Falling towards the centre
- Authors: Maluleke, Vuyelwa
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142878 , vital:38125
- Description: I am interested in the poem as a textual body that is able to collect the ruptures, silences, music, and wounds of the body, Ukuzithutha, in order to perform their address. I seek to assemble these disfigured and fractured bodies, of which I am one, onto the page. And thus create an experimental, non-linear lyric of repetitions and fragmentations arranged into a memory text, to hold these stories against what Audre Lorde calls 'the tyranny of silence'. My thesis is influenced by Ntozake Shange's choreopoem, 'for colored girls who have considered suicide when the rainbow was enough', Claudia Rankine's 'Don't let me be Lonely', Sindiswa Bukusu's 'Loud and yellow laughter'. And Fiona Benson’s ‘Vertigo and Ghost’ whose form and lyric is a strong influence on the shape of the manuscript, and the construction of its mythologies.
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Flying Cows & Other Traumas
- Authors: Twijnstra, Philisiwe
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145513 , vital:38445
- Description: My thesis combines short stories and flash fiction and a short novella collection. Working between reality and fantasy. The collection both engage the strangeness of magic in everyday life and explore other worlds. The stories uses different points of view to highlight the impossibility of a single stable reality. The writing is heavily influenced by Amos Tutuola (The Palm-Wine Drunkard) for his big imagination and how he draws from Yoruba folklore and mixes myth to fiction. Mica Dean Hicks (Electricity and other dreams) he writes with simplicity and his settings always believable yet with one sentence everything becomes a different world of seen and unseen. Margarita Karapanou (Kassandra and the wolf) The tone of the book captured me, how she balances heavy social theme around a young girl, the tone changes from chapter to chapter - from surreal to hallucinatory to mythic to something in between all these modes. She writes rape, but not once has she mentioned rape, yet she is writing about rape. Some books that revolutionized the way I see stories are (Kintu) written by Jennifer Nansubuga Makumbi and (Homegoing) by Yaa Gyasi. They both draw from histories yet contemporize their stories. Which my thesis intends to do that in stories such ‘MoonEyed Maiden’ and Sorana. Flying Cows and Other Traumas is an exploration of female body, when the sacredness of the female body is dehumanized by social injustices. Each story is a stand alone; the structure holds the through-line of the collection which conditions the complexities, the rawness and bluntness of how imbalance our society is. When the body is tainted with unfairness and powered down- how does one come up from that? The collection deals with poverty, sexual assault, systemic injustice, and sexism and some stories draw from personal experiences and fears. The female body is used as a hostage of shame and commodity and the female protagonists in ‘Flying Cows & Other Traumas sharpen their own stuff and shields to face their own injustices through blurring lines of mundanity and fantastical with experimental tone.
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Hope in a small town
- Authors: Ngubelanga, Xolisa
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century , South African fiction (English) -- History and criticism , Short stories, South African (English) -- 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145089 , vital:38407
- Description: Writing has always experienced as the elite relative in the family of arts, especially among African artists and art consumers. Somehow writing has in past and to a great extent still is in the present been referred more than song, storytelling and dancing. Interrogating the past of colonization of African narratives I could point that this is the case because African expression had always packaged in a ‘come see the Africans are dancing, singing or storytelling. Listen to their clicks.’ Writing, however, could only be executed by those Africans of white assimilation with higher social status and missionary education. Among amaXhosa, the disparity of socially lesser African arts and that of the educated has been termed the narrative of Amaqaba and Amagqobhoka. Amaqaba being those whose stories have taken longer to be documented in modern means of writing but have been enriched through years of live telling. Amagqobhoka on the other hand who easily documented their narrative after having been trained in writing have enjoined the audience of readers and access into literary space longer.
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Institutional culture and internationalisation: a study of Black African academics’ experiences at Rhodes University
- Authors: Wambua, Lloyd M
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Corporate culture -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Makhanda -- Sociological aspects , Discrimination in higher education -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Rhodes University , College teachers, Black -- South Africa -- Makhanda -- Social conditions , College teachers, Foreign -- South Africa -- Makhanda -- Social conditions , Globalization -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Educational change -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Sex discrimination in higher education -- South Africa -- Makhanda , South Africa -- Race relations , Intersectionality (Sociology) , Pan-Africanism , Belonging (Social psychology) , Alienation (Social psychology)
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/146607 , vital:38541
- Description: This research sets out to examine institutional culture and internationalisation in higher education in contemporary South Africa, by analysing the experiences of black foreign academics at Rhodes University. Much has been written on the adaptation processes of foreign students in South African universities (Ayliff and Wang, 2006; Dzansi and Monnapula-Mapesela, 2012; Mudhovozi, 2011). There is also a host of literature on the black South African experience of adaptation and (non) belonging at historically white universities (HWU) (Akoojee and Nkomo, 2007; Cornell and Kessi, 2017; Soudien, 2008). Comparatively less is written on whether there are any unique pressures regarding institutional culture that black foreign African academics face at historically white institutions such as Rhodes University. The black experience may be misrepresented as a homogenous one by much of the literature on higher education transformation (Batsai, 2019). But there are a host of factors that could change your experience of being ‘black’, such as your class, and gender and quite recently there has been a push to further examine the effect that one’s nationality has on their experience of being ‘black’ in the academy (Batsai, 2019). Institutional culture refers to the “behaviours and values that make up the unique psychological and social environment of a certain institution” (Toma et al., 2005). Internationalisation of higher education in the context of Africa, particularly South Africa refers to “the intentional or unintentional process to integrate intercultural, international and global dimensions in higher education” (Draft Policy Framework for the Internationalisation of Higher Education in South Africa, 2017). In analysing the experiences of international African academics, this research is trying to give a voice to an often-overlooked group of individuals. This research is also meant to portray the black experience in South African higher education as an experience that is not homogenous but reliant on a host of unique identity factors such as gender, class and also their nationality.
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It's my hand that wrote!
- Authors: Magade, Mncedi
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142551 , vital:38090
- Description: This collection of short stories experiments with the idea of the text as it constitutes the world just as much as it is constituted by the world. These short stories use the text as a way to respond to struggles faced by people whose identities do not conform to society’s standards. The stories in here navigate between fantastic and experiential writing which allows the text to speak in its own language. The writing is influenced by that of Mthuthuzeli Matshoba for the realist approach in telling the stories. Ayi Kwei Armah’s writing in Fragments for experientialism that focuses on the dead and the living and which makes specific references to the idea of home – particularly for those who always find it hard to belong. And that of Bruce Sterling’s creation of explosive imagery in science fiction that sticks in the reader’s mind as portrayed in his short story we see things differently. Angela Carter’s brilliance in writing short stories and her approach to magical realism has also been a powerful influence. In telling these stories using a hybrid/fluid approach, I hope to come to terms with being a different “being”. It is to find ways of telling myself that it is okay to be queer, that to be a misfit is no sin. To say this in a language that gives meaning to my own struggles of being. This work is a combination of three disjointed moments of the narrator’s life experiences which are exposed in three sections; It’s My Hand That Wrote, (Un)Tying The Knot and Thoughts. The aim of creating these three moments is to let the reader dive a variety of “truths” of the narrator’s life, instead of aiming to achieve a coherent single “Truth” about one’s life. It’s My Hand That Wrote explores both the unusual and inconsistency of life in a chaotic but explorative fashion.
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Johannesburg as dystopia: South African science fiction as political criticism
- Authors: Kirsten, Ashton Lauren
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Science fiction, South African -- History and criticism , Johannesburg (South Africa) -- Fiction , Science fiction films -- History and criticism , Dystopias in literature , Dystopian films , Politics in literature , Politics in motion pictures , Beukes, Lauren -- Zoo City , Blomkamp, Neill, 1979- -- Chappie , Miller, Andrew K., 1974 or 1975- -- Dub steps
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147671 , vital:38659
- Description: This thesis will interrogate the spatial dynamics and configurations of one of the country’s most prominent cities: Johannesburg. Johannesburg has been, and continues to be, a central focus in the nation’s imaginary. There is a trend within South African science fiction (sf) – both literature and film – to portray Johannesburg as a dystopian, post-law, poverty-stricken space as a means of conceptualising the socioeconomic situation within the country. This study will isolate Johannesburg-based works of sf and interrogate why authors and filmmakers disproportionately return to this setting. Investigated are three contemporary works, namely, Zoo City (2010) by Lauren Beukes, Neill Blomkamp’s film, Chappie (2015), and Dub Steps (2015) by Andrew Miller. This study explores the ways in which South African works of sf serve as social and political critique in the post-apartheid era of financial disparity, the formation of new boundaries, divisions of space and privilege, and the dereliction of critical infrastructure. The primary methodology of this thesis is that of Marxist literary analysis (specifically with reference to Louis Althusser’s theoretical models), which will be conducted alongside discussions of authentic history of the country as well as political developments in order to illustrate how South African sf critically engages with, and succinctly critiques, its context. The aesthetics of African sf are inseparable from the politics of the past and the current moment and through the aesthetics of the future, South Africans can reimagine the politics of the now. This study therefore also revisits a selection of non-sf Johannesburg-set novels published post-1925 and argues that these texts can be studied as early examples of South African dystopian writing. In doing so, this study illustrates that dystopian writing about and in South Africa is not an advent of the 21st century, but an extension of a long history of critical engagement. This thesis suggests that the dystopian genre is helpful in reframing the issues of the present (and the past) so that some form of meaningful change is theorized. The underlying impulse of dystopian cultural production is ultimately hopeful: a worse context is imagined to warn society of its follies so that these shortcomings and issues can be corrected, thereby avoiding the disastrous world(s) portrayed in the fiction. In this way, this study contends that local sf should not be inextricably linked to the melancholia that thoughts of dystopia bring about. Rather, the nuanced criticism contained within these dystopian texts is testament to the country’s ever-enduring spirit of change and transformation.
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Khoekhoe lexical borrowing in Namaqualand Afrikaans
- Authors: Christie, Camilla Rose
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Code switching (Linguistics) , Afrikaans language -- Foreign elements -- Nama , Nama language -- Foreign elements -- Afrikaans , Afrikaans language -- Phonology , Nama language -- Phonology
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/168385 , vital:41576
- Description: Although several languages in the Khoekhoe branch were historically spoken alongside Afrikaans in bilingual speech communities throughout the Western and Northern Cape, the last century has seen abrupt and catastrophic language loss, resulting in a shift from a bilingual to a monolingual paradigm. However, a number of ethnobotanical surveys conducted in the Namaqualand region of the Northern Cape over the last forty years have recorded the retention of Khoekhoe-branch plant names by monolingual Afrikaans speakers. Such surveys make no attempt to source these loanwords to their Khoekhoe-branch targets, do not make use of the standardised Namibian Khoekhoe orthography, and often resort to transcribing loaned click consonants using only ‘t’. This study undertakes a sociohistorical linguistic investigation into the etymological origins and contemporary usage of these loaned plant names in order to develop a clearer understanding of language contact and lexical borrowing in the Namaqualand region. Following the lexicographical compilation of a representative corpus of loanwords, this study conducts a series of semi-structured interviews with monolingual speakers of Namaqualand Afrikaans. Qualitative sociolinguistic analysis of these interviews reveals that, although loanwords are perceived to be of Nama origin, they are semantically opaque beyond pragmatic reference. Preliminary phonological observations identify a loss of phonemic contrastivity in loaned clicks coupled with a high incidence of variability, and suggest epenthetic stop insertion and epenthetic nasalisation as two possible strategies facilitating click loan. Synthesising these ob servations, this study speculates that the use of loanwords hosting clicks may enjoy a degree of covert prestige in Namaqualand Afrikaans, which may in turn shed light on historical sociolinguistic processes of click diffusion. It recommends that urgent and immediate attention be focused on the usage, sociolinguistic status, and regional variation of Nama within the Northern Cape, and advocates strongly for cooperation and improved communication between linguists and ethnobotanists.
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Learning about volunteering: an exploration of literacy volunteers' experiences
- Authors: Yendall, Kaitlin Amy
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Literacy -- Study and teaching -- South Africa , Literacy programs -- South Africa , Voluntarism -- South Africa , Volunteer workers in community development -- Training of , Service learning , Language and education -- South Africa , Language arts (Primary) , English language -- Study and teaching (Elementary) , Volunteer workers in Education -- Training of
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/138336 , vital:37623
- Description: After almost 25 years of democracy in South Africa, not everyone has access to the same quality education. The responsibility of creating a literate society however cannot rely on the national government and schools alone, but instead needs to fall on the shoulders of various stakeholders. Volunteers in particular have an important role to play in remedying the current literacy crisis experienced in South Africa. This study takes the form of a case study approach and examines the experiences of Project Read literacy volunteers. A telephonic survey and two focus group discussions were conducted in order to determine who it is that volunteers for the programme; what prompts these particular individuals to volunteer; the perceived benefits of volunteering; and how volunteers report on their volunteering experiences. Although the Project Read programme is focused on the early literacy development of learners, volunteers seemed to undergo a developmental process themselves – something they had not anticipated at the start of their volunteering journey. This study illustrates the power of meaningful relationships in breaking down artificial categories and in bringing about important change with regards to the perceptions and attitudes of individuals towards community engagement. It is hoped that the data generated through this study will assist in recruiting and retaining more literacy volunteers through feedback to the NGO. In this way more children will be assisted to enhance their literacy competencies, from which they can build and achieve.
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Life after training: professional experiences of recently qualified clinical and counselling psychologists in South Africa
- Authors: Haine, Phillipa
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Clinical psychologists – South Africa , Counseling psychologists – South Africa , Psychologists -- Job stress -- South Africa , Psychologists -- Employment -- South Africa , Career development -- South Africa , Psychologists -- Training of -- South Africa , Life change events , Qualitative research
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/142421 , vital:38078
- Description: Professional psychology in South Africa has experienced numerous transformations since its tainted historical affiliation with the apartheid regime. However, despite the profession’s attempts to respond to the burgeoning mental health needs of the country, psychologists in South Africa continue to be confronted by a number of challenges within the professional field. International research suggests that early career psychologists, in particular, experience further challenges in adjusting to new professional careers. Considering the dearth of research on this topic within local literature, the aim of this study was to gain an in-depth understanding of the lived professional experiences of recently qualified clinical and counselling psychologists in South Africa, following training. An interpretive phenomenological method was employed to investigate the fundamental early career professional experiences of participants, as well as the meanings participants attributed to these experiences. Four participants were recruited using purposive sampling. Data was collected through the use of semi-structured, one-on-one, Skype interviews, and the interview data were analysed using interpretative phenomenological analysis. The study revealed four super-ordinate themes, including: (i) Training as a ‘rite of passage’; (ii) Expectations for a professional future; (iii) Professional psychology: Entering the work space; and (iv) Future directions. The findings suggest that clinical and counselling psychologists’ experiences as recently qualified professionals in South Africa are both positive and negative, with the overall experience being positive. Emerging themes suggest that early career psychologists are faced by a number of personal and professional challenges on entering the work place. Furthermore, findings suggest that the early career experiences of recently qualified clinical and counselling psychologists in South Africa might not necessarily be due to personal choice, but rather due to greater systemic factors, such as limited available posts, maladministration, the devalued status of mental healthcare in comparison to other healthcare concerns in the country, an unresponsive marketplace and limited efforts by government to accommodate psychologists in different contexts
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Making sense of a scam: MMM Mutual Fund participants in Kagiso negotiate dissenting mainstream new coverage on social media
- Authors: Boqo, Bella Makhulu
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Ponzi schemes -- South Africa , Fraud -- South Africa , Social media -- Influence -- South Africa , Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox -- In mass media
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/145771 , vital:38465
- Description: Pyramid, Ponzi and various fraudulent investment schemes are common feature in post-apartheid South Africa. The record levels of participation have generated much discussion in public discourse. Newspapers often abound with reports of participants who’ve lost large sums of money – in many instances their life savings. While on social media, thousands debate the merits and threats of new ventures as they emerge, in some instances using these platforms as the newest recruitment platforms. The sheer size and frequency of their appearance especially in post-revolutionary societies – those which experienced dramatic structural transformation following the end of the Cold War and growth of a neoliberal market economy – has drawn substantive scholarly attention. Much like media reports, however, this research often points to the morality of such practices, asking questions like what factors lead people to make the apparently irrational decision to participate in a scam? This study, however, contributes to a different body of emerging literature concerned with the larger structural contexts in which such forms of economic practice and organisation exist, and the meanings participants make of their involvement. Looking at the recently high profile of case of Mavrodi Mondial Moneybox (MMM), it employs a qualitative research methodology rooted in cultural studies to examine how participants based in the Johannesburg township of Kagiso used social media, specifically WhatsApp, to make sense of and contest the dissenting mainstream news coverage about MMM. Ultimately, it is a question of how their participation in particularly illegal pyramid or Ponzi type schemes and opposition to traditional news reports are rooted in their lived experiences, and what opportunities social media offer as alternate platforms for meaning-making, deliberation and public contestation.
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Multilingualism, innovation, and productivity: an examination of the impact of multilingualism in the workplace, with reference to the BRICS countries
- Authors: Leyne, Breda
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Multilingualism -- BRIC countries , Bilingual communication in organizations , Second language acquisition , Language in the workplace , Diversity in the workplace , Communication in organizations , Intercultural communication , Labor productivity , Organizational behavior , Technological innovations , BRICS countries
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/148149 , vital:38714
- Description: This study examined whether the choice of language in the workplace affects personal and workplace productivity. The study has focussed on those working in countries which come under the BRICS grouping, Brazil, Russia, India and China and South Africa, as this provided a rich comparison of historical, economic and linguistic contexts. The research undertaken sought to explore the impact of prevailing language usage amongst employees of multi-national companies operating within the BRICS countries. With the assumption that these workforces will include multilingual individuals, the study set out to ascertain whether multilingualism has been recognised as a factor that might impact upon personal productivity or progress, either in a positive or negative fashion. The study set out to consider how language use may affect economic behaviour, firstly on a personal level and then to extrapolate this more widely into organisational productivity and innovation. This was set against background research into; theoretical perspectives on the acquisition of additional language, perceived benefits of bilingualism for individuals, studies of the management of language use with multinational corporations and relationships between language and economics. The conclusion reached is that multilingualism could have a beneficial impact on wider workforce productivity, and that it is not just a ‘language problem’ as it often seems to be treated. The final conclusion is that this may be something that should be more carefully considered by organisations in an increasingly global workplace. The researcher considers that multilingualism could be better employed as a workplace productivity metric, in a way that arguably it is not at present.
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My crazy character
- Authors: Sojini, Lungile
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/148217 , vital:38720
- Description: My thesis is a metafictional novella. I am interested in fictionalising the processes that writers use when they sit down to plan, write and publish novels. Metafiction interests me because it breaks from the traditional way of writing fiction, particularly with regards to the appearance of the author in the fictional world created. Devin Gribbons’s metafictional story (titled A Short Story), in the anthology of innovative writing, 30 Under 30, was my inspiration for developing the metafictional approach to novella length. Fyodor Dostoevsky’s Notes from Underground, Chief Fagunwa’s Forest of a Thousand Daemons, and Charles Bukowski’s autobiographical Ham on Rye, have for varying reasons, all influenced this writing.
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Nine stories
- Authors: Dukas, Graham
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/147124 , vital:38595
- Description: Creative work portfolio.
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Now that we have the land: analysing the experiences of land reform beneficiaries in the Makana Municipal District of the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Authors: Msuthu, Simela Thuleka
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Land reform , Sustainable development , Land reform -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Land tenure -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Land settlement -- Government policy -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Restitution -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Local government -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Municipal government -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rural development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/167551 , vital:41491
- Description: The “land question” in South Africa goes back more than a century to the 1913 Natives Land Act which facilitated the dispossession of African people from fertile land to arid homelands and congested townships. This mass dispossession of Africans from their land was accompanied by an array of legislation aimed at restricting their upward mobility, thus laying the foundations of structural inequality in South Africa. The advent of democracy in 1994 brought about a number of legislative reforms aimed at addressing the injustices that were imposed by the colonial and apartheid governments on the African people. At the forefront of these legislative efforts was the restoration of land to the original inhabitants of the country. Research indicates that, since 1994, the South African government has issued out land to different individuals and communities around the country in an attempt to address structural unemployment and poverty that plague the country. Using the Sustainable Livelihoods Theoretical framework, this study sought to examine the experiences of land reform beneficiaries in the Makana Municipal district of the Eastern Cape, in order to determine the extent to which the transfer of land to landless people has met the governments’ agenda to alleviate poverty and unemployment in the rural regions of South Africa. The findings in this study show that, successful land reform in South Africa is hindered mostly by two factors. Firstly, the inability of land beneficiaries to access quality education, skills training, finances and formal agricultural value chains. Secondly, land beneficiaries are further placed at a disadvantage by the poor quality of public services in their local municipalities and inconsistent post-settlement support from the state. The conclusion made in this study, is that the government has to be cognizant of the aforementioned structural barriers, when designing and rolling out land reform projects throughout the country. Failure to address these glaring structural barriers, will result in the creation of a peasant class of people living on underutilized land.
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Power in Africa: a comparison of selected South African and Nigerian dystopian fiction
- Authors: Simelane, Smangaliso
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Dystopias in literature , Africa -- In literature , South African fiction (English) -- History and criticism , Nigerian fiction (English) -- History and criticism , Beukes, Lauren -- Moxyland , Herne, Lily -- Deadlands , Bandele-Thomas, Biyi, 1967- The Sympathetic Undertaker and Other Dreams , Bandele-Thomas, Biyi, 1967- The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/148171 , vital:38716
- Description: Dystopias have frequently been explored in literature to better understand the present and imagine the effects of certain elements of society if taken to a logical extreme. In this way, dystopian fiction can act as both cautionary tales and a form of social commentary. This can be explored within the context of African dystopian fiction where power is a recurring theme, highlighting the anxiety and turbulent history several countries on the continent continue to face. To demonstrate this, I compare selected South African and Nigerian Dystopian texts. With regards to South Africa, I analyse novels by South African science fiction authors Lauren Beukes and Lily Herne, namely Moxyland (2008) and Deadlands (2011) respectively, to investigate how South Africa’s past under Apartheid shapes the segregated societies presented. Nigerian dystopian texts by Biyi Bandele-Thomas, namely The Sympathetic Undertaker And Other Dreams (1993) and The Man Who Came in from the Back of Beyond (1992), are discussed with regards to the way Nigeria’s colonial past and several military juntas have contributed to the kinds of corruption that are depicted. I argue that all four texts warn of the dangers of power, albeit in ways that pertain specifically to their countries of origin. With regards to the South African texts, readers are shown the ways in which those in power can manipulate the desire to survive to keep those they subjugate dependent and, consequently, obedient through what Judith Butler terms ‘passionate attachments’. In the case of the Nigerian dystopias, I argue that Bandele-Thomas’s texts warn of tyranny and effects of the corruption that result from misused power strategies. While the dire settings of dystopian fiction may be grim enough, on their own, to motivate change in the real world, this may not be enough to prevent the texts from becoming pessimistic and fatalistic outlooks. Hence, I seek to understand how the selected novels maintain hope and, consequently, convince readers that the depicted dystopias are ones that can be avoided. Typically, dystopian literature fosters hope by setting the narratives in the future, giving readers hope that they may take steps today to protect their societies from becoming like the damned worlds described by dystopian authors. However, the selected texts are not set in the future. Hence, I explore three literary techniques that might foster hope within the selected African dystopian texts in lieu of temporal distancing. They are, namely: identification with the protagonist, defamiliarization and cognitive estrangement.
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Re-adjustment of masculinities and sexualities amongst first year male students at Rhodes University in the wake of the residence Consent Talk’s programme
- Authors: Ntisana, Thulani
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Communication in higher education - South Africa -- Makhanda , Rape in universities and colleges -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Masculinity -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Male college students -- Social life and customs -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Male college students -- Sexual behavior -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Male college students -- Conduct of life -- South Africa -- Makhanda , Men -- Identity , Male domination (Social structure) , Patriarchy -- South Africa , Women -- Violence against -- South Africa , Social problems -- South Africa , Consent Talks , #RUreferencelist
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/148956 , vital:38790
- Description: This study seeks to understand how Rhodes University first-year male students adjusted and re-adjusted their masculinities and sexualities in light of the Consent Talk programme offered by the university, the aim of which is to liberate masculinities and femininities from patriarchal and dominant discourses. In the past 26 years, South Africa has seen an increase in academic research establishing causal links between boys, men, masculinities and a number of social ills such as the HIV/AIDs epidemic, violence against women, substance abuse, homophobia, gender-based violence and a lower pass rate amongst boys. This in turn inspired an increase in interventions seeking to involve boys and men in order to identify and address their role in combating gender based violence. These various forms of social deviances that have been linked to masculinity have indicated that young men's masculinity is in crisis and as a result needs great attention in order to address the social issues linked to them. Institutions of higher learning have proven to be microcosms of the larger society. Universities have become highly sexualised spaces; coercive sexual practices in heterosexual relationships are a norm, young women don't feel safe and have lost confidence in universities addressing their concerns. With the emergence of the #RUreferencelist in 2016, the spotlight fell on Rhodes University; young women challenged the rape culture and sexual assaults on campus. In 2016, staff members who are well-informed and educated on issues of gender, sexuality and rape initiated discussions with students in their residences; these discussions were later to be called the Consent Talks. This research makes use of Pierre Bourdieu’s critical theory in understanding how young men negotiate their masculinity within the field of higher education, at Rhodes University. Bourdieu’s three main concepts, field, habitus and capital are used to describe how young men negotiate their masculinity and how the field of gender intersects with the field of higher education. A qualitative paradigm has been employed. The study has collected data through the use of in-depth interviews to get a richer insight into the participants’ perspectives. There were 15 interviews conducted in total for this study, 14 were with first year male students, and one with a senior official of the University. The data was analysed through a qualitative thematic analysis. The findings of the research reveal that some of the participants were exposed to patriarchal and dominant forms of masculinity when growing up. However, most of the participants revealed they were also exposed to alternative masculinities. These were either taught or learnt at home, from family members, circumcision school, church or peers in society. Both the dominant and alternative masculinities were revealed in the discourses of what it means to be a man and in how the young men performed their masculinities. Furthermore, one of the major themes that emerged was that most of the young men in the study were raised by single mothers with mothers playing a significant role in encouraging healthy masculinities. The findings went on to reveal that families (mothers, fathers, older siblings and culture) play a role in socialising and shaping healthy masculinities. The acceptance or rejection of either dominant or alternative masculinities was influenced by an exposure to an environment that either encouraged or shunned either dominant or alternative masculinities. The findings further unveils that different societies are strongly identified with their own definitions of what it means to be a man and are not open to other definitions of masculinity. Moreover, most of the participants accepted the content of what was taught in the Consent Talks; however sought healthy participation, interaction and inclusion of female students. Lastly, the study has also revealed that knowledge of the consequences of breaking (the law) university’s policy does affect some change of behaviour in potential perpetrators.
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Red and other short stories
- Authors: Harrison, Francis J
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) -- 21st century
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141583 , vital:37987
- Description: Part A: Thesis (Creative Work);Part B: Portfolio. Final submission for the degree of Master of Arts in Creative Writing (MACW).
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Relevant knowledge: content analysis of research conducted by South African psychology masters students (2008-2012
- Authors: Whitehead, Tracey
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: Psychology -- Research -- South Africa , Psychology -- Study and teaching (Higher) -- South Africa , Psychology students -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/167683 , vital:41503
- Description: In South Africa, Psychology has had a chequered past mainly due to its role in the justification of apartheid policies. Due to apartheid's socio-economic injustices, confidence in the applicability of psychological knowledge to South Africa's social problems was insufficient. Psychologists attempted to raise consciousness of the social relevance of psychology by contributing relevant knowledge and being reactive to social inequalities and related psychosocial issues affecting South Africa. This study aimed to conduct a content analysis of trends in research produced by Psychology Masters' students in the fields of Clinical, Counselling and Research psychology over a period of 5 years (2008-2012). The corpus of data was then compared with the key issues raised in the United Nations Development Programme's South Africa human development report (2003), along with a focus on articles published by Macleod (2004) and Macleod and Howell (2013). It emerged that Empirical Qualitative studies, based on post-modern frameworks, as well as HIV/AIDS, Knowledge Production, Assessment and Measurement and Programme development and evaluation, dominated psychological research. Participants were mainly urban, middle class adults living in the 3 wealthiest provinces. University students were the most popular participant group. While it is encouraging that students were attempting to engage with psychosocial issues, the limited number of key social issues addressed, the under-representation of certain sectors of the South African population, as well as the impact of socioeconomic status on well-being requires greater attention at Masters' level to ensure Psychology's psychosocial relevance.
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Reliving it through pen
- Authors: Chidi, Tsosheletso
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: South African fiction (English) , Northern Sotho poetry
- Language: English , Northern Sotho
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/163566 , vital:41049
- Description: This document consists of two parts: PART A: English Half Thesis (Creative Work) PART B: Dual Language Portfolio (Sepedi and English). This thesis focuses on witnessing the trauma of rape, inability to move on, denial and attempt to forget, it draws attention also to emotional abuse in a place called home, death and place. My work is influenced by Carolyn Fourche’s anthology, Against Forgetting: Poetry of Witness, Adam Bradley and Andrew Dubois’s The Anthology of the Rap, as well as Lesego Rampolokeng poem “Welcome to New Consciousness”.
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Reporting drought: framing an anthropogenic natural disaster in the South African mainstream publication, City Press, over three years (2015-2018)
- Authors: Matyobeni, Thandiwe
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: City Press , City Press -- Criticism, Textual , Droughts -- South Africa , Mass media and the environment -- South Africa , Climatic changes in mass media -- South Africa , Press -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143179 , vital:38208
- Description: This study interrogates how the ongoing anthropogenic drought, declared a disaster in five South African provinces in 2015, has been represented by mainstream news media. The news media enables public participation which is vital to climate action and the regulation of harmful neoliberal practices that fuel climate change and are thus necessary to provide information about climate change and to support political interventions. Despite the gravity of the drought crisis, there is a severe lack of public opinion about it and the complex weather patterns to which it is attributed. This study thus investigates how the drought has been framed by mainstream news media in South Africa, confining itself to a single title, the City Press. To analyse representations of drought in the City Press, this study adopts a Foucauldian approach to discourse which considers representations as meaning constructed through language. The knowledge perpetuated in news texts is thus frequently perceived as the ‘truth’ about the drought. This knowledge is imbued with power as those in positions of authority determine what is articulated as truth. Through various institutional practices, journalists limit what is said about the drought, framing it in particular ways and privileging particular voices. What the public learns about the drought (and in turn, climate change) is thus limited by the norms and routines of the journalistic regime and the corporate nature of ownership. Notably, the City Press operates within the neoliberal economic order to which climate change is attributed. This study is located within the Cultural Studies and Journalism Studies paradigms and is further informed by a qualitative methodology and two methods of textual analysis, that is, thematic analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis. The sampling process produced a database of 26 news texts published by the City Press between the years 2015 to 2018. Five texts were purposively selected for an in-depth analysis based on a broad thematic analysis as reasonably representative of the discourses that recur. Although the City Press positions itself as a critical purveyor of political information, only three themes recur in the texts. These themes position drought in relation to the agricultural economy and urban infrastructure; foreground the voices of corporate entities; while the climate science behind weather patterns is inadequately interpreted. Any discussion of climate change and alternatives to mainstream economic practices is almost entirely omitted.
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