-Mzimkhulu region responded, survived and adapted in the face of colonialism. The chieftaincies were remarkably resilient despite the political and economic changes brought on by colonialism and capitalism and were able to retain some degree of authority amongst their followers and at times obtain recognition from the colonial state. Interactions between the chieftaincies and the colonial state were complex, fluid and ever evolving. Some leaders of chiefdoms co-operated with colonial authorities, either over particular issues at certain times or more generally over longer periods, and were considered by colonial officials to be ‘loyal’. Yet, at other times they resisted the demands and changes being brought on by colonialism and were labelled as ‘rebels’. Questions of how the chieftaincies responded to colonial rule were most critical during the Transkei Rebellion of 1880, which is a central focus of this work. Some chieftaincies co-operated with and served with the colonial military forces in order to spare themselves from the economic and social disruption brought on by war and the confiscation of land by the victors. Other chieftaincies took up arms against the colonial state in an attempt to stop the increasingly unacceptable demands being made of them and to resist the negative changes that colonialism was bringing. Despite their ability to adapt, by the early years of the twentieth century hereditary leaders found themselves increasingly caught between the expectations of their followers and demands made by the colonial administration. Faced with increasing popular criticism, many leaders adapted ambiguous and shifting stances on issues concerning their followers.
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- Date Issued: 2017
The phenologies of macadamia (Proteaceae) and thrips (Insecta: Thysanoptera) communities in Mpumalanga Province, South Africa
- Authors: Hepburn, Colleen
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Macadamia nut -- South Africa , Macadamia nut -- Ecology -- South Africa , Macadamia nut -- Diseases and pests -- South Africa , Thrips -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:21183 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6817
- Description: Macadamia (Proteaceae) is indigenous to Australia; four of the nine species have been used in plant breeding for cultivation and the production of a rapidly growing product. First introduced to Hawaii in the 1880s, macadamias’ potential as a crop was only really considered in 1910. It is due to the early Hawaiian pioneers’ research and the development of Hawaiian cultivars upon which most of the current world’s production is based today. Prior to the 1980s, cultivation in Australia was based mainly on Hawaiian cultivars. Extensive research has been conducted on cultivar development, performance, best practice, production, crop protection and processing. South Africa has become one of the world’s leading producers and exporters of macadamias. The cultivation of macadamia in South Africa began 80 years ago, but the phenology of macadamia has not been rigorously studied under local conditions, and neither has the thrips communities in macadamia. Data collected during this study on the macadamia phenological stages can be used as a foundation on which seasonal data of all insect pests can be plotted, as a basis on which an extensive Integrated Pest Management (IPM) programme can be developed for the macadamia industry in South Africa. Extensive sampling of thrips communities present in macadamias was undertaken over two years, with more than 142,000 individuals collected. The most basic, common trait into which specimens could be sorted were colour groups. Specimens from each colour group were identified through slide-mounting individuals. Fifteen species of thrips were identified to species-level, excluding specimens from the Panchaetothripinae, Haplothrips and Scolothrips which occurred only periodically. The presence of larvae indicated that macadamia is a host plant for some species. Due to their size and morphology, identification i of the total collection could not be processed to species level using a dissection microscope, although Scirtothrips aurantii Faure were distinguishable from other species and their distribution over the seasons observed. Due to logistical constraints and events beyond the author’s control, the results are mainly qualitative. There seems to be phenological variation within and between cultivars. The date of anthesis and duration of immature nut-drop was estimated; some cultivars set out- of-season flowers and nuts; this “secondary crop” could have far-reaching effects on the implementation of an IPM programme. Comparisons of the phenological data of macadamia and thrips showed the highest abundances and diversity of thrips species occurred when flowers were present. An extensive study of abscised nuts showed no significant difference between most cultivars or at the sites where management practices were implemented and those sites where these practices were not. There was however a consistent difference between the two seasons. There was no difference in maturity of abscised nuts, regardless of whether thrips damage to the husk was present or not. Excessive Bathycoelia distincta (Hemiptera: Pentatomidae) damage was found on the kernels of the abscised nuts processed for maturity testing, which is more likely to have been the primary cause of abscission. The Author’s opinion is that thrips damage to the outer husk does not lead to abscission of maturing nuts. Ascertaining the cause of abscission at nut-set and immature nut-drop is more problematic as there are numerous other potential causes. Damage to new flush, especially the late summer flush essential for the build-up of carbohydrates and resources for the following yield, should be carefully monitored and controlled when necessary.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Transcription factor binding specificity and occupancy : elucidation, modelling and evaluation
- Authors: Kibet, Caleb Kipkurui
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Transcription factors , Transcription factors -- Data processing , Motif Assessment and Ranking Suite
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:21185 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6838
- Description: The major contributions of this thesis are addressing the need for an objective quality evaluation of a transcription factor binding model, demonstrating the value of the tools developed to this end and elucidating how in vitro and in vivo information can be utilized to improve TF binding specificity models. Accurate elucidation of TF binding specificity remains an ongoing challenge in gene regulatory research. Several in vitro and in vivo experimental techniques have been developed followed by a proliferation of algorithms, and ultimately, the binding models. This increase led to a choice problem for the end users: which tools to use, and which is the most accurate model for a given TF? Therefore, the first section of this thesis investigates the motif assessment problem: how scoring functions, choice and processing of benchmark data, and statistics used in evaluation affect motif ranking. This analysis revealed that TF motif quality assessment requires a systematic comparative analysis, and that scoring functions used have a TF-specific effect on motif ranking. These results advised the design of a Motif Assessment and Ranking Suite MARS, supported by PBM and ChIP-seq benchmark data and an extensive collection of PWM motifs. MARS implements consistency, enrichment, and scoring and classification-based motif evaluation algorithms. Transcription factor binding is also influenced and determined by contextual factors: chromatin accessibility, competition or cooperation with other TFs, cell line or condition specificity, binding locality (e.g. proximity to transcription start sites) and the shape of the binding site (DNA-shape). In vitro techniques do not capture such context; therefore, this thesis also combines PBM and DNase-seq data using a comparative k-mer enrichment approach that compares open chromatin with genome-wide prevalence, achieving a modest performance improvement when benchmarked on ChIP-seq data. Finally, since statistical and probabilistic methods cannot capture all the information that determine binding, a machine learning approach (XGBooost) was implemented to investigate how the features contribute to TF specificity and occupancy. This combinatorial approach improves the predictive ability of TF specificity models with the most predictive feature being chromatin accessibility, while the DNA-shape and conservation information all significantly improve on the baseline model of k-mer and DNase data. The results and the tools introduced in this thesis are useful for systematic comparative analysis (via MARS) and a combinatorial approach to modelling TF binding specificity, including appropriate feature engineering practices for machine learning modelling.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Transcription, edition, translation and critical analysis of biographical poems contributed by S E K Mqhayi to early IsiXhosa newspapers
- Authors: Mazwi, Ntombomzi R
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Mqhayi, S E K -- Criticism and interpretation , Mqhayi, S E K -- Translations , Xhosa language -- Transcription , Xhosa poetry -- History and criticism , Xhosa poetry -- Translations
- Language: English , Xhosa
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/18570 , vital:22356
- Description: During the nineteenth century secular creative literature produced by missionaries and publishers was designed for the educational market and for school children and there was nothing for adults. Works of isiXhosa literature was controlled in content and freely edited by the missionaries to satisfy the demands of educational syllabuses. As a result, students at universities, scholars of literature and academics in higher education are lacking primary documents on this literature and therefore are forced to study the limited and unavailable literature books. This thesis concentrates on the work of a particular isiXhosa writer, namely that of S.E.K. Mqhayi. The earlier writers like S.E.K. Mqhayi, J.J.R. Jolobe, G.B. Sinxo and others made their mark in South African literature and culture. Their works were published in journals and newspapers in isiXhosa by the missionaries. This means isiXhosa literature can be found in abundance in the earlier newspapers. What needs to be addressed is how the South African community and literature scholars mentioned above could have access to that work. Mqhayi is well known as the father of the isiXhosa language because of his substantial literary and linguistic contribution to the development of the language. As already mentioned he made his contribution through written work which was published in various newspapers of his time and unfortunately most people are unable to access this material, hence the focus of this thesis. The vast majority of his journalism remains as yet uncollected. However, scholars like Opland (1983) and Saule (1989) made some effort to bring this information to the public through their extensive research. S.E.K. Mqhayi’s popular poems have been published and analyzed over the last century and more recently (Qangule 1979; Kuse 1979; Opland 1983; Saule 1989 & 1996; Ntuli & Swanepoel 1993 and Opland 2009). However, in terms of quantity and value, these are negligible compared to what Mqhayi has published. There are still numerous of Mqhayi’s poems that would add value to the study and history of isiXhosa literature. The main aim of this research is to carry on from where these scholars left off and to bring to the fore the legacy Mqhayi left to the South African people. Hence, thirty (30) poems on people by S.E.K. Mqhayi have been transcribed from the old newspapers, re- typed, translated into English and analysed. These poems are largely published in newspapers but have never been subsequently republished, and hence they are almost completely unknown. The thirty (30) poems have been selected with the assistance of Professor Jeff Opland, a retired Professor from the University of London’s School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS). The poems are from his Opland Collection of Xhosa Literature housed in Godalming, United Kingdom. They are presented in the manner in which they appeared originally, that is, in terms of isiXhosa orthography during the times of Mqhayi’s writing (Diplomatic Presentation). The data is analysed and discussed in relation to how Mqhayi’s biographical poems can give insight not only to Mqhayi’s subjects of praise, but into how he uses historical, political and sociocultural contexts in the praises of his subjects, meaning that the discussion revolves around the practice of the Historical-Biographical Criticism. The poems are translated into English to allow for this literature not only to be disseminated among isiXhosa speakers, but also to speakers of other languages who understand English. The translation method chosen is the one believed to produce the originality of the source text and sameness of meaning in the target text which is regarded as equivalence. This thesis therefore is an investigation into 30 poems selected from biographical poems written by S.E.K. Mqhayi in newspapers during the period 1899-1944. In essence this thesis presents an in-depth analysis of Mqhayi’s poems against the backdrop of oral literary theory as expounded by theorists who have grappled with the orality-literacy debate, a debate which directly informs Mqhayi’s poetry as he was the first oral poet to transition between orality and literacy. , Uncwadi oluveliswe kwishumi elinesithoba lamakhulu eminyaka ziimishinari nabapapashi lwalwenzelwe izifundiswa kunye nabantwana besikolo kwaye akukho msebenzi mninzi ofumanekayo owawenzelwe abantu basekuhlaleni. Umsebenzi omninzi wokubhaliweyo kuncwadi lwesiXhosa wawulawulwa, uhlelwa kwaye ulungiselelwa uqingqo lwezifundo. Oko ke kuye kwabangela ukuba abafundi abakumaziko emfundo ephakamileyo, iimfundi zoncwadi kunye nabahlohli zingabinawo amaxwebhu okwenene oncwadi lwesiXhosa, kwaye loo nto yenza ukuba kufundwe kwaye kwenziwe uphando ngeencwadi ezimbalwa. Olu phando ke ngoko luza kuqwalasela lugxininise kumsebenzi wombhali wesiXhosa onguS.E.K. Mqhayi. Ababhali bangaphambili abafana noo-S.E.K. Mqhayi, J.J.R. Jolobe, G.B. Sinxo nabanye bashiya ifuthe elikhulu kuncwadi nenkcubeko yoMzantsi Afrika. Imisebenzi yabo yayipapashwe ziimishinari ngesiXhosa kuluhlu lwemibhalo namaphephandaba. Oko ke kuthetha ukuthi le misebenzi yesiXhosa iyafumaneka kumaphepha-ndaba angaphambili. Okufuneka kulungisiwe yindlela abemi boMzantsi Afrika kunye nezi mfundi zoncwadi zikhankanywe ngentla zingathi ziwufumane lo msebenzi waba babhali bangaphambili. UMqhayi waziwa ngokuba yinkcuba- buchopho yolwimi lwesiXhosa kwaye udlale indima enkulu kakhulu ekuphuhliseni ulwimi lwesiXhosa. Njengokuba sele ikhankanyiwe ngentla, umsebenzi wakhe upapashwe kumaphephandaba awohlukeneyo wela xesha wayesaphila kwaye kungelishwa ke ukuba abantu abaninzi abakwazi ukuwufumana loo msebenzi. Eminye yemisebenzi yakhe emininzi ke kodwa ayiqokelelwanga. Iingcali ezifana noo-Opland (1983) noSaule (1989) zaye zenza uphando olukhulu zizama ukuzisa olu lwazi eluntwini, kodwa oko akwanelanga. Kwiminyaka edlulileyo imibongo edumileyo ka-S.E.K. Mqhayi sele yapapashwa (Qangule, 1979; Kuse, 1979; Opland, 1983 & 2009; Saule, 1989 & 1996; Ntuli & Swanepoel, 1993). Nangona kunjalo ke isekhona eminye imibongo kaMqhayi engekaveli nenokuthi ibe nenxaxheba kakhulu ekufundeni nasekufundiseni uncwadi lwesiXhosa. Olu phando ke kukuqhubeka apho aba babhali bakhankanyiweyo bayeke khona ukuzisa phambili umsebenzi nelifa elashiywa nguMqhayi kubemi baseMzantsi Afrika. Kungoko ke imibongo engabantu engama-30 kaMqhayi iza kuthi ikhutshelwe isuka kumaphephandaba akudala, iguqulelwe esiNgesini ze ihlahlelwe. Uninzi lwale mibongo ipapashwe kumaphephandaba akudala kwaye zange iphinde ipapashwe kwenye indawo, kungoko ke ingaziwa kakhulu. Ukukhethwa kwale mibongo ingama-30 kuncediswe nguNjingalwazi uJeff Opland, uNjingalwazi odla umhlala-phantsi weYunivesithi yase-London kwiSikolo seZifundo ngezaseAfrika naseMpumalanga (SOAS). Le mibongo isuka kuluhlu lwakhe athe waluqokelela nolubizwa ngokuba yi-Opland Collection of Xhosa Literature oluse- Godalming, e-United Kingdom. Indlela le mibongo eza kuthi ibhalwe ngayo yileyo uMqhayi wayeyibhale ngayo ngexesha lakhe. Le mibongo ihleliwe kwaye oko kubhaliweyo malunga nayo kuquka indlela apho imibongo kaMqhayi ngobomi babantu kuthi kubonise indlela abonga nabonisa ngayo izinto zoPolitiko, zakudala nezasekuhlaleni ezazisenzeka ngela xesha. Indlela ethi konke oku kuthi kuvele kule mibongo kaMqhayi kwaye kuya kuthi kuvezwe kolu phando. Ukuguqulelwa kwale mibongo esiNgesini kuya kuthi kuncede ukuba nabo bangasithethiyo isiXhosa bakwazi ukufumana le mibongo. Indlela esetyenzisiweyo yoguqulo-lwimi yale mibongo yileyo ivumela ukuba umbhalo uguqulelwe ngokufanayo nombhalo-ntsusa kwaye intsingiselo kumbhalo ekuguqulelwa kuwo ingatshintshi. Lo misebenzi ke ngoko uluphando lwemibongo engabantu ekhethiweyo engama30 ebhalwe nguSEK Mqhayi kumaphephandaba kwimiminyaka u1899 - 1944. Umongo wolu phando kukwenza uhlalutyo - nzulu lwemibongo kaMqhayi eyaleka kuphando - lwazi osele lwenziwe njengoko lucaciswa ziingcali ezithe zazamana nengxoxo yoncwadi lomlomo, ngxoxo leyo ethe yachaphazela ngokumandla umongo wezibongo zikaMqhayi njengembongi yokuqala ukuwela ukusuka kuncwadi lomlomo ukuya kuncwadi olubhaliweyo.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Transgression and transcultural blending: reading the work of Adelaide Fassinou
- Authors: Ishaya, Nandi Salome
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Fassinou, Adélaïde, 1955- -- Criticism and interpretation , Fassinou, Adélaïde, 1955- -- Jeté en pâture , Fassinou, Adélaïde, 1955- -- Modukpè, le rêve brisé. , African literature (French) -- History and criticism
- Language: French , English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/7500 , vital:21266
- Description: In Adelaide Fassinou’s novel Jete en pature (“Thrown to the lions/wolves”), the female character Fifame declares that “novels/books have sides that one is attached to. The lives of people roll pass our eyes. Some stories resemble ours” (JP, 147). Fassinou herself says: By reading this book dear friend, the stories of all these women who lived nowhere except in my imagination, may be like yours. But the fiction in which they themselves moved makes it so close and we share in their tragedy (MRB, 7). The above comments reflect the idea of sociocriticism which opines that a literary work could be a representation of the society of its author. This goes to say that real events can feed literary imagination more and more. Also, Fifame continues that “a book/novel is a path marked by steps, falls, and races towards a future that is bright or a bleak” (JP, 147). The verbs which connote ‘bright’ and ‘bleak’ in this comment unveil the writing idea/conception which Fassinou adheres to. “Bright” in our opinion could connote the gains of cross cultural blending, the precise outcome/result of modernity. “Bleak” on the other hand could refer to the violation of certain cultural values and or better still to transgressive attitudes in a society that is in the process of radical transformation. As such, transgression and cross cultural blending are the focal points of our discussion in this research. We have chosen to analyse some literary works of Adelaide Fassinou, a beninoise who came into the literary scene at the threshold of the new millennium, in 2000. It could then be said that Fassinou belongs to a new generation of African writers, the writers of the new millennium. The title of her first novel is revealing. Its title, Modukpe, le reve brise could imply that man always has a dream but in the course of time, this dream could be broken due to one factor or the other. In Fassinou, the lack of the realization of dreams could be the result of our vision of the world where new ideas oppose tradition to the extent that modernity is seen simply as a transgression of the laws of tradition. Admittedly, it is transgression in the fictional novel, a transgression against tradition and or nature because “nature has its laws”. The life experiences of man especially the female gender, “A whole lifetime is not enough to speak about it” And the story of being “Thrown to the lions” is one of such experiences. Reading Fassinou’s work, one vi could note that she presents enough social problems which reflect the notion of transgression. As a result, for the woman to liberate herself, the author who represents the woman, resorts to writing “Poems of love and brambles” of “Her exiles and her loves” because it is needful to speak so as to feel better within oneself. This action of breaking the silence by the woman constitutes in itself a transgression because, in the culture of the author, the woman should be reduced to silence. Fassinou has the urge to show that cruelty in the home, inflexible will, excessive masculinity and insensibility could lead to rebellion, dissatisfaction and violence which could affect the whole society. In view of this, to love one child above the others could compromise family cohesion. It is in this regard that suicide formed part of the theme of this research. This could represent the image of national violence provoked by tribalism and geopolitics which could be noticed in many countries on the African continent. For most critics, the transgression of traditional values is due to cultural blending because this blending is seen as the evolution of the society and the culture which represent a society that finds itself at the cross roads. Transgression in Fassinou’s works is the demystification of certain traditional beliefs. The transgression of some characters leads to bitter and traumatic experiences. Be that as it may, the author recommends/advocates, through her writing, a way of escape: hope. It shows through the representations made by the author that determination to overcome the challenges faced and the decision to put a cross on past bitter experiences are strong indications for individual transformation which would lead to the desired transformation and development of Africa. Transgression and cultural blending in the works of Fassinou are not limited to thematic study; it is also about the transgression of standard language codes and the mixing of languages. The second part of this thesis is devoted to the stylistic study of Fassinou’s works. As such, we are going to equally study formal aspects of Fassinou’s writing as a symbol of transgression and transcultural blending. , Dans le roman Jete en pature d’Adelaide Fassinou, le personnage feminin, Fifame, declare que « les livres ont un cote attachant. Ils deroulent sous nos regards la vie de personnes qui nous semblent si proches que nous nous identifions a elles. Certaines histoires ressemblent a la notre » (JP, 147). Fassinou elle-meme dit : En lisant ce livre, chere amie, tu feras egalement tienne I ’histoire de toutes ces femmes qui n ’ont vecu nulle part, sauf dans mon imagination. Mais la fiction dans laquelle elles se meuvent nous les rend encore plus proches st nous faitpartager leurs drames (MRB, 7). Ces propos refletent l’idee de la sociocritique qui indique qu’une reuvre litteraire pourrait etre une representation de la societe de son auteur(e). Ceci revient a dire que des evenements reels peuvent alimenter de plus en plus l’imagination litteraire. Aussi, poursuit-elle, « un livre est un chemin jalonne de marches, de chutes et de courses vers des lendemains qui chantent ou qui dechantent » (JP, 147). Les verbes « chanter » et « dechanter » dans ces propos devoilent la conception de l’ecriture a laquelle Fassinou adhere. « Chanter », a notre avis, pourrait denoter les gains des croisements des cultures, le resultat meme du modernisme. « Dechanter » pour sa part pourrait renvoyer a la violation de certaines valeurs traditionnelles et ou mieux encore aux attitudes transgressives dans une societe en pleine mutation. Ainsi donc la transgression et le metissage culturel constituent le point central de la discussion de cette recherche. Nous avons choisi d’analyser quelques reuvres litteraires d’Adelaide Fassinou, une ecrivaine beninoise qui est entree sur la scene litteraire au seuil du nouveau millenaire, en 2000. Par ce fait, on dirait que Fassinou appartient a une nouvelle generation d’ecrivains : les ecrivains du nouveau millenaire. Le titre du premier roman de Fassinou est revelateur. Il s’institule Modukpe, le reve brise, qui implique que l’homme a toujours un reve mais au cours du temps, ce reve pourrait etre brise. Chez Fassinou, ce manque de materialisation de reves serait le resultat de notre vision du monde ou les conceptions nouvelles rivalisent avec la tradition au point que la modernite soit simplement vue comme une transgression de lois de la tradition. C’est certes la transgression dans l’univers romanesque, une transgression contre la tradition et / ou la nature car « la nature a ses lois ». Et les experiences vecues par l’homme et surtout par la femme, Toute une vie ne viii suffirait pas pour en Parler. Et l’histoire d’etre Jete en pature est l’une de ses experiences. En lisant l’reuvre de Fassinou, on peut constater qu’elle presente assez de problemes sociaux qui renvoient a la notion de la transgression. Il en resulte que, pour se liberer, l’auteure qui represente la femme, recourt a ecrire des Poemes d ’amour et de ronces, de [S]es exiles, [s]es amours car il faut parler pour se sentir bien en soi-meme. Cette action de briser le silence par la femme constitue aussi en elle, une transgression car dans la tradition de l’auteure, la femme devrait etre reduite au silence. Fassinou a besoin de montrer que la cruaute au foyer, la volonte inflexible, la masculinite excessive et l’insensibilite conduisent a la revolte, au mecontentement et a la violence pouvant affecter toute la societe. Eu egard a cela, aimer un enfant au-dessus des autres compromettrait la cohesion familiale. C’est ainsi que le sujet du suicide fait partie de cette recherche. Ceci pourrait representer l’image de la violence nationale provoquee par le tribalisme et la geopolitique qu’on pourrait remarquer dans plusieurs pays sur le continent africain. Pour la plupart des critiques, la transgression des valeurs traditionnelles est due au metissage culturel car ce metissage est vu comme une evolution de la societe et de la culture qui represente une societe qui se trouve a la croisee des chemins. La transgression dans l’reuvre de Fassinou est la demystification de certaines croyances traditionnelles. La transgression de certains personnages conduit aux experiences ameres et traumatisantes. Quoi qu’il en soit, l’auteure preconise toujours, au moyen de son ecriture, une voie de sortie : l’espoir. Il transparait des representations que fait l’auteure que la determination pour surmonter les defis et la decision de mettre une croix sur les experiences ameres du passe sont des indications fortes pour la transformation individuelle qui amenera a la transformation et au developpement tant desire de l’Afrique. La transgression et le metissage culturel dans l’reuvre de Fassinou ne se limitent pas aux etudes thematiques ; il s’agit egalement de la transgression du code langagier standard et du melange des langues. La deuxieme partie de cette these est consacree a une etude stylistique de l’reuvre de Fassinou. Pour cela, nous avons etudie egalement les aspects des aspects formels de l’ecriture de Fassinou comme symbole de la transgression et du metissage culturel.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Understanding the reading practices of Fort Hare students
- Authors: O’Shea, Cathy
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6886 , vital:21197
- Description: Universities world-wide are battling to offer access to far greater numbers than ever before. The University of Fort Hare, specifically, is also part of a troubled South African education system and is located in a disadvantaged, rural area. The main aim of this study was to understand Fort Hare students’ reading practices, as reported by the students themselves. This thesis used a framework of New Literacy Studies, which views student learning as a process of mastering discipline-specific, socially constructed norms and values, and sees the adopting of a literacy as including the adoption of an identity. Since discourse, in the NLS tradition, has been found to be a mediating mechanism in the social construction of identity, a critical discourse analysis was adopted to begin understanding aspects of Fort Hare students’ reading practices and the links between these and their identities. Critical realism is the ontological underpinning of this thesis. This means that the study aimed to identify the tendencies of certain mechanisms - in this case, Discourses - to affect students’ reading practices, by analysing interview transcripts of focus group discussions held with 30 students. Frameworks and tools provided by Fairclough and Gee were applied to interview data analysis. The ‘We blacks’ Discourse was one of one of the prominent Discourses that interviewees drew on when talking about their reading practices. It was closely allied to the ‘Resistance to reading’ Discourse, as participants explained that they tended to disregard books and did not enjoy reading for leisure. The ‘We blacks’ Discourse in this way homogenised class and other differences between black students, and indicated the ways in which their experiences were outside of academic Discourses. This Discourse served as a constraining mechanism for some, and indicated that those who used it tended not to identify with the academy. There was an evident link between the ‘We blacks’ Discourse, the ‘Resistance to reading’ Discourse and the ‘Better than us’ Discourse, in which students who enjoyed reading were called names for supposedly being conceited. Two opposing discourses (with a small ‘d’) emerged when students talked about literacy sponsors like parents and lecturers. Some used the ‘Our parents don’t chase us’ discourse to depict family members who were not encouraging, overlapping with the ‘We blacks’ Discourse. The contrasting ‘Go read anything’ discourse described more encouraging teachers and relatives. This discourse was also used to describe educators who had forced them to read, with several interviewees describing corporal punishment as being a necessary part of school-based literacy practices. It also became clear that Fort Hare’s institutional identity played a role in some interviewees’ self-identities, as the ‘Resistance to reading’ Discourse was linked to the ‘Why bother?’ Discourse. The latter seemed part of a defensive positionality that arose partly because some students see Fort Hare as a university with relatively low academic standards. However, the implication is that lecturers and others can work towards changing Discourses and so endeavour to enable reading practices. Educators could also take steps to address resistant attitudes and encourage reading.
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- Date Issued: 2017
Visual narratives of division in contemporary Palestinian art and social space
- Authors: Baasch, Rachel Mary
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: Art, Palestinian Arab , Art, Palestinian Arab -- Political aspects , Art and society -- Palestine
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/41770 , vital:25132
- Description: This study analyses artworks by contemporary Palestinian artists that respond to visual narratives of division in social space from a perspective grounded in a South African context. The state of Israel is built on Historic Palestine. Political Zionism has created an ideological narrative of division that positions people of the Jewish faith as the rightful heirs to the land on which Palestinians have lived for centuries. In order to execute their vision of an exclusively Jewish nation state, the founding pioneers of political Zionism colonised and ethnically cleansed Historic Palestine, establishing Israel in 1948. To sustain the exclusive claim to Palestinian land, Israel has divided the space and the people in it at every possible level. The greatest testament to these efforts is the Israeli apartheid wall and checkpoint security system that can be described as a monumental visual narrative of division. With each second that passes, Israel claims more Palestinian land and expands on existing fences, walls and barriers. It is no secret that the Occupied Palestinian Territories are rapidly transforming into open-air prisons. Israel has stolen the Palestinian horizon line and replaced it with a concrete wall that blocks out light, vision and optimism. Within the shadows of these conflicted, traumatised sites of division, Palestinian artists seek openings, cracks and loopholes that signal the possibility for physical and psychological transgression of these seemingly impenetrable structures of division. I have developed a creative methodology that can be understood through the metaphor of ‘looking with the skin’ as a way to identify and analyse visual narratives of division and artistic responses to sites of division in Palestinian social space. Looking with the skin combines aspects of participant observation (specifically the emphasis on engaged fieldwork) from the discipline of Anthropology with the method of visual analysis from the discipline of Art History. In my application of this method through primary fieldwork conducted within the Occupied Palestinian West Bank Territory from 2013 and 2014, I have learnt that Israel’s colonisation, military occupation and system of apartheid directly impacts the ability of Palestinian artists to make and disseminate their work as well as the choice of content within their artwork. The artworks analysed in this thesis by the artists Khaled Jarrar, Y ael Bartana, Larissa Sansour, Hasan Darahgmeh, Fareh Saleh and Emily Jacir can be positioned in relation to artworks by artists based within a South African context, namely Thando Mama, Serge Alain Nitegeka and Doung Anwar Jahangeer. In this thesis I present a combination of my own photographic documentation of sites of division with the West Bank OPT in relation to the specific artworks made by the artists mentioned above. In my analysis of the photographic documentation and the artists’ work I highlight similarities, parallels, threads and intersecting narratives that connect different artists to one another and to the sites of division they are responding to within their artistic practice. This study carves a small conceptual pathway through ideological and physical walls from South Africa to Palestine through the study of contemporary art and visual culture.
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- Date Issued: 2017
William Blake’s animal symbols: tensions and intersections between science and allegory In Eighteenth-Century attitudes towards animals
- Authors: Singh, Jyoti
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/4590 , vital:20696
- Description: This thesis explores the tensions and intersections between science, allegory, and related eighteenth-century attitudes towards animals in William Blake’s poetry through detailed analysis of individual animal symbols and tropes. It will focus specifically on the period between 1794 and 1820, to coincide with the dates of Blake’s major works. Chapter One outlines Blake’s key philosophies, concentrating on his particular approach to symbolism. By rejecting certain Enlightenment ideals and beliefs surrounding allegory, Blake created his own form of the literary tradition, and the subjects and symbols of his poetry clearly demonstrate shifting allegorical frames. The chapter also explains why he argued for the recognition, and even valorisation, of the imaginative faculty, or “Poetic Genius”, in an era which accepted reason and rational thinking as one of the main means of apprehending the world. Chapter Two considers the significance of Blake’s use of predatory animals in the SONGS Of INNOCENCE and Of EXPERIENCE. In focussing on symbolic animals, the chapter assesses whether the ‘real’ animals (with all their scientific associations) are alluded to, and the extent to which they influence their symbolic counterparts. In choosing these symbols to represent key themes throughout his oeuvre, Blake drew on some familiar associations and contemporary attitudes towards animals, but offered no critique of society’s attitudes to animals. Chapter Three identifies and analyses the “fragments of Eternity” represented in the contraries of “Good” and “Evil”, and “Energy” and “Reason” embodied by the animals in THE MARRIAGE of HEAVEN and HELL. The symbols’ division between “Reason” and “Energy” develops an understanding of the complex attitudes towards animals, both in Blake’s mind, and in that of the eighteenth-century British public. Chapter Four is concerned with Blake’s depictions of the Worm and Serpent in his poetry, and how his conception of “Beulah” provides more insight into these symbols and their functions. It also grapples with Rod Preece’s argument that the poet recognised the sanctity and divinity in all forms of life, and sought to endorse these beliefs through his animal symbols. As the thesis illustrates, though, Blake is not arguing for the sanctity of all life to be upheld, nor does he see any divinity in the beings and objects found in nature. Sanctity and divinity are constructs of the imagination, and it is through exercising the imaginative faculty - the “Poetic Genius’’ - along with our senses and instincts, that we are able to make sense of the world. The study thus concludes by considering the extent to which ‘real’ animals intrude upon Blake’s oeuvre, and attempts to determine the value of reading the symbols through an “animal studies” paradigm. It also argues that ‘real’ animals are inseparable from their cultural and symbolic representations, because these are the only means of interpretation we have.
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- Date Issued: 2017
A combinatorial analysis of barred preferential arrangements
- Authors: Nkonkobe, Sithembele
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/36228 , vital:24530
- Description: For a non-negative integer n an ordered partition of a set Xn with n distinct elements is called a preferential arrangement (PA). A barred preferential arrangement (BPA) is a preferential arrangement with bars in between the blocks of the partition. An integer sequence an associated with the counting PA's of Xn has been intensely studied over a century and a half in many different contexts. In this thesis we develop a unified combinatorial framework to study the enumeration of BPAs and a special subclass of BPAs. The results of the study lead to a positive settlement of an open problem and a conjecture by Nelsen. We derive few important identities pertaining to the number of BPAs and restricted BPAs of an n element set using generating- functionology. Later we show that the number of restricted BPAs of Xn are intricately related to well-known numbers such as Eulerian numbers, Bell numbers, Poly-Bernoulli numbers and the number of equivalence classes of fuzzy subsets of Xn under some equivalent relation.
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- Date Issued: 2016
A critical analysis of agricultural innovation platforms among small-scale farmers in Hwedza communal area, Zimbabwe
- Authors: Mahiya, Innocent Tonderai
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/596 , vital:19973
- Description: Agricultural research has existed for many decades at national and global levels and research-based agricultural interventions, often driven by the state, have taken place across Africa over an extended period. But, overall, these interventions have not generated the high potential and kinds of outcomes expected of them in terms of enhancing agricultural productivity amongst small-scale farmers and improving the quality of their agrarian lives. In the context of neoliberal restructuring globally, new forms of agricultural interventions have arisen which highlight the significance of more participatory methodologies in which non-governmental organisations become central. One such methodology rests on the notion of an agricultural innovation platform which involves bringing on board a diverse range of actors (or stakeholders) which function together to generate agricultural knowledge and practices suitable to the needs of a particular small-scale farming community, with the small-scale farmers expected to be key actors in the platform. Such platforms are now being implemented in specific rural sites in Zimbabwe, including in communal areas in the district of Hwedza where farming activities have for many years now being in large survivalist in character. The objective of this thesis is to critically analyse the agricultural innovation platforms in Hwedza, but not in the sense of assessing the impact of the platforms on agricultural productivity. Rather, the thesis examines the multi-faceted social interactions and relationships embodied in the innovation platform process. In pursuing this, I rely heavily – but in a critical manner – on interface analysis as set out by Norman Long. The fieldwork for the Hwedza involved an interpretative-qualitative methodology based on methods such as in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, questionnaires and observations. The major finding of the thesis is that the agricultural innovation platforms, at least as implemented in Hwedza, do challenge top-down approaches to agricultural interventions by unlocking the possibility of multiple pathways of inclusion and particularly for small-scale farmers but that, simultaneously, they also involve processes marked by divergences, exclusions, tensions and conflicts which may undermine the legitimacy and effectiveness of the platforms.
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- Date Issued: 2016
A Foucauldian analysis of discourses shaping perspectives, responses, and experiences on the accessibility, availability and distribution of condoms in some school communities in Kavango Region
- Authors: Ngalangi, Naftal Sakaria
- Date: 2016
- Subjects: Foucault, Michel, 1926-1984 -- Methodology , Condom use -- Namibia , Sex instruction for teenagers -- Namibia , HIV infections -- Prevention -- Namibia , AIDS (Disease) -- Prevention -- Namibia , Education, Secondary -- Namibia , Teenage pregnancy -- Namibia , Sexual abstinence -- Moral and ethical aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2061 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019990
- Description: Condom use is promoted as an effective method for prevention and contraception for people who practice or are at risk of practicing high-risk sexual behaviors. According to the UNAIDS (2009) report, condoms are the only resource available to prevent the sexual spread of the HI-Virus; and with regard to family planning, the same report proposes that condoms expand the choices, have no medical side effects, and thus provide dual protection against pregnancy and disease. However, in Africa as elsewhere in the world, condom use has been fiercely debated. The debates on the accessibility, availability and distribution of condoms in schools are not new nor are they uncontested. In Namibia, the HIV and AIDS policy in education does not explain how, when and by whom condoms should be made available to learners. This leaves it to schools to decide on how (and whether) to make condoms available to learners. As a result, individual school‘s choices not only vary, but are mediated by different factors that are not always in the best interest of learners who, as the foregoing discussion suggests, continue to participate in behaviour that, amongst other things, puts them at risk of HIV infection and falling pregnant. Relying on Foucault‘s theory of discourses, this study investigated the dominant discourses that shape learner, teacher, parent religious and traditional leader and traditional healer perspectives, responses, and experiences with regard to the accessibility, availability, and distribution of condoms in school. The study was conducted in nine schools in Kavango Region in Namibia using a mixed methods approach. The study used triangulation in the data collection process through the use of questionnaires where 792 learners participated in this component, and focus group discussions and individual interviews targeting four groups namely, learners, teachers, parents and religious leaders, traditional leaders and traditional healers. The quantitative data were analyzed using the Statistical Packages for Social Sciences (SPSS), and findings from the focus group discussions and individual interviews were analyzed identifying themes and patterns and then organizing them into coherent categories with sub-categories. The study revealed that the majority of adult participants opposed the idea of making condoms available in schools; advocating abstinence instead. This was despite evidence on the prevalence of sexual activity amongst youth in the community. Reasons had to do with various competing and hierarchized discourses operating to shape participant beliefs, perspectives, and responses in a highly regulated and surveilled social and cultural context. Put differently, the dominant discourses invoked a particular sexual subject; authorized and legitimated who invoked such a subject; who was and was not allowed to speak on sexual matters; as well as how sexual matters were brought into the public space of schools. Such authorization and legitimation regulated the discursive space in which discussions on sexual health, safe sex, and resources such as condoms were permitted; with negative consequences for the sexual well-being of youth in Kavango Region. The study also highlighted the tension between freedom, choice, and rights, showing how complex in fact is decision to make condoms available in school. On the one hand, teenagers positioned themselves as capable subjects who had the right to exercise choice over their sexual lives. Requesting parent consent was thus viewed as a violation of this right to choose. Such a position displayed authority and agency by learners that was pitted against views amongst adults in this study that positioned youth as having no agency. In their view, youth (a) were still children and thus innocent and pure, (b) ought to abstain, and (c) were difficult to control given the modern context. Adults believed that early sexual involvement by learners did not result from lack of vigilance and control on their part, but rather from exposure to modern social mores. The study concluded that (a) schools remain difficult spaces not only for mediating discussions of sex and sexuality, but also for providing resources to mitigate sexual risk amongst leaners, (b) in highly regulated societies, dominant religious discourses are produced and reproduced in and through existing institutions such as family, church, and schools; highlighting how these serve to normalize beliefs and perspectives, (c) the dominant discourses shaping communities in which schools find themselves remain inconsistent with school discourses that are shaped by modernist conceptions of childhood and youth, and (b) adult choices to sanction and obstruct schools from making condoms available (and in the case of teachers, not accessible and distributable) put the very children at risk that they propose to be protecting.
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- Date Issued: 2016
A morphogenic and laminated system explanation of position-practice systems and professional development training in mainstreaming education for sustainable development in African universities
- Authors: Agbedahin, Adesuwa Vanessa
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/584 , vital:19972
- Description: This research focuses on Education for Sustainable Development (ESD) in Higher Education Institutions (HEIs), particularly in Africa. It explores the roles and practices of these institutions, especially their professionals, in the Anthropocene era where increasing concern for contemporary environmental and sustainability issues and risks emerge. The study presents a longitudinal case study of institutions and participants of the Swedish/African/Asian International Training Programme (ITP) on ESD in Higher Education (HE), who are mostly university educators. This thesis however focuses on African ITP participants only. At a macro level, the research sought to examine how African university educators have contributed to the United Nations Decade of Education for Sustainable Development (UNDESD) through their participation in the ITP (which is a change oriented professional development training programme on ESD) and the associated ESD ‘change projects’. The change projects are ITP participants’ direct attempts to mainstream environment and sustainability issues, concerns, and concepts into core university functions and practices: teaching, research, community engagement, and management operations and policy engagement. At a meso level the study sought insight into how educators in national institutions were supported by sub-regional and regional initiatives, institutions and organisations, including the Mainstreaming of Environment and Sustainability in African (MESA) Universities Partnership programme, especially an initiative supported by the Southern African Development Community Regional Environmental Education Programme to provide (limited) seed funding to three southern African universities to establish what are known as ‘MESA Chairs’, with dedicated time and support for MESA activities in their universities . At a micro level, this research sought to investigate how the position-practice systems and the ITP shape (enable or constrain) effective ESD mainstreaming in higher education, and how the morphogenetic approach and laminated system can be used to understand and explain these dynamics and their relations with meso and macro level engagements. The research sought to understand these dynamics through empirical investigations using survey questionnaires, interviews, document analysis and field visits. The research is constituted as theoretical, conceptual, methodological and analytical exploration using a singular and nested case study research approach, underlaboured by a critical realist ontology, and drawing on a social learning epistemology and social realist morphogenetic interpretive lens. In particular, ontological depth was sought via critical realist laminated system explanation. See Chapter Two for details. This study was carried out in three phases. Phase one encapsulates the investigation of all ITP ESD in higher education alumni who were Asian and African participants from the inception of the ITP to its completion, over a six-year period (2008-2013). This included 280 academics from Asia and Africa in 35 countries in Asia and Africa from 106 institutions in Asia and Africa with their 139 change projects. The outcome of phase one of the research is only included in this thesis as an appendix (see Appendix 3; Agbedahin & Lotz-Sisitka, 2015). However, this phase provided and formed the foundational data that was expanded in phases two and three for the purpose of this study. Phase two of this research concentrated on a less broad population of research participants comprising only all African ITP alumni, from all regions in Africa. The overall data collection and analysis included 162 academics in 23 African countries from 66 institutions with their 81 change projects. The aim was to investigate and provide a morphogenetic explanation of their change projects and how the relationship between participants’ positions and practices (and that of others) may influence ESD mainstreaming in universities. The outcome of this phase two investigation is presented in Chapter Four. In phase three, (nested) case studies of Swaziland, Zambia, and Botswana (in the southern Africa region), which included all the ESD ITP HE participants therein and the three corresponding EE/ESD MESA Chairs, were developed. The population sample in this phase three therefore contained 20 academics, from six institutions with their nine change projects. This phase was characterised by field trips to these countries and in-depth data collection and analysis in order to investigate and deepen the morphogenetic explanations of their change projects and how the relationship between participants’ positions and practices (and that of others) have indeed influenced the ESD mainstreaming in universities. The outcome of this phase three research is presented in Chapters Five, Six and Seven. The final Chapter Eight of this thesis focuses on the seven scalar laminated system perspective and reflections on this research and discussion of these perspectives for supporting the mainstreaming of ESD in African higher education institutions and more specifically in the three case countries and respective institutions presented in Chapters Five, Six, and Seven. The seven scalar laminated system is presented in relation to the position-practice system, and draws on morphogenetic social realist and social learning theory to provide perspective on the actual change processes. Chapter Eight also includes a discussion on social learning and its implication for ESD mainstreaming, and provides recommendations for further research. The outcome of the theoretical exploration underpinning this study provided a potential model for understanding ESD learning and change processes that are facilitated by professional development training programmes in the context of ESD in HE. This study also provides a model for appraising educational changes in time and in space, especially in relation to ESD, or the types of changes that can be brought about by professional development interventions such as those provided by the ITP and how they can be tracked, monitored and documented. For the field of professional or academic development in higher education, this research highlights the significance of the relationship between position-practice systems, professional development interventions and institutional transformation. For the field of ESD in higher education, this study shows the need for in-depth consideration of the position-practice system and sphere of influence of change agents and related stakeholders in and around their institutions in the design and development of professional development programmes. It further sheds light on the laminated system of factors that contextually constrain and/or enable effective ESD mainstreaming at individual, collective, institutional, national, regional and global levels.
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- Date Issued: 2016
A narrative-discursive analysis of abortion decision-making in Zimbabwe
- Authors: Chiweshe, Malvern Tatenda
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/496 , vital:19964
- Description: Most research on abortion decision-making has looked at the factors or influences that are seen to affect abortion decision-making and thus take a health determinants approach. However, this approach is rarely able to account for the complex, multi-faceted nature of abortion decision-making, and it is often not located within a framework that can unpick the complex array of power relations that underpins the process of abortion decision-making. Research on abortion decision-making has rarely examined how women who undergo a termination of pregnancy (TOP) construct micro-narratives of the decision to terminate the pregnancy and also how these women are positioned by the service providers who interact with them. Using a Foucauldian postcolonial feminist approach and narrative-discursive analysis, this study explores abortion decision-making narratives in a Zimbabwean context where abortion laws are restrictive. In this study I elicited the narratives of women who had undergone an abortion about how they came to make the decision and proceeded to terminate the pregnancy. I highlight the discourses employed in constructing these narratives and how women position themselves in these narratives and discourses. These are then compared to the subject positions enabled in health service providers’ narratives on the same topic. These narratives are then linked to the social discourses and power relations that work to enable or constrain reproductive justice. The data were collected from three sites in Harare, Zimbabwe. The three sites were Harare Hospital, Epworth and Mufakose. An adapted version of Wengraf’s (2001) narrative interview was used to elicit narratives from 18 women who had terminated pregnancies (six at each site). Semi-structured interviews were conducted with six service providers (two nurses at Harare Hospital, two village health workers in Epworth and two nurses in Mufakose). All the service providers interviewed have experience working with women who have terminated pregnancies. In narrating their stories about their abortions, the women employed discursive resources around shame, stigma, religion, health and culture. These discursive resources were drawn upon in the construction of the women’s micro-narratives. The women spoke in a socially sanctioned manner where stories were enabled and constrained by particular religious, cultural and gendered discursive resources. In these stories, cultural constructions, gendered understandings of motherhood and femininity constrained reproductive justice for women who have terminated pregnancies. Comparisons of the way women positioned themselves and how they were positioned by health service providers point to the existence of social discourses and power relations that work to constrain reproductive justice. While the women saw themselves as having ‘unsupportable pregnancies’, the service providers positioned them as being evil, selfish and irresponsible. The negative positions deployed by the service providers point to the vilification and blaming of women who have undergone a termination of pregnancy. In these positions, the woman is at fault and there is silence on the role of men in abortion decision-making. In the women’s narratives and the health service providers positioning of the women a ‘reproductive rights’ discourse was absent. This was significant as much of the activism around abortion has centred on the woman’s rights to her body. Where rights were mentioned, it was in reference to foetal rights (using cultural, moralistic religious understandings of abortion as killing). The missing ‘reproductive rights’ discourse points to a need to move from a reproductive rights framework to a reproductive justice framework that can be applied through local understandings of hunhu/ubuntu. By doing this, abortion is not seen as a ‘choice’ that a woman makes but rather as involving broader social and environmental circumstances that make a pregnancy ‘unsupportable’.
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- Date Issued: 2016
Adaptations in allopatric populations of Triakis megalopterus isolated by the Benguela Current: steps towards understanding evolutionary processes affecting regional biodiversity
- Authors: Soekoe, Michelle
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:5389 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021264
- Description: This study was initiated to gain a better understanding of evolution and adaptation of elasmobranchs by investigating how a putative biogeographic barrier, the Benguela Current, had influenced populations of a demersal shark species, Triakis megalopterus. It was hypothesized that the Benguela Current formed a biogeographic barrier in the distribution of T. megalopterus and was responsible for the divergence between South African (SA) and Angolan (AN) populations. Since elasmobranchs are generally characterized by a slow rate of evolutionary change and conservative morphology and life history traits, it was hypothesized that there would be limited genetic, morphological and life history divergence between the populations. Both mtDNA Control Region (mtCR) and microsatellites (nDNA) were used to assess population connectivity and structure of T. megalopterus. The mtCR predominantly showed a northern (Angola, AN, and Namibia, NA) versus southern (Western Cape, WC, and Eastern Cape, EC) Benguela subsystem arrangement. This suggested that the formation of the Benguela Current had an influence on the genetic structure of T. megalopterus during the early Pleistocene. The nDNA, however, showed a distinct transoceanic, Atlantic (AN, NA, WC) versus Indian Ocean (EC) arrangement, and this was attributed to the more recent exposure of the Agulhas Bank and reduced rocky shore habitat during the glaciations of the late Pleistocene. Traditional morphological analyses on full body and tooth morphology were used to assess phenotypic plasticity and/or adaptability of T. megalopterus. A novel method of geometric morphology, with potential for non-lethal application, was developed and tested to examine interpopulation divergence in shape. Traditional morphometrics showed significant divergence between populations and this variation was congruous with the mtCR haplotypes. However, the divergence in the truss variables was not concomitant to the haplotypes and suggested that differences in shape may be attributed to phenotypic plasticity. There was limited divergence in the tooth morphology between populations. The divergence in several morphological characters associated with swimming speed and manoeuvrability may be attributed to both habitat structure and dominant prey in the different biogeographic zones. The diet of T. megalopterus consisted primarily of crustaceans, teleosts and molluscs. The significant variation in the diet between populations suggested a generalist tooth configuration and broad trophic adaptability. There was significant divergence in the interpopulation life history parameters. The AN population had the fastest growth, smallest size at maturity, and shortest longevity. Individuals in the EC population had the youngest age at maturity, while the WC population had the earliest parturition. This divergence may be attributed to the contrasting thermal regimes in the three biogeographic regions and the dissimilar exploitation rates of the three populations. The results of this thesis demonstrated that a combination of the formation of the Benguela Current and sea level change most likely contributed to vicariance of three populations of T. megalopterus. The significant interpopulation morphological and life history divergence appeared to be both phenotypic and genetic, and suggested that contrasting environmental drivers can result in relatively rapid change in elasmobranchs.
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- Date Issued: 2016
An ethnographic study of beginner mathematics teachers’ classroom practices in the first three years of their employment: Shaping of a Professional Identity
- Authors: Narayanan, Ajayagosh Ettappiriparambil
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2069 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020967
- Description: The main theme in this study examines how beginner mathematics teachers (BTs) shape their professional identity in their first three years of classroom practices in Lesotho. This study, which focuses particularly on BTs’ second and third year of employment, gathers data with an understanding that the notion of professional identity is multi-faceted. Professional identity embraces a host of other identities such as personal identity, teacher identity, mathematics identity and community of practice identity. This study is framed by social theories of learning. Learning occurs by active participation and practice. BTs’ peripheral participation assists them in making sense of the activities (situated learning) in which they are engaged, in the classrooms. The sense making processes eventually shape their professional identity. In line with situated meanings that BTs form, the key notion (professional identity) is further categorised into personal identity, teacher identity, mathematics identity and community of practice identity. These identities integrate to become the professional identity of a beginner mathematics teacher. Using a narrative ethnographic approach as the research method, I have made use of extensive classroom observations and interviews to gather data. In this study, six volunteer participant BTs were originally selected. These teachers were from two districts, Berea and Maseru in Lesotho. After being observed in the classrooms, these teachers were interviewed. In the third year of the study, one participant withdrew from the study. I used vertical (descriptive) analysis to narrate their classroom practice followed by horizontal analysis to understand how they shape their professional identity. The analytical model enables the researcher to analyse the data in order to establish how the BTs’ actions, their reflexive stories and their journey in becoming a mathematics teacher shape their professional identity. The recurring themes that emerged from the horizontal analysis are the ways BTs approach the classroom practice which is dominated by teacher-centred learning. This involves demonstrating an example and then students following this model to practice more examples. In this sense, their approach is the same though these BTs started understanding how their classroom approaches can bring changes in the learning of mathematics. I analysed the utterances from the BTs’ classroom activities by separating these into mathematizing and subjectifying. The subjectifying utterances were further analysed to understand how these created meaning. These, in my view, are also central features of a teacher’s practice that need interpretation in order to understand the shaping of a professional identity. The key finding is that their narrative helped them to understand how they shape their professional identity. The study highlights the importance of listening to BTs’ stories of how they become mathematics teachers. Their narratives can be the benchmark for stake-holders, policy makers and potential researchers as the study on BTs’ professional identity is relatively new in Lesotho.
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- Date Issued: 2016