Where are the men? : an investigation into female-headed households in Rini, with reference to household structures, the dynamics of gender and strategies against poverty
- Authors: Brown, Brenda
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Women heads of households -- South Africa , Poor women -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2097 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002660 , Women heads of households -- South Africa , Poor women -- South Africa
- Description: An in-depth study is conducted into ten female-headed households in the township of Rini, an underprivileged section of Grahamstown in the Eastem Cape region of South Africa. The study provides information on the way in which such households function in conditions of poverty and underemployment. The meaning of the term 'household' is clearly defined. A household consists of a group of people, who may or may not be kin-related, but who usually live under the same roof, eat together and share resources. Household members may be absent for varying periods of time, but are still considered to have rights in the household to which they belong. The female-headed household usually contains a core of adult women who are often uterine kin. Men are frequently members of these households and are usually related to the women who form the core. Their status and roles in such households are defined and intra-household relations between household members are discussed. In this study, female headship is observed to occur in conditions of poverty when an elderly woman is widowed, receives a regular income in the form of and old age pension, and when her status as the senior member of the household is acknowledged. The presence of men in female-headed households has not been widely emphasised in other studies, either of the female-headed household itself, or in research done in this area of South Africa. An attempt is therefore made to illustrate the way in which men function in these households and the varying roles they play. An attempt is also made to describe other structures and practices which support the female-headed household in a rapidly changing urban environment. These include church membership, burial society membership, the informal economy, wider kinship networks and, in the case of the men, the rite of circumcision.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1996
- Authors: Brown, Brenda
- Date: 1996
- Subjects: Women heads of households -- South Africa , Poor women -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2097 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002660 , Women heads of households -- South Africa , Poor women -- South Africa
- Description: An in-depth study is conducted into ten female-headed households in the township of Rini, an underprivileged section of Grahamstown in the Eastem Cape region of South Africa. The study provides information on the way in which such households function in conditions of poverty and underemployment. The meaning of the term 'household' is clearly defined. A household consists of a group of people, who may or may not be kin-related, but who usually live under the same roof, eat together and share resources. Household members may be absent for varying periods of time, but are still considered to have rights in the household to which they belong. The female-headed household usually contains a core of adult women who are often uterine kin. Men are frequently members of these households and are usually related to the women who form the core. Their status and roles in such households are defined and intra-household relations between household members are discussed. In this study, female headship is observed to occur in conditions of poverty when an elderly woman is widowed, receives a regular income in the form of and old age pension, and when her status as the senior member of the household is acknowledged. The presence of men in female-headed households has not been widely emphasised in other studies, either of the female-headed household itself, or in research done in this area of South Africa. An attempt is therefore made to illustrate the way in which men function in these households and the varying roles they play. An attempt is also made to describe other structures and practices which support the female-headed household in a rapidly changing urban environment. These include church membership, burial society membership, the informal economy, wider kinship networks and, in the case of the men, the rite of circumcision.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1996
The well-being implications of Urban Natures among Black Urban Dwellers in the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Walsh, Lindsey Sara
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: Apartheid South Africa Eastern Cape , Decolonization South Africa Eastern Cape , Urban Black people South Africa Eastern Cape , Quality of life South Africa Eastern Cape , Well-being South Africa Eastern Cape , Rural-urban migration South Africa Eastern Cape , Urban ecology (Sociology) South Africa Eastern Cape , Land use, Urban South Africa Eastern Cape , City and town life South Africa Eastern Cape , Sociology, Urban South Africa Eastern Cape , Nature Social aspects South Africa Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/192966 , vital:45285
- Description: Throughout the world, urbanisation is at an all-time high. It is estimated that two-thirds of the global population will be living in urban centres by 2030. The highest urban growth rates are currently found in sub -Saharan Africa, however, approximately 70% of urban residents in Sub-Saharan Africa reside in informal settlements. Such processes have resulted in reduced areas of natural space and biodiversity. While the benefits of exposure to and experiences of nature to human well-being and quality of life are increasingly being acknowledged, these links are largely understood through a western lens, where nature and culture are dichotomised. The implications of this are that the types of nature(s) that are made available in urban areas are designed to provide opportunities for urban residents to only engage in recreational and relaxation activities within such places. However, among indigenous and non-westernised communities, culture is a dynamic and holistic entity, deeply rooted in the constructions of nature. Very few studies from the global south have entered this dialogue. In response, this study, conducted amongst Xhosa speaking urban residents living in two medium-sized towns, was undertaken to explore the connections and meanings they attributed to nature(s) and how their engagement in such places contributed to their sense of well-being. This study found that strong connections and meanings to nature still exist. Many of these relate to personal experiences which are given meaning through local understandings and associations which are deeply embedded within cultural practices and rituals. Engagement and or memories of such are strongly associated with a sense of well-being often only experienced in rural areas. In such contexts, well-being is also understood as a holistic concept that is underpinned by these nature-culture connections. Within an urban context, the benefits of such connections are hindered by the types of nature(s) found in these areas as well as high levels of crime and the poor management of such places. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Anthropology, 2021
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021-10-29
- Authors: Walsh, Lindsey Sara
- Date: 2021-10-29
- Subjects: Apartheid South Africa Eastern Cape , Decolonization South Africa Eastern Cape , Urban Black people South Africa Eastern Cape , Quality of life South Africa Eastern Cape , Well-being South Africa Eastern Cape , Rural-urban migration South Africa Eastern Cape , Urban ecology (Sociology) South Africa Eastern Cape , Land use, Urban South Africa Eastern Cape , City and town life South Africa Eastern Cape , Sociology, Urban South Africa Eastern Cape , Nature Social aspects South Africa Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/192966 , vital:45285
- Description: Throughout the world, urbanisation is at an all-time high. It is estimated that two-thirds of the global population will be living in urban centres by 2030. The highest urban growth rates are currently found in sub -Saharan Africa, however, approximately 70% of urban residents in Sub-Saharan Africa reside in informal settlements. Such processes have resulted in reduced areas of natural space and biodiversity. While the benefits of exposure to and experiences of nature to human well-being and quality of life are increasingly being acknowledged, these links are largely understood through a western lens, where nature and culture are dichotomised. The implications of this are that the types of nature(s) that are made available in urban areas are designed to provide opportunities for urban residents to only engage in recreational and relaxation activities within such places. However, among indigenous and non-westernised communities, culture is a dynamic and holistic entity, deeply rooted in the constructions of nature. Very few studies from the global south have entered this dialogue. In response, this study, conducted amongst Xhosa speaking urban residents living in two medium-sized towns, was undertaken to explore the connections and meanings they attributed to nature(s) and how their engagement in such places contributed to their sense of well-being. This study found that strong connections and meanings to nature still exist. Many of these relate to personal experiences which are given meaning through local understandings and associations which are deeply embedded within cultural practices and rituals. Engagement and or memories of such are strongly associated with a sense of well-being often only experienced in rural areas. In such contexts, well-being is also understood as a holistic concept that is underpinned by these nature-culture connections. Within an urban context, the benefits of such connections are hindered by the types of nature(s) found in these areas as well as high levels of crime and the poor management of such places. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Anthropology, 2021
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2021-10-29
The rural-urban interface: the ambiguous nature of informal settlements, with special reference to the Daggafontein settlement in Gauteng
- Authors: Kumalo, Sibongiseni
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Cities and towns -- South Africa -- Gauteng -- Growth , Squatter settlements -- South Africa -- Gauteng , Urban anthropology -- South Africa -- Gauteng , Rural-urban migration -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2091 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002654 , Cities and towns -- South Africa -- Gauteng -- Growth , Squatter settlements -- South Africa -- Gauteng , Urban anthropology -- South Africa -- Gauteng , Rural-urban migration -- South Africa
- Description: The thesis is concerned with the rural-urban interface. It questions and argues against the validity of what used to be called the rural-urban divide, and presents the rural-urban interface as a single social field. The research makes use of Daggafontein informal settlement in Gauteng, providing a general socio-economic overview of this settlement by discussing the ways in which people in this settlement make a living. Most of the people come from rural areas and the patterns of their association within the settlement reveal that they associate themselves with people from their own rural homes of origin. Movement between Daggafontein and rural areas show some level of commitment to home areas. Perceptions of the urban-rural interface by people of Daggafontein informal settlement show that these two areas are not necessarily separate from each other, but are part of the same continuum as socio-economic relations continue to straddle the rural and the urban. As people, perceptions and values move in both directions along the rural-urban interface, the classification of the informal settlement becomes highly ambiguous, because it contains both rural and urban elements.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Kumalo, Sibongiseni
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Cities and towns -- South Africa -- Gauteng -- Growth , Squatter settlements -- South Africa -- Gauteng , Urban anthropology -- South Africa -- Gauteng , Rural-urban migration -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2091 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002654 , Cities and towns -- South Africa -- Gauteng -- Growth , Squatter settlements -- South Africa -- Gauteng , Urban anthropology -- South Africa -- Gauteng , Rural-urban migration -- South Africa
- Description: The thesis is concerned with the rural-urban interface. It questions and argues against the validity of what used to be called the rural-urban divide, and presents the rural-urban interface as a single social field. The research makes use of Daggafontein informal settlement in Gauteng, providing a general socio-economic overview of this settlement by discussing the ways in which people in this settlement make a living. Most of the people come from rural areas and the patterns of their association within the settlement reveal that they associate themselves with people from their own rural homes of origin. Movement between Daggafontein and rural areas show some level of commitment to home areas. Perceptions of the urban-rural interface by people of Daggafontein informal settlement show that these two areas are not necessarily separate from each other, but are part of the same continuum as socio-economic relations continue to straddle the rural and the urban. As people, perceptions and values move in both directions along the rural-urban interface, the classification of the informal settlement becomes highly ambiguous, because it contains both rural and urban elements.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
“We are white”: oral tradition, documented history and molecular biology of Xhosa clans descended from non-African forebears and their expression of this ancestry through the idiom of ancestor religion
- Authors: Hayward, Janet M
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Clans -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Patrilineal kinship -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Xhosa (African people) -- Genealogy , Oral history -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Genetic genealogy , Xhosa (African people) -- Rites and ceremonies , Xhosa (African people) -- Race identity
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/62939 , vital:28312
- Description: Xhosa clan membership is symbolised by a clan-name (isiduko) and passed along the male line from father to son. This social indicator has a biological counterpart in Y chromosome DNA that passes through successive generations in the patriline. Both relate specifically to a distant patrilineal forebear or apical ancestor. The present study has involved the collection and documentation of oral-historical information relating to the descent of certain Cape Nguni clans from non-African forebears and (where possible) a review of documented accounts of such origins. The research has also included collection of buccal cells from male research participants and analysis of their Y chromosome DNA. This method indicates whether a man’s patrilineal forebear lived in Africa. Otherwise, it indicates the broad geographical region from which he originated, hence providing an additional, independent source of information relating to ancestry that can confirm or challenge claims made based on oral history. Ethnographic research into the performance of distinctive ancestor rituals by clan members explores the continuing relevance of foreign ancestry in the contemporary context of rural communities in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The study heeds calls for the decolonisation of scholarship in various ways: methodologically, through transdisciplinary research; ontologically, by questioning the utility of the nature: culture and related dichotomies; and epistemologically, because instead of relying entirely on the western academic tradition, it takes account of other modes of knowledge production. In rejection of the notion that only one side of history is true, it records multiple voices – those of the powerful but also the ordinary. The study deals with race and racial identification, but confirms the superficiality of these constructed differences by offering evidence of their submergence in the unifying power of kinship and descent.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
- Authors: Hayward, Janet M
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: Clans -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Patrilineal kinship -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Xhosa (African people) -- Genealogy , Oral history -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Genetic genealogy , Xhosa (African people) -- Rites and ceremonies , Xhosa (African people) -- Race identity
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/62939 , vital:28312
- Description: Xhosa clan membership is symbolised by a clan-name (isiduko) and passed along the male line from father to son. This social indicator has a biological counterpart in Y chromosome DNA that passes through successive generations in the patriline. Both relate specifically to a distant patrilineal forebear or apical ancestor. The present study has involved the collection and documentation of oral-historical information relating to the descent of certain Cape Nguni clans from non-African forebears and (where possible) a review of documented accounts of such origins. The research has also included collection of buccal cells from male research participants and analysis of their Y chromosome DNA. This method indicates whether a man’s patrilineal forebear lived in Africa. Otherwise, it indicates the broad geographical region from which he originated, hence providing an additional, independent source of information relating to ancestry that can confirm or challenge claims made based on oral history. Ethnographic research into the performance of distinctive ancestor rituals by clan members explores the continuing relevance of foreign ancestry in the contemporary context of rural communities in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. The study heeds calls for the decolonisation of scholarship in various ways: methodologically, through transdisciplinary research; ontologically, by questioning the utility of the nature: culture and related dichotomies; and epistemologically, because instead of relying entirely on the western academic tradition, it takes account of other modes of knowledge production. In rejection of the notion that only one side of history is true, it records multiple voices – those of the powerful but also the ordinary. The study deals with race and racial identification, but confirms the superficiality of these constructed differences by offering evidence of their submergence in the unifying power of kinship and descent.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2018
Examining the influence of non-governmental organizations upon the long term outcomes of the involuntary community resettlement processes: with special reference to the Kariba case, Zambia
- Authors: Sitambuli, Emma
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2125 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021263
- Description: Researchers have clearly demonstrated that Development‐Induced Displacement and Resettlement (DIDR) usually risks impoverishing people and that annually, millions are displaced as a result. Although the impacts and consequences of resettlement are known, over the next couple of decades, development projects will continue to be needed to meet the different demands of growing economies and populations, of especially developing countries, making relocation sometimes unavoidable. Hence, over the years, many scholars have developed conceptual frameworks to understand and explain the impoverishment risks inherent in the resettlement phenomenon; and how those can be anticipated so as to be positively counteracted through strategic interactions and the implementation of development activities. Generally, the majority of those development activities to improve resettlement outcomes have often been planned, funded, and executed by the government, albeit with mixed levels of success, yet the possibilities of other development institutions such as Non‐Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have not been fully understood. However, a great deal of what is known about NGOs relates to their work in advocacy and activism to pressure governments to, for example, change relocation plans or raise awareness on the negative impacts of development projects on people and environment. Therefore, this thesis examines the influence of NGOs upon the on‐going outcomes of the involuntary community resettlement processes. The empirical basis is ethnographic research, which integrated several resettlement conceptual frameworks and theories about NGOs to collect and analyse data. Fieldwork was carried out in four villages of Simamba i.e. Malata, Kafwakuduli, Nangoba and Hamukonde. Simamba is one of the riverine Gwembe chiefdoms resettled following the construction of the Kariba dam on the Zambezi River bordering Zambia and Zimbabwe. The ethnographic research for this thesis was conducted from 2013 to 2015. In this thesis, I demonstrate that spatial factors influenced the resettlement trajectory using evidence from Simamba’s pre and post resettlement situation. I conclude by arguing that sustained contributions of the NGO type of development can positively influence the long‐term outcomes of involuntary community resettlement processes, and that problems that occurred were largely related to the management of the community development activities by the NGO under study. Therefore, this thesis is relevant to resettlement and development studies in general.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Sitambuli, Emma
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2125 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021263
- Description: Researchers have clearly demonstrated that Development‐Induced Displacement and Resettlement (DIDR) usually risks impoverishing people and that annually, millions are displaced as a result. Although the impacts and consequences of resettlement are known, over the next couple of decades, development projects will continue to be needed to meet the different demands of growing economies and populations, of especially developing countries, making relocation sometimes unavoidable. Hence, over the years, many scholars have developed conceptual frameworks to understand and explain the impoverishment risks inherent in the resettlement phenomenon; and how those can be anticipated so as to be positively counteracted through strategic interactions and the implementation of development activities. Generally, the majority of those development activities to improve resettlement outcomes have often been planned, funded, and executed by the government, albeit with mixed levels of success, yet the possibilities of other development institutions such as Non‐Governmental Organizations (NGOs) have not been fully understood. However, a great deal of what is known about NGOs relates to their work in advocacy and activism to pressure governments to, for example, change relocation plans or raise awareness on the negative impacts of development projects on people and environment. Therefore, this thesis examines the influence of NGOs upon the on‐going outcomes of the involuntary community resettlement processes. The empirical basis is ethnographic research, which integrated several resettlement conceptual frameworks and theories about NGOs to collect and analyse data. Fieldwork was carried out in four villages of Simamba i.e. Malata, Kafwakuduli, Nangoba and Hamukonde. Simamba is one of the riverine Gwembe chiefdoms resettled following the construction of the Kariba dam on the Zambezi River bordering Zambia and Zimbabwe. The ethnographic research for this thesis was conducted from 2013 to 2015. In this thesis, I demonstrate that spatial factors influenced the resettlement trajectory using evidence from Simamba’s pre and post resettlement situation. I conclude by arguing that sustained contributions of the NGO type of development can positively influence the long‐term outcomes of involuntary community resettlement processes, and that problems that occurred were largely related to the management of the community development activities by the NGO under study. Therefore, this thesis is relevant to resettlement and development studies in general.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
Frontier heartland : analysing the impact of forestry and tourism on 'white' identity in Maclear
- Authors: Griffin, Donna-Lee
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Agriculture -- South Africa -- Maclear Agriculture -- Economic aspects -- South Africa -- Maclear Economic development -- South Africa -- Maclear Tourism management -- South Africa -- Maclear Forests and forestry -- Economic aspects -- South Africa -- Maclear Whites -- South Africa -- Maclear -- Economic conditions
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2115 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008066
- Description: The North Eastern Cape in South Africa is part of a larger province that is in desperate need of job creation and economic development. In light of these needs, efforts have been made by members of the community and outside investors to generate new forms of income in the area. These economic developments emerged in the form of small-scale tourism initiatives and commercial forestry. The impact of these developments on the small community of Maclear differs in nature and is bringing about social change and influencing identity. In this thesis, I explore the effects of each of these developments on the local farming community, particularly the established white English-speaking farmers. For various important reasons, such as the changes to land use patterns occurring around them in terms of forestry and tourism initiatives, I chose to examine the situation of this minority. In general discussions and portrayals of white farmers, it is hypothesized that whites living in small farming communities are resistant to change, politically stagnant and socially conservative. In this thesis I test this hypothesis and investigate what South Africans might see as the core, or whether there is a core of, white settler identity. TIle idea of 'frontiers' being heartlands was emphasized in Maclear as residents spoke about the pioneering efforts of their forefathers and discussed these efforts as the essence of their identity. Forestry is a contemporary ' frontier' encroaching on these white Settlers. A dynamic concept of landscape is central to these identity construction efforts. In this thesis I explore, through different articulations of landscape, how residents, recent arrivals and investors attempt to embed their identity and resources in the community. I ask whether it is possible for members of the white community to produce an alternate and politically viable interpretation of landscape in post-apartheid South Africa. Can land and landscape offer them a sense of belonging and identity? What is their experience in view of the impositions of major investors who see land purely as an economic unit? The research does not explicitly investigate how 'new' black farmers and farming groups perceive and experience land and landscape. What is noted is the imagined passivity of black labourers on white-owned land. This thesis touches on issues inlportant to democratic change and progress in South Africa. How will the new government deal with the thorny issue of land redistribution in the face of competing claims for land and identity? How will the various sections of the white community (in this case the farming community) negotiate their identity in the new South Africa? Also, what do ' frontier' towns like Maclear reveal about the nature of white identity in post-apartheid South Africa? This thesis relies on gender and constructionist theories of landscape as developed by Appadurai (1996) to explain the dynamic nature of landscape in Maclear. It also explores and appraises the idea of ' frontier'. In the analysis of identity, I take into account that white settlers 'success' relies in part on the settlers ability to adapt to the ' frontier' and their ability to construct a new identity in their newfound 'homeland' (simliar to Paul Gilroy's (1993) "double consciousness). Keywords: South Africa, Maclear, Farming, White Identity, Landscape and Tourism.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Griffin, Donna-Lee
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Agriculture -- South Africa -- Maclear Agriculture -- Economic aspects -- South Africa -- Maclear Economic development -- South Africa -- Maclear Tourism management -- South Africa -- Maclear Forests and forestry -- Economic aspects -- South Africa -- Maclear Whites -- South Africa -- Maclear -- Economic conditions
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2115 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008066
- Description: The North Eastern Cape in South Africa is part of a larger province that is in desperate need of job creation and economic development. In light of these needs, efforts have been made by members of the community and outside investors to generate new forms of income in the area. These economic developments emerged in the form of small-scale tourism initiatives and commercial forestry. The impact of these developments on the small community of Maclear differs in nature and is bringing about social change and influencing identity. In this thesis, I explore the effects of each of these developments on the local farming community, particularly the established white English-speaking farmers. For various important reasons, such as the changes to land use patterns occurring around them in terms of forestry and tourism initiatives, I chose to examine the situation of this minority. In general discussions and portrayals of white farmers, it is hypothesized that whites living in small farming communities are resistant to change, politically stagnant and socially conservative. In this thesis I test this hypothesis and investigate what South Africans might see as the core, or whether there is a core of, white settler identity. TIle idea of 'frontiers' being heartlands was emphasized in Maclear as residents spoke about the pioneering efforts of their forefathers and discussed these efforts as the essence of their identity. Forestry is a contemporary ' frontier' encroaching on these white Settlers. A dynamic concept of landscape is central to these identity construction efforts. In this thesis I explore, through different articulations of landscape, how residents, recent arrivals and investors attempt to embed their identity and resources in the community. I ask whether it is possible for members of the white community to produce an alternate and politically viable interpretation of landscape in post-apartheid South Africa. Can land and landscape offer them a sense of belonging and identity? What is their experience in view of the impositions of major investors who see land purely as an economic unit? The research does not explicitly investigate how 'new' black farmers and farming groups perceive and experience land and landscape. What is noted is the imagined passivity of black labourers on white-owned land. This thesis touches on issues inlportant to democratic change and progress in South Africa. How will the new government deal with the thorny issue of land redistribution in the face of competing claims for land and identity? How will the various sections of the white community (in this case the farming community) negotiate their identity in the new South Africa? Also, what do ' frontier' towns like Maclear reveal about the nature of white identity in post-apartheid South Africa? This thesis relies on gender and constructionist theories of landscape as developed by Appadurai (1996) to explain the dynamic nature of landscape in Maclear. It also explores and appraises the idea of ' frontier'. In the analysis of identity, I take into account that white settlers 'success' relies in part on the settlers ability to adapt to the ' frontier' and their ability to construct a new identity in their newfound 'homeland' (simliar to Paul Gilroy's (1993) "double consciousness). Keywords: South Africa, Maclear, Farming, White Identity, Landscape and Tourism.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
Authority, avoidances and marriage: an analysis of the position of Gcaleka women in Qwaninga, Willowvale District, Transkei
- Authors: Liebenberg, Alida
- Date: 1994
- Subjects: Marriage customs and rites -- South Africa -- Transkei , Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs , Women -- Developing countries
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2100 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002663 , Marriage customs and rites -- South Africa -- Transkei , Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs , Women -- Developing countries
- Description: Authority as it operates in the daily lives of married women in Gcaleka society is reinforced and maintained by a body of avoidances which women need to observe during their married lives. Avoidances constitute part of the control system in the society whereby wives are being 'kept in their place'. Avoidances do not only restrict her, but also safeguard her position and her interests. Lines of authority emerge through the process of interaction; the structure reveals itself as avoidances are acted out in time and space. This study was conducted in Qwaninga, an administrative area in the coastal area of the Willowvale district, Transkei. The research started out as a study of ritual impurity and the status of women in a traditional, 'red' Gcaleka society. It soon became clear that pollution practices and beliefs associated with women form part of a greater body of avoidances which women need to observe during their married lives. Avoidances entail economic, dietary, sexual, linguistic and spatial prohibitions; as well as restrictions concerning what a woman is supposed to wear, and her withdrawal from social life. These restrictions are enforced through certain ritual and other sanctions. Three forms of avoidances are identified in this study, and are discussed and analysed. Avoidances are found in the everyday male/female division in society; in the ways through which the wife shows respect towards her husband and her in-laws (especially her husband's ancestors); and in the reproductive situations a woman finds herself in from time to time. In many anthropological studies in the past women have often been hidden in the background. This study is an attempt to give women the prominence they should be given, to show that nonwestern women are not as subordinated as people in Western society like to assume. In Gcaleka society the authority structure affecting the position of women is not only based on a distinction being made between males and females. It will be shown that a finer authority structure operates in this society whereby gender as well as age and kinship distinctions are being made. These distinctions constitute a system of classification which is safeguarded and protected by the avoidances and other restrictions imposed on women.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1994
- Authors: Liebenberg, Alida
- Date: 1994
- Subjects: Marriage customs and rites -- South Africa -- Transkei , Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs , Women -- Developing countries
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2100 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002663 , Marriage customs and rites -- South Africa -- Transkei , Xhosa (African people) -- Social life and customs , Women -- Developing countries
- Description: Authority as it operates in the daily lives of married women in Gcaleka society is reinforced and maintained by a body of avoidances which women need to observe during their married lives. Avoidances constitute part of the control system in the society whereby wives are being 'kept in their place'. Avoidances do not only restrict her, but also safeguard her position and her interests. Lines of authority emerge through the process of interaction; the structure reveals itself as avoidances are acted out in time and space. This study was conducted in Qwaninga, an administrative area in the coastal area of the Willowvale district, Transkei. The research started out as a study of ritual impurity and the status of women in a traditional, 'red' Gcaleka society. It soon became clear that pollution practices and beliefs associated with women form part of a greater body of avoidances which women need to observe during their married lives. Avoidances entail economic, dietary, sexual, linguistic and spatial prohibitions; as well as restrictions concerning what a woman is supposed to wear, and her withdrawal from social life. These restrictions are enforced through certain ritual and other sanctions. Three forms of avoidances are identified in this study, and are discussed and analysed. Avoidances are found in the everyday male/female division in society; in the ways through which the wife shows respect towards her husband and her in-laws (especially her husband's ancestors); and in the reproductive situations a woman finds herself in from time to time. In many anthropological studies in the past women have often been hidden in the background. This study is an attempt to give women the prominence they should be given, to show that nonwestern women are not as subordinated as people in Western society like to assume. In Gcaleka society the authority structure affecting the position of women is not only based on a distinction being made between males and females. It will be shown that a finer authority structure operates in this society whereby gender as well as age and kinship distinctions are being made. These distinctions constitute a system of classification which is safeguarded and protected by the avoidances and other restrictions imposed on women.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1994
Ngomso 'special school': contestations of morality and education in the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Pattenden, Oliver
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/65200 , vital:28704
- Description: Expected release date-May 2019
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Pattenden, Oliver
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/65200 , vital:28704
- Description: Expected release date-May 2019
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Towards an understanding of Amayeza esiXhosa stores (African chemists): how they operate, and the services they offer in the Eastern Cape
- Authors: Cocks, Michelle L
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: Medical anthropology -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Traditional medicine -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSocSc
- Identifier: vital:2096 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002659 , Medical anthropology -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Traditional medicine -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: In medical anthropology there has been a tendency to dichotomize western biomedical . healtb services, on the one hand, and traditional health care practices on the other. Much attention has been focused on the comparison between these two approaches in the hope that they might be reconciled. The problem with this approach is twofold. In the first place, it has not always acknowledged the local, historic~1, political and economic contexts in which different approaches to health care have evolved and in the second place, health care services which belong to neither the western nor traditional healing spheres and which are driven by commercial interests have been almost completely neglected because they fall outside of the basic dichotomy. Amayeza stores have been a feature of South African towns and cities for many years. They mayor may not be run by Africans, but their clientele is almost exclusively African in this region. They deal in a bewildering variety of products and remedies, from untreated herbal and animal products to pharmaceuticals specially prepared for the African market, to Dutch and Indian Remedies. These stores both reflect transfonnations in indigenous perceptions of health care and, by virtue of the choices they offer, generate change. In this empirical study three stores in the Eastern Cape are selected for detailed study - two in King William's Town, the regional capital, and one in the small town of Peddie. The approach is holistic, emphasizing the social, political and economic context, the business histories and running of each shop, and, in particular, the perceptions and choices of a sample of the customers in each case. The success of the amayeza phenomenon derives from its eclecticism and syncretism. These stores impose neither a western nor a traditional model of health care on their clients, but offer them a range of choices that reflects the complex multicultural history of their own South African society.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
- Authors: Cocks, Michelle L
- Date: 1997
- Subjects: Medical anthropology -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Traditional medicine -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MSocSc
- Identifier: vital:2096 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002659 , Medical anthropology -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Traditional medicine -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: In medical anthropology there has been a tendency to dichotomize western biomedical . healtb services, on the one hand, and traditional health care practices on the other. Much attention has been focused on the comparison between these two approaches in the hope that they might be reconciled. The problem with this approach is twofold. In the first place, it has not always acknowledged the local, historic~1, political and economic contexts in which different approaches to health care have evolved and in the second place, health care services which belong to neither the western nor traditional healing spheres and which are driven by commercial interests have been almost completely neglected because they fall outside of the basic dichotomy. Amayeza stores have been a feature of South African towns and cities for many years. They mayor may not be run by Africans, but their clientele is almost exclusively African in this region. They deal in a bewildering variety of products and remedies, from untreated herbal and animal products to pharmaceuticals specially prepared for the African market, to Dutch and Indian Remedies. These stores both reflect transfonnations in indigenous perceptions of health care and, by virtue of the choices they offer, generate change. In this empirical study three stores in the Eastern Cape are selected for detailed study - two in King William's Town, the regional capital, and one in the small town of Peddie. The approach is holistic, emphasizing the social, political and economic context, the business histories and running of each shop, and, in particular, the perceptions and choices of a sample of the customers in each case. The success of the amayeza phenomenon derives from its eclecticism and syncretism. These stores impose neither a western nor a traditional model of health care on their clients, but offer them a range of choices that reflects the complex multicultural history of their own South African society.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1997
"On se Débrouille": Congolese migrants' search for survival and success in Muizenberg, Cape Town
- Authors: Owen, Joy N
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Foreign workers, Congolese -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- Muizenberg Social capital (Sociology) Immigrants -- Social networks -- South Africa -- Muizenberg South Africa -- Emigration and immigration -- Social aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2094 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002657
- Description: Situated in a Congolese transnational 'community' in Muizenberg, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, the thesis focuses on the lives of three middle class Congolese male informants. Their contingent acquaintance with a South African white Christian man gave them access to valuable social capital; social capital that positioned them advantageously to date and eventually marry European white women and thereby further their culturally-defmed economic/material career goals. To demonstrate the socio-economic trajectory of the three, I compare their social positioning with other Congolese men and women resident in Muizenberg. I show how these men and women, like my three main informants, activate their Congolese 'habitus' to secure access to social networks and the social capital therein. The difference between these Congolese men and women and my three main informants, however, is their strategic use of contingency, and the instrumental capitalisation of their cultural capital through the creation of a client-patron relationship with a South African in order to further their life goals. The thesis reorientates the migration literature on African migration from a focus on the implications of migrant remittances to the home country, to a focus on individual migrants' agency in the host country and the cultural influence of the society of origin. While I acknowledge that my research participants are part of a transnational social field, the focus on one locality and the relatively longitudinal approach of the study grounds the analysis both in the day-to-day lives of these migrants and in their migrant careers in and beyond Muizenberg and South Africa. With this orientation, the thesis is able to reveal that some Congolese migrants are comfortable to create a holding place for themselves in South Africa, while others - ever aware of the Congolese ambition to travel overseas - migrate beyond South African borders. For these Congolese migrants, South Africa is then a transit space. Fundamentally, all of my research participants give expression to Mobutu's edict of on se debrouille (literally, 'one fends for oneself), but some are more able to achieve the ultimate aspiration of settling in the First World -lola.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Owen, Joy N
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Foreign workers, Congolese -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- Muizenberg Social capital (Sociology) Immigrants -- Social networks -- South Africa -- Muizenberg South Africa -- Emigration and immigration -- Social aspects
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2094 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002657
- Description: Situated in a Congolese transnational 'community' in Muizenberg, a suburb of Cape Town, South Africa, the thesis focuses on the lives of three middle class Congolese male informants. Their contingent acquaintance with a South African white Christian man gave them access to valuable social capital; social capital that positioned them advantageously to date and eventually marry European white women and thereby further their culturally-defmed economic/material career goals. To demonstrate the socio-economic trajectory of the three, I compare their social positioning with other Congolese men and women resident in Muizenberg. I show how these men and women, like my three main informants, activate their Congolese 'habitus' to secure access to social networks and the social capital therein. The difference between these Congolese men and women and my three main informants, however, is their strategic use of contingency, and the instrumental capitalisation of their cultural capital through the creation of a client-patron relationship with a South African in order to further their life goals. The thesis reorientates the migration literature on African migration from a focus on the implications of migrant remittances to the home country, to a focus on individual migrants' agency in the host country and the cultural influence of the society of origin. While I acknowledge that my research participants are part of a transnational social field, the focus on one locality and the relatively longitudinal approach of the study grounds the analysis both in the day-to-day lives of these migrants and in their migrant careers in and beyond Muizenberg and South Africa. With this orientation, the thesis is able to reveal that some Congolese migrants are comfortable to create a holding place for themselves in South Africa, while others - ever aware of the Congolese ambition to travel overseas - migrate beyond South African borders. For these Congolese migrants, South Africa is then a transit space. Fundamentally, all of my research participants give expression to Mobutu's edict of on se debrouille (literally, 'one fends for oneself), but some are more able to achieve the ultimate aspiration of settling in the First World -lola.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Occult forces -- lived identities: witchcraft, spirit possession and cosmology amongst the Mayeyi of Namibia's Caprivi Strip
- Authors: Von Maltitz, Emil Arthur
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Yeye (African people) , Yeye (African people) -- Namibia -- History , Occultism -- Namibia , Witchcraft -- Namibia , Spirit possession -- Namibia , Cosmology
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2121 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013279
- Description: Around Africa there seems to be an increasing disillusion with 'development', seen under the rubric of teleological 'progress', which is touted by post-colonial governments as being the cure for Africa's ailments and woes. Numerous authors have pointed out that this local disillusion, and the attempt to manage the inequities that arise through development and modernity, can be seen to be understood and acted upon by local peoples through the idiom of witchcraft beliefs and fears (see Geschiere & Fisiy 2001; Geschiere 1997; Nyamnjoh 2001; Comaroff & Comaroff 1993; Ashforth 2005) and spirit possession nanatives (see Luig 1999; Gezon 1999), or more simply, occult beliefs and praxis (Moore & Sanders 2001). The majority of the Mayeyi of Namibia's Eastern Caprivi perceive that development is the only way their regiOn and people can survive and succeed in a modernising world. At ~he same time there is also a seeming reluctance to move towards perceiving witchcraft as a means of accumulation (contra Geschiere 1997). This notion of the 'witchcraft of wealth' is emerging, but for the most part witches are seen as the enemies of development, while spirit possession narratives speak to the desire for development and of the identity of the group vis-a-vis the rest of the world. The thesis presented argues that, although modernity orientated analyses enable occult belief to be used as a lens through which to 1..mderstand 'modernity's malcontents' (Comaroff & Comaroff 1993), they can only go so far in explaining the intricacies of witchcraft and spirit possession beliefs themselves. The dissertation argues that one should return to the analysis of the cosmological underpinnings of witchcraft belief and spirit possession, taken together as complementary phenomena, in seeking to understand the domain of the occult. By doing so the thesis argues that a more comprehensive anthropological understanding is obtained of occult belief and practice, the ways in which the domain of the occult is constituted and the ways in which it is a reflection or commentary on a changing world.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Von Maltitz, Emil Arthur
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Yeye (African people) , Yeye (African people) -- Namibia -- History , Occultism -- Namibia , Witchcraft -- Namibia , Spirit possession -- Namibia , Cosmology
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2121 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013279
- Description: Around Africa there seems to be an increasing disillusion with 'development', seen under the rubric of teleological 'progress', which is touted by post-colonial governments as being the cure for Africa's ailments and woes. Numerous authors have pointed out that this local disillusion, and the attempt to manage the inequities that arise through development and modernity, can be seen to be understood and acted upon by local peoples through the idiom of witchcraft beliefs and fears (see Geschiere & Fisiy 2001; Geschiere 1997; Nyamnjoh 2001; Comaroff & Comaroff 1993; Ashforth 2005) and spirit possession nanatives (see Luig 1999; Gezon 1999), or more simply, occult beliefs and praxis (Moore & Sanders 2001). The majority of the Mayeyi of Namibia's Eastern Caprivi perceive that development is the only way their regiOn and people can survive and succeed in a modernising world. At ~he same time there is also a seeming reluctance to move towards perceiving witchcraft as a means of accumulation (contra Geschiere 1997). This notion of the 'witchcraft of wealth' is emerging, but for the most part witches are seen as the enemies of development, while spirit possession narratives speak to the desire for development and of the identity of the group vis-a-vis the rest of the world. The thesis presented argues that, although modernity orientated analyses enable occult belief to be used as a lens through which to 1..mderstand 'modernity's malcontents' (Comaroff & Comaroff 1993), they can only go so far in explaining the intricacies of witchcraft and spirit possession beliefs themselves. The dissertation argues that one should return to the analysis of the cosmological underpinnings of witchcraft belief and spirit possession, taken together as complementary phenomena, in seeking to understand the domain of the occult. By doing so the thesis argues that a more comprehensive anthropological understanding is obtained of occult belief and practice, the ways in which the domain of the occult is constituted and the ways in which it is a reflection or commentary on a changing world.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
Incorporating indigenous management in rock art sites in KwaZulu-Natal
- Authors: Ndlovu, Ndukuyakhe
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Rock paintings -- Drakenberg Mountains , Cave paintings -- Drakensberg Mountains , San (African people) -- Art , Art, Prehistoric -- Drakensberg Mountains , Art, Prehistoric -- South Africa , Heritage tourism -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2089 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002652 , Rock paintings -- Drakenberg Mountains , Cave paintings -- Drakensberg Mountains , San (African people) -- Art , Art, Prehistoric -- Drakensberg Mountains , Art, Prehistoric -- South Africa , Heritage tourism -- South Africa
- Description: The majestic mountains of the uKhahlamba Drakensberg, formed many millennia ago were home to the Bushmen[footnote 1] or San people. They lived at these mountains for thousands of years before they were colonised by the Bantu speakers and the Europeans. Academic writings for many years have perpetuated the thinking that Bushman people were largely extinct. The dominance of this view in the academic writings was encouraged by historical evidence that Europeans and Bantu speakers hunted and killed Bushmen over the last several centuries. Researchers argue that the extermination of the Bushmen was because they were less human in the eyes of the foreigners, due to cattle raiding. There is still some element of this thinking amongst today’s academics, although research in the last decade is questioning this thinking. The question of whether descendants do exist is relevant to issues of rights of access to ancestral sacred sites, in particular rock art sites. At present, access to rock art sites is granted on qualification as an authentic fee-paying tourist (or affordability) rather than on group rights to a cultural heritage resource (cultural rights). Based on this, I argue that access to rock art sites is based on qualification rather than by right. This is largely driven by an approach that emphasises the physical conservation and financial sustainability of a site, rather than its spiritual maintenance. It has become clear that the interests in rock art by tourists and Bushman descendants are distinct from each other. Tourists have an aesthetic significance for rock art while Bushmen descendants have a spiritual significance for the paintings. Beyond any doubt, the physically based and financially driven approach has brought new challenges to today’s Bushmen descendants, whom in reaffirming their identities now have a new challenge to overcome. Not only are the rock art sites physically threatened but also they have lost much of their spiritual powers. Their fate lies in the hands of heritage officers who must determine access rights to the painted shelters. Both the National Heritage Resources Act and the KwaZulu-Natal Heritage Act acknowledge living heritage. However, the existence of this heritage is judged against the physical approach to rock art management. If the practises of descendants are perceived to be a threat to the rock art, they will not be approved. The case of the Duma is a classic example. Prior to the ritual ceremony at Game Pass Shelter, Kamberg, they were informed of the minimum standards for opening a rock art site to public and rules of how people should behave while visiting painted shelters. While it was evident that there are problems with the two approaches, the spiritual and physical approach, discussed in the thesis, it is important that solutions are identified. I do not believe that one approach on its own will be good enough, for reasons discussed in the thesis. Instead, the two approaches should be implemented together to compliment each other by identifying common grounds. I provide strategies as to how I believe that such a common ground can be reached. In addition, I provide my own analytical thinking as to how these strategies can be achieved. There is no general consensus over which term is appropriate. Both terms are considered by some academics to be derogatory or pejorative (Chennels 2003). San means vagabond and was given to the Bushmen by Khoi-Khoi people, because they considered themselves of a better social class, as they had domesticated animals and were more sedentary than Bushmen. However, according to WIMSA (Thoma 2003) the word San is derived from the Hai||om language meaning “people who gather”. It is normally written Saan but it has been accepted to write San. In 1993 the San requested to be called San when referred to as an entire group. If one refers to individual people/groups they like to be called by their language and cultural name i.e. Khwe, !Kung, !Xun, Ju|’hoansi, ‡Khomani, N|u, |’Auni, Hai||om, etc In this thesis, Bushmen is a preferred term, because it is a better-known term among the people who are central to this study. It is used without any insulting connotations attached to the term.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
- Authors: Ndlovu, Ndukuyakhe
- Date: 2005
- Subjects: Rock paintings -- Drakenberg Mountains , Cave paintings -- Drakensberg Mountains , San (African people) -- Art , Art, Prehistoric -- Drakensberg Mountains , Art, Prehistoric -- South Africa , Heritage tourism -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2089 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002652 , Rock paintings -- Drakenberg Mountains , Cave paintings -- Drakensberg Mountains , San (African people) -- Art , Art, Prehistoric -- Drakensberg Mountains , Art, Prehistoric -- South Africa , Heritage tourism -- South Africa
- Description: The majestic mountains of the uKhahlamba Drakensberg, formed many millennia ago were home to the Bushmen[footnote 1] or San people. They lived at these mountains for thousands of years before they were colonised by the Bantu speakers and the Europeans. Academic writings for many years have perpetuated the thinking that Bushman people were largely extinct. The dominance of this view in the academic writings was encouraged by historical evidence that Europeans and Bantu speakers hunted and killed Bushmen over the last several centuries. Researchers argue that the extermination of the Bushmen was because they were less human in the eyes of the foreigners, due to cattle raiding. There is still some element of this thinking amongst today’s academics, although research in the last decade is questioning this thinking. The question of whether descendants do exist is relevant to issues of rights of access to ancestral sacred sites, in particular rock art sites. At present, access to rock art sites is granted on qualification as an authentic fee-paying tourist (or affordability) rather than on group rights to a cultural heritage resource (cultural rights). Based on this, I argue that access to rock art sites is based on qualification rather than by right. This is largely driven by an approach that emphasises the physical conservation and financial sustainability of a site, rather than its spiritual maintenance. It has become clear that the interests in rock art by tourists and Bushman descendants are distinct from each other. Tourists have an aesthetic significance for rock art while Bushmen descendants have a spiritual significance for the paintings. Beyond any doubt, the physically based and financially driven approach has brought new challenges to today’s Bushmen descendants, whom in reaffirming their identities now have a new challenge to overcome. Not only are the rock art sites physically threatened but also they have lost much of their spiritual powers. Their fate lies in the hands of heritage officers who must determine access rights to the painted shelters. Both the National Heritage Resources Act and the KwaZulu-Natal Heritage Act acknowledge living heritage. However, the existence of this heritage is judged against the physical approach to rock art management. If the practises of descendants are perceived to be a threat to the rock art, they will not be approved. The case of the Duma is a classic example. Prior to the ritual ceremony at Game Pass Shelter, Kamberg, they were informed of the minimum standards for opening a rock art site to public and rules of how people should behave while visiting painted shelters. While it was evident that there are problems with the two approaches, the spiritual and physical approach, discussed in the thesis, it is important that solutions are identified. I do not believe that one approach on its own will be good enough, for reasons discussed in the thesis. Instead, the two approaches should be implemented together to compliment each other by identifying common grounds. I provide strategies as to how I believe that such a common ground can be reached. In addition, I provide my own analytical thinking as to how these strategies can be achieved. There is no general consensus over which term is appropriate. Both terms are considered by some academics to be derogatory or pejorative (Chennels 2003). San means vagabond and was given to the Bushmen by Khoi-Khoi people, because they considered themselves of a better social class, as they had domesticated animals and were more sedentary than Bushmen. However, according to WIMSA (Thoma 2003) the word San is derived from the Hai||om language meaning “people who gather”. It is normally written Saan but it has been accepted to write San. In 1993 the San requested to be called San when referred to as an entire group. If one refers to individual people/groups they like to be called by their language and cultural name i.e. Khwe, !Kung, !Xun, Ju|’hoansi, ‡Khomani, N|u, |’Auni, Hai||om, etc In this thesis, Bushmen is a preferred term, because it is a better-known term among the people who are central to this study. It is used without any insulting connotations attached to the term.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2005
Re-imagining the nation
- Mngomezulu, Nosipho Sthabiso Thandiwe
- Authors: Mngomezulu, Nosipho Sthabiso Thandiwe
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Mauritius -- Truth and Justice Commission , Nationalism -- Mauritius , National characteristics, Mauritian , Social justice -- Mauritius , Youth -- Mauritius -- Social conditions , Youth -- Mauritius -- Attitudes , Mauritius -- Politics and government -- 1992- , Ethnicity -- Mauritius
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2124 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019999
- Description: This thesis examines young people’s constructions of nationhood in Mauritius. In 2008, the Mauritian government instituted a Truth and Justice Commission (TJC), set up to investigate the consequences of slavery and indentured labour. Through the Truth and Justice Commission, the Mauritian government indicated its desire to achieve social justice and national unity. Drawing on developments in studies of national identification practices in the 21st Century, this thesis addresses the question of young Mauritian’s locally and globally informed identification practices and asks how their unofficial narratives of nationhood challenge, or divert, or relate to official state narratives of nationhood. The basis of the study emerges from data collected from 132 participants during fieldwork in multiple fieldsites from May to September 2010 as well as research on Mauritian youth on-line from 2011-2014. The advent of the TJC offers an ideal moment to evaluate the dynamics of post-colonial nation-building and nationhood in a selfstyled multi-cultural state. Nationhood, does not exist apriori to the constructions of narratives of the nation, thus the stories told about the nation, imagine the nation into being. By situating the Truth and Justice Commission and other official state narratives alongside young people’s narratives, I argue that contemporary narratives of nationhood in Mauritius represent an intergenerational struggle to define the meaning of the past in the present and consequently outline the future. Reflecting on the ideas and socio-economic and political processes that induce national consciousness, I argue that young people’s narratives of everyday lived experiences are vital for an interpretation of how nationhood is produced in everyday life. The cultural projects of young people – often rendered as liminal or marginal – offer a critical vantage point from where to read constructions of nationhood. Far from being growing pains or childish games, young people’s identity making practices are what Sherry B. Ortner has called “serious games.” This research suggests that official state government narratives of multicultural nationhood in Mauritius narrowly define national identification along communal loyalties, overlooking the dynamism of interculturality and transnationalism in daily practice on the island. Although communalism and rigid colonial interpretations of ethnicity attempt to police and limit the possibilities of alternative modes of being in Mauritius, young people’s identification practices question, challenge, and threaten to disrupt official discourses of ethnic identification in Mauritius Scholarly investigations of young peoples’ lived experiences of nationhood extend theoretical and methodological frames for the study of nationalized subjects and deepen the understanding of the construction of national consciousness. The construction of nationhood always involves narratives of some sort – scholarship on this area has usually focused on official state narratives from social theorists, state governments, and state elites. I argue for the importance of considering subjectivity and lived experience in conceptions of nationhood. In contemporary post-colonial societies, young people are the numerical majority, however, their voices are seldom represented in theories and narratives of nationhood. Whilst young people may appear in state policies (especially education) and official narratives about the future of the nation, their creative imagining and reimagining of narratives of selfhood is often ignored. I examine how young people increasingly are aware of their transnational connections, through participation in transnational youth cultures, and they are consequently increasingly multi-lingual and multicultural. Fixed notions of ethnic identification and discourses of trauma are not at the forefront of young people’s identification of selfhood, rather their ability to take advantage of their multiply situated identification processes allows them new means to evade and transform these narratives. Their identification of selfhood is characterised by a greater degree of dynamism than previous generations had access to, and thus they do not only identify themselves through officially sanctioned national forms of identification. Loyalty to nationhood is thus less predictable, and young people represent a potential threat to the continuation of older forms of nationhood. While official narratives of nationhood may manipulate ethnic and racial cleavages to secure old loyalties, not all young people are persuaded by these notions
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Mngomezulu, Nosipho Sthabiso Thandiwe
- Date: 2015
- Subjects: Mauritius -- Truth and Justice Commission , Nationalism -- Mauritius , National characteristics, Mauritian , Social justice -- Mauritius , Youth -- Mauritius -- Social conditions , Youth -- Mauritius -- Attitudes , Mauritius -- Politics and government -- 1992- , Ethnicity -- Mauritius
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2124 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019999
- Description: This thesis examines young people’s constructions of nationhood in Mauritius. In 2008, the Mauritian government instituted a Truth and Justice Commission (TJC), set up to investigate the consequences of slavery and indentured labour. Through the Truth and Justice Commission, the Mauritian government indicated its desire to achieve social justice and national unity. Drawing on developments in studies of national identification practices in the 21st Century, this thesis addresses the question of young Mauritian’s locally and globally informed identification practices and asks how their unofficial narratives of nationhood challenge, or divert, or relate to official state narratives of nationhood. The basis of the study emerges from data collected from 132 participants during fieldwork in multiple fieldsites from May to September 2010 as well as research on Mauritian youth on-line from 2011-2014. The advent of the TJC offers an ideal moment to evaluate the dynamics of post-colonial nation-building and nationhood in a selfstyled multi-cultural state. Nationhood, does not exist apriori to the constructions of narratives of the nation, thus the stories told about the nation, imagine the nation into being. By situating the Truth and Justice Commission and other official state narratives alongside young people’s narratives, I argue that contemporary narratives of nationhood in Mauritius represent an intergenerational struggle to define the meaning of the past in the present and consequently outline the future. Reflecting on the ideas and socio-economic and political processes that induce national consciousness, I argue that young people’s narratives of everyday lived experiences are vital for an interpretation of how nationhood is produced in everyday life. The cultural projects of young people – often rendered as liminal or marginal – offer a critical vantage point from where to read constructions of nationhood. Far from being growing pains or childish games, young people’s identity making practices are what Sherry B. Ortner has called “serious games.” This research suggests that official state government narratives of multicultural nationhood in Mauritius narrowly define national identification along communal loyalties, overlooking the dynamism of interculturality and transnationalism in daily practice on the island. Although communalism and rigid colonial interpretations of ethnicity attempt to police and limit the possibilities of alternative modes of being in Mauritius, young people’s identification practices question, challenge, and threaten to disrupt official discourses of ethnic identification in Mauritius Scholarly investigations of young peoples’ lived experiences of nationhood extend theoretical and methodological frames for the study of nationalized subjects and deepen the understanding of the construction of national consciousness. The construction of nationhood always involves narratives of some sort – scholarship on this area has usually focused on official state narratives from social theorists, state governments, and state elites. I argue for the importance of considering subjectivity and lived experience in conceptions of nationhood. In contemporary post-colonial societies, young people are the numerical majority, however, their voices are seldom represented in theories and narratives of nationhood. Whilst young people may appear in state policies (especially education) and official narratives about the future of the nation, their creative imagining and reimagining of narratives of selfhood is often ignored. I examine how young people increasingly are aware of their transnational connections, through participation in transnational youth cultures, and they are consequently increasingly multi-lingual and multicultural. Fixed notions of ethnic identification and discourses of trauma are not at the forefront of young people’s identification of selfhood, rather their ability to take advantage of their multiply situated identification processes allows them new means to evade and transform these narratives. Their identification of selfhood is characterised by a greater degree of dynamism than previous generations had access to, and thus they do not only identify themselves through officially sanctioned national forms of identification. Loyalty to nationhood is thus less predictable, and young people represent a potential threat to the continuation of older forms of nationhood. While official narratives of nationhood may manipulate ethnic and racial cleavages to secure old loyalties, not all young people are persuaded by these notions
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
The healer's art : Cape Nguni diviners in the townships of Grahamstown
- Authors: Hirst, Manton Myatt
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Healers -- South Africa , Nguni (African people) -- Social life and customs , Divination -- South Africa , Medicine, Magic, mystic, and spagiric -- South Africa , Nguni (African people) -- Religion
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2084 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001601
- Description: This is a study of Cape Nguni diviners practising in the townships of Grahamstown where, during the 1970s, there was a large and active concentration of diviners treating clients from the locality, the rural areas and even the large urban centres further afield. The study situates local diviners in the socio-economic, cultural and religious context of contemporary township Iife during the 1970s (see chapter 1 and section 2.1). The personalities and socio-economic circumstances of diviners (and herbalists) are described as well as their case-loads, the various problems they treat, the relations between them and their clients, the economics of healing and the ethics pertaining to the profession (see chapter 2) . Chapter three focuses on the various problems and afflictions - which are largely of an interpersonal nature - suffered by those who are eventually inducted as diviners and the ritual therapy this necessarily entails. Here we see how the diviner, what Lewis (1971) terms a 'wounded healer', becomes an expert in interpersonal and social relations as a result of suffering problems - largely connected to the family but not necessarily limited to it - in interpersonal relations and that require a ritual, and thus social, prophylaxis. The main theoretical argument is that the diviner, qua healer, functions as a hybrid of Levi-Strauss' s bricoleur and Castaneda's 'man of knowledge' artfully combining the ability of the former to invert, mirror or utilise analogies from linguistics to make everything meaningful and the ability of the latter to creatively bend reality . The diviner's cosmology is described in terms of a 'handy', limited but extensive cultural code/repertoire of signs, symbols and metaphors that is utilised in getting the message across to others and in which animals bear the main symbolic load (see chapter 4). This leads logically to a reappraisal of Hammond-Tooke's (1975b) well-known model of Cape Nguni symbolic structure particularly in so far as it pertains to the way in which diviners classify animals, both wild and domestic (see section 4.6). A striking evocation and confirmation of the view argued here, namely of the diviner as bricoleur/'man of knowledge', is contained in chapter five dealing with an analysis of the diviner's 'river' myth and the context, form and content of the divinatory consultation itself. Finally, the conclusions, arising out of this study of contemporary Cape Nguni diviners in town, are evaluated in the ligrht of Lewis's (1966, 1971, 1986) deprivation hypothesis of spirit possession (see chapter 6)
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1991
- Authors: Hirst, Manton Myatt
- Date: 1991
- Subjects: Healers -- South Africa , Nguni (African people) -- Social life and customs , Divination -- South Africa , Medicine, Magic, mystic, and spagiric -- South Africa , Nguni (African people) -- Religion
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2084 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1001601
- Description: This is a study of Cape Nguni diviners practising in the townships of Grahamstown where, during the 1970s, there was a large and active concentration of diviners treating clients from the locality, the rural areas and even the large urban centres further afield. The study situates local diviners in the socio-economic, cultural and religious context of contemporary township Iife during the 1970s (see chapter 1 and section 2.1). The personalities and socio-economic circumstances of diviners (and herbalists) are described as well as their case-loads, the various problems they treat, the relations between them and their clients, the economics of healing and the ethics pertaining to the profession (see chapter 2) . Chapter three focuses on the various problems and afflictions - which are largely of an interpersonal nature - suffered by those who are eventually inducted as diviners and the ritual therapy this necessarily entails. Here we see how the diviner, what Lewis (1971) terms a 'wounded healer', becomes an expert in interpersonal and social relations as a result of suffering problems - largely connected to the family but not necessarily limited to it - in interpersonal relations and that require a ritual, and thus social, prophylaxis. The main theoretical argument is that the diviner, qua healer, functions as a hybrid of Levi-Strauss' s bricoleur and Castaneda's 'man of knowledge' artfully combining the ability of the former to invert, mirror or utilise analogies from linguistics to make everything meaningful and the ability of the latter to creatively bend reality . The diviner's cosmology is described in terms of a 'handy', limited but extensive cultural code/repertoire of signs, symbols and metaphors that is utilised in getting the message across to others and in which animals bear the main symbolic load (see chapter 4). This leads logically to a reappraisal of Hammond-Tooke's (1975b) well-known model of Cape Nguni symbolic structure particularly in so far as it pertains to the way in which diviners classify animals, both wild and domestic (see section 4.6). A striking evocation and confirmation of the view argued here, namely of the diviner as bricoleur/'man of knowledge', is contained in chapter five dealing with an analysis of the diviner's 'river' myth and the context, form and content of the divinatory consultation itself. Finally, the conclusions, arising out of this study of contemporary Cape Nguni diviners in town, are evaluated in the ligrht of Lewis's (1966, 1971, 1986) deprivation hypothesis of spirit possession (see chapter 6)
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1991
Change and continuity : perceptions about childhood diseases among the Tumbuka of Northern Malawi
- Munthali, Alister Chaundumuka
- Authors: Munthali, Alister Chaundumuka
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: Tumbuka (African people) Ethnology -- Malawi Diseases -- Causes and theories of causation Health behavior -- Malawi Health attitudes -- Malawi Children -- Diseases -- Malawi
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2114 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007718
- Description: The objectives of this study were to determine what the Tumbuka people of northern Malawi consider to be the most dangerous childhood diseases, to explore their perceptions about the aetiology, prevention and treatment of these diseases, and to determine how such perceptions have changed over the years. The study was done in Chisinde and surrounding villages in western Rumphi District, northern Malawi. Although a household questionnaire was used to collect some quantitative data, the major data collection methods comprised participant observation, in-depth interviews with mothers with children under five and old men and women, and key informant interviews with traditional healers, traditional birth attendants, village headmen, health surveillance assistants and clinical officers. Informants in this study mentioned chikhoso chamoto, diarrhoea, malaria, measles, and conjunctivitis as the most dangerous childhood diseases in the area. Old men and women added that in the past smallpox was also a dangerous disease that affected both children and adults. Apart from measles and smallpox, community-based health workers and those at the local health centre also mentioned the same list of diseases as the most dangerous diseases prevalent among under-five children. Though health workers and informants mentioned the same diseases, the informants' perspectives about the aetiology and prevention of these diseases and the way they sought treatment during childhood illness episodes, in some cases, differed significantly from those of biomedicine. For example, while health workers said that the signs and symptoms presented by a child suffering from "chikhoso chamoto" were those of either kwashiorkor or marasmus, both young and elderly informants said that a child could contract this illness through contact with a person who had been involved in sexual intercourse. Biomedically, diarrhoea is caused by the ingestion of pathogenic agents, which are transmitted through, among other factors, drinking contaminated water and eating contaminated foods. While young men and women subscribed to this biomedical view, at the same time, just like old men and women, they also believed that if a breastfeeding mother has sexual intercourse, sperms will contaminate her breast milk and, once a child feeds on this milk, he or she will develop diarrhoea. They, in addition, associated diarrhoea with the process of teething and other infections, such as malaria and measles. In malaria-endemic areas such as Malawi, the occurrence of convulsions, splenomegaly and anaemia in children under five may be biomedically attributed to malaria. However, most informants in this study perceived these conditions as separate disease entities caused by, among other factors, witchcraft and the infringement of Tumbuka taboos relating to food, sexual intercourse and funerals. Splenomegaly and convulsions were also perceived as hereditary diseases. Such Tumbuka perceptions about the aetiology of childhood diseases also influenced their ideas about prevention and the seeking of therapy during illness episodes. Apart from measles, other childhood vaccine-preventable diseases (i.e. tetanus, diphtheria, tuberculosis, pertussis and poliomyelitis) were not mentioned, presumably because they are no longer occurring on a significant scale, which is an indication of the success of vaccination programmes. This study reveals that there is no outright rejection of vaccination services in the study area. Some mothers, though, felt pressured to go for vaccination services as they believed that non-vaccinated children were refused biomedical treatment at the local health centres when they fell ill. While young women with children under five mentioned vaccination as a preventative measure against diseases such as measles, they also mentioned other indigenous forms of 'vaccination', which included the adherence to societal taboos, the wearing of amulets, the rubbing of protective medicines into incisions, isolation of children under five (e.g. a newly born child is kept in the house, amongst other things, to protect him or her against people who are ritually considered hot because of sexual intercourse) who are susceptible to disease or those posing a threat to cause disease in children under five. For example, since diarrhoea is perceived to be caused by, among other things, a child feeding on breast milk contaminated with sperms, informants said that there is a strong need for couples to observe postpartum sexual intercourse. A couple with newly delivered twins is isolated from the village because of the belief that children will swell if they came into contact with them. Local methods of disease prevention seem therefore to depend on what is perceived to be the cause of the illness and the decision to adopt specific preventive measures depends on, among other factors, the diagnosis of the cause and of who is vulnerable. The therapy-seeking process is a hierarchical movement within and between aetiologies; at the same time, it is not a random process, but an ordered process of choices in response to negative feedback, and subject to a number of factors, such as the aetiology of the disease, distance, social costs, cost of the therapeutic intervention, availability of medicines, etc. The movement between systems (i.e. from traditional medicine to biomedicine and vice-versa) during illness episodes depends on a number of factors, including previous experiences of significant others (i.e. those close to the patient), perceptions about the chances of getting healed, the decisions of the therapy management group, etc. For example, febrile illness in children under five may be treated using herbs or antipyretics bought from the local grocery shops. When the situation worsens (e.g. accompanied by convulsions), a herbalist will be consulted or the child may be taken to the local health centre. The local health centre refers such cases to the district hospital for treatment. Because of the rapidity with which the condition worsens, informants said that sometimes such children are believed to be bewitched, hence while biomedical treatment is sought, at the same time diviners are also consulted. The therapeutic strategies people resort to during illness episodes are appropriate rational decisions, based on prevailing circumstances, knowledge, resources and outcomes. Boundaries between the different therapeutic options are not rigid, as people move from one form of therapy to another and from one mode of classification to another. Lastly, perceptions about childhood diseases have changed over the years. Old men and women mostly attribute childhood illnesses to the infringement of taboos (e.g. on . sexual intercourse), witchcraft and other supernatural forces. While young men and women also subscribe to these perceptions, they have at the same time also appropriated the biomedical disease explanatory models. These biomedical models were learnt at school, acquired during health education sessions conducted by health workers in the communities as well as during under-five clinics, and health education programmes conducted on the national radio station. Younger people, more frequently than older people, thus move within and between aetiological models in the manner described above.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
- Authors: Munthali, Alister Chaundumuka
- Date: 2003
- Subjects: Tumbuka (African people) Ethnology -- Malawi Diseases -- Causes and theories of causation Health behavior -- Malawi Health attitudes -- Malawi Children -- Diseases -- Malawi
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2114 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007718
- Description: The objectives of this study were to determine what the Tumbuka people of northern Malawi consider to be the most dangerous childhood diseases, to explore their perceptions about the aetiology, prevention and treatment of these diseases, and to determine how such perceptions have changed over the years. The study was done in Chisinde and surrounding villages in western Rumphi District, northern Malawi. Although a household questionnaire was used to collect some quantitative data, the major data collection methods comprised participant observation, in-depth interviews with mothers with children under five and old men and women, and key informant interviews with traditional healers, traditional birth attendants, village headmen, health surveillance assistants and clinical officers. Informants in this study mentioned chikhoso chamoto, diarrhoea, malaria, measles, and conjunctivitis as the most dangerous childhood diseases in the area. Old men and women added that in the past smallpox was also a dangerous disease that affected both children and adults. Apart from measles and smallpox, community-based health workers and those at the local health centre also mentioned the same list of diseases as the most dangerous diseases prevalent among under-five children. Though health workers and informants mentioned the same diseases, the informants' perspectives about the aetiology and prevention of these diseases and the way they sought treatment during childhood illness episodes, in some cases, differed significantly from those of biomedicine. For example, while health workers said that the signs and symptoms presented by a child suffering from "chikhoso chamoto" were those of either kwashiorkor or marasmus, both young and elderly informants said that a child could contract this illness through contact with a person who had been involved in sexual intercourse. Biomedically, diarrhoea is caused by the ingestion of pathogenic agents, which are transmitted through, among other factors, drinking contaminated water and eating contaminated foods. While young men and women subscribed to this biomedical view, at the same time, just like old men and women, they also believed that if a breastfeeding mother has sexual intercourse, sperms will contaminate her breast milk and, once a child feeds on this milk, he or she will develop diarrhoea. They, in addition, associated diarrhoea with the process of teething and other infections, such as malaria and measles. In malaria-endemic areas such as Malawi, the occurrence of convulsions, splenomegaly and anaemia in children under five may be biomedically attributed to malaria. However, most informants in this study perceived these conditions as separate disease entities caused by, among other factors, witchcraft and the infringement of Tumbuka taboos relating to food, sexual intercourse and funerals. Splenomegaly and convulsions were also perceived as hereditary diseases. Such Tumbuka perceptions about the aetiology of childhood diseases also influenced their ideas about prevention and the seeking of therapy during illness episodes. Apart from measles, other childhood vaccine-preventable diseases (i.e. tetanus, diphtheria, tuberculosis, pertussis and poliomyelitis) were not mentioned, presumably because they are no longer occurring on a significant scale, which is an indication of the success of vaccination programmes. This study reveals that there is no outright rejection of vaccination services in the study area. Some mothers, though, felt pressured to go for vaccination services as they believed that non-vaccinated children were refused biomedical treatment at the local health centres when they fell ill. While young women with children under five mentioned vaccination as a preventative measure against diseases such as measles, they also mentioned other indigenous forms of 'vaccination', which included the adherence to societal taboos, the wearing of amulets, the rubbing of protective medicines into incisions, isolation of children under five (e.g. a newly born child is kept in the house, amongst other things, to protect him or her against people who are ritually considered hot because of sexual intercourse) who are susceptible to disease or those posing a threat to cause disease in children under five. For example, since diarrhoea is perceived to be caused by, among other things, a child feeding on breast milk contaminated with sperms, informants said that there is a strong need for couples to observe postpartum sexual intercourse. A couple with newly delivered twins is isolated from the village because of the belief that children will swell if they came into contact with them. Local methods of disease prevention seem therefore to depend on what is perceived to be the cause of the illness and the decision to adopt specific preventive measures depends on, among other factors, the diagnosis of the cause and of who is vulnerable. The therapy-seeking process is a hierarchical movement within and between aetiologies; at the same time, it is not a random process, but an ordered process of choices in response to negative feedback, and subject to a number of factors, such as the aetiology of the disease, distance, social costs, cost of the therapeutic intervention, availability of medicines, etc. The movement between systems (i.e. from traditional medicine to biomedicine and vice-versa) during illness episodes depends on a number of factors, including previous experiences of significant others (i.e. those close to the patient), perceptions about the chances of getting healed, the decisions of the therapy management group, etc. For example, febrile illness in children under five may be treated using herbs or antipyretics bought from the local grocery shops. When the situation worsens (e.g. accompanied by convulsions), a herbalist will be consulted or the child may be taken to the local health centre. The local health centre refers such cases to the district hospital for treatment. Because of the rapidity with which the condition worsens, informants said that sometimes such children are believed to be bewitched, hence while biomedical treatment is sought, at the same time diviners are also consulted. The therapeutic strategies people resort to during illness episodes are appropriate rational decisions, based on prevailing circumstances, knowledge, resources and outcomes. Boundaries between the different therapeutic options are not rigid, as people move from one form of therapy to another and from one mode of classification to another. Lastly, perceptions about childhood diseases have changed over the years. Old men and women mostly attribute childhood illnesses to the infringement of taboos (e.g. on . sexual intercourse), witchcraft and other supernatural forces. While young men and women also subscribe to these perceptions, they have at the same time also appropriated the biomedical disease explanatory models. These biomedical models were learnt at school, acquired during health education sessions conducted by health workers in the communities as well as during under-five clinics, and health education programmes conducted on the national radio station. Younger people, more frequently than older people, thus move within and between aetiological models in the manner described above.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
Opportunity and constraint : historicity, hybridity and notions of cultural identity among farm workers in the Sundays River Valley
- Authors: Connor, Teresa Kathleen
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Agricultural laborers -- South Africa -- Relocation Addo Elephant National Park (South Africa) Xhosa (African people) -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Ethnic identity Forced migration -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Land settlement -- South Africa -- Government policy
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2117 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008367
- Description: This thesis focuses on relationships of opportunity and constraint among farm workers in the Sundays River Valley (SRV), Eastern Cape Province. Relationships of 'constraint' include those experiences of displacement and forced removal and war, including forced removals by the apartheid state in 1960 and 1970. Relationships of 'opportunity' include the ways in which residents in the SRV have contested their experiences of upheaval and domination, and the formation of a regional sense of place and belonging/ investigate how farm workers actually draw elements of locality and identity from their experiences of upheaval, and how displacement bolsters feelings of belonging and place. Instead of viewing displacement as a once-off experience, this thesis investigates displacement in historical terms, as a long-term, 'serial' experience of human movement, which is continued in the present- specifically through the creation of the Greater Addo Elephant National Park. I concentrate on developing a spatialised and cultural notion of movemenUplacement. 'Place' is investigated as a term that refers to rather indeterminate feelings of nostalgia, memory and identity, which depend on a particular connection to territory (ie: 'space'). I emphasise that elements of place in the SRV are drawn from and expressed along dualistic lines, which juxtapose situations of opportunity and constraint. In this way, farm workers' sense of connection to farms and ancestral territory in the SRV depends on their experiences of stable residency and work on farms, as well as their memories of removal from land in the area. I emphasise that those elements of conservatism (expressed as 'tradition' and Redness) among Xhosa-speaking farm workers are indications of a certain hybridity of identity in the region, which depend on differentiation from other groups (such as so-called 'coloured' farm workers and 'white' farmers), as well as associations between these groups. This thesis lays emphasis upon those less visible and definable 'identities' in the Eastern Cape Province, specifically by shifting focus away from the exhomeland states of the Ciskei and Transkei, to more marginal expressions of identity and change (among farm workers) in the Province. I point out that labourers cannot solely be defined by their positions as farm workers, but by their place and sense of cultural belonging in the area. In this sense, I use the idea of work as a loaded concept that can comment on a range of cultural attitudes towards belonging and place, and which is firmly embedded in the private lives of labourers - beyond their simple socio-economic conditions of farm work. I use Bourdieu's conception of habitus and doxa to define work as a set of dispositions that have been historicised and internalised by workers to such an extent, that relationships of domination are sometimes inadvertently obscured through their apparent 'naturalness'. Moreover, I point out that work can be related to ritualised action in the SRV through the use of performance and practice-based anthropological theory. Both work and ritual are symbolic actions, and are sites of struggle within which workers express themselves dualistically. Rituals, specifically, are dramatic events that combine disharmonious and harmonious social processes - juxtaposing the powerlessness of workers (on farms), and the deep sense of belonging and place in the SRV. I argue that the deep historical connections in the SRV have largely been ignored by conservationists in the drive to establish new protected zones (such as the Greater Addo Elephant National Park), and that a new model of shared conservation management is needed for this Park.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Connor, Teresa Kathleen
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Agricultural laborers -- South Africa -- Relocation Addo Elephant National Park (South Africa) Xhosa (African people) -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Ethnic identity Forced migration -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Land settlement -- South Africa -- Government policy
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2117 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008367
- Description: This thesis focuses on relationships of opportunity and constraint among farm workers in the Sundays River Valley (SRV), Eastern Cape Province. Relationships of 'constraint' include those experiences of displacement and forced removal and war, including forced removals by the apartheid state in 1960 and 1970. Relationships of 'opportunity' include the ways in which residents in the SRV have contested their experiences of upheaval and domination, and the formation of a regional sense of place and belonging/ investigate how farm workers actually draw elements of locality and identity from their experiences of upheaval, and how displacement bolsters feelings of belonging and place. Instead of viewing displacement as a once-off experience, this thesis investigates displacement in historical terms, as a long-term, 'serial' experience of human movement, which is continued in the present- specifically through the creation of the Greater Addo Elephant National Park. I concentrate on developing a spatialised and cultural notion of movemenUplacement. 'Place' is investigated as a term that refers to rather indeterminate feelings of nostalgia, memory and identity, which depend on a particular connection to territory (ie: 'space'). I emphasise that elements of place in the SRV are drawn from and expressed along dualistic lines, which juxtapose situations of opportunity and constraint. In this way, farm workers' sense of connection to farms and ancestral territory in the SRV depends on their experiences of stable residency and work on farms, as well as their memories of removal from land in the area. I emphasise that those elements of conservatism (expressed as 'tradition' and Redness) among Xhosa-speaking farm workers are indications of a certain hybridity of identity in the region, which depend on differentiation from other groups (such as so-called 'coloured' farm workers and 'white' farmers), as well as associations between these groups. This thesis lays emphasis upon those less visible and definable 'identities' in the Eastern Cape Province, specifically by shifting focus away from the exhomeland states of the Ciskei and Transkei, to more marginal expressions of identity and change (among farm workers) in the Province. I point out that labourers cannot solely be defined by their positions as farm workers, but by their place and sense of cultural belonging in the area. In this sense, I use the idea of work as a loaded concept that can comment on a range of cultural attitudes towards belonging and place, and which is firmly embedded in the private lives of labourers - beyond their simple socio-economic conditions of farm work. I use Bourdieu's conception of habitus and doxa to define work as a set of dispositions that have been historicised and internalised by workers to such an extent, that relationships of domination are sometimes inadvertently obscured through their apparent 'naturalness'. Moreover, I point out that work can be related to ritualised action in the SRV through the use of performance and practice-based anthropological theory. Both work and ritual are symbolic actions, and are sites of struggle within which workers express themselves dualistically. Rituals, specifically, are dramatic events that combine disharmonious and harmonious social processes - juxtaposing the powerlessness of workers (on farms), and the deep sense of belonging and place in the SRV. I argue that the deep historical connections in the SRV have largely been ignored by conservationists in the drive to establish new protected zones (such as the Greater Addo Elephant National Park), and that a new model of shared conservation management is needed for this Park.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
The drift from the farms to town : a case study of migration from white-owned farms in the Eastern Cape to Grahamstown
- Authors: Manona, Cecil Wele
- Date: 1989
- Subjects: Rural-urban migration -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Agricultural laborers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Economic conditions Agricultural laborers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Social conditions Government, Resistance to -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Grahamstown (South Africa) -- History
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2088 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002651
- Description: The study deals with the migration of large numbers of black workers from white-owned farms in the Albany and Bathurst districts to Grahamstown. In South Africa the migration of farm residents to the towns has not yet received much attention from researchers. Instead, most migrant studies have concentrated on the migration from the 'homeland' areas and for this reason little is known about the people who have been associated with the farms in some cases for five generations. From the 1940s these farms were rapidly losing labour largely on account of the introduction of mechanization and land rationalization. At that time many farm dwellers were migrating to Grahamstown and, to same extent, Port Elizabeth. The past few decades witnessed a massive further migration from these farms and this, together with natural increase, contributed to the 53,9% increase in Graharnstown's black population in the 1970-80 decade. The study has these aims: 1. To consider the factors that have promoted the move away from the farms , especially as from the end of the Second World War. 2. To account for the overwhelming attraction of Grahamstown as a destination among those who must, or decide to, migrate. 3. To assess the mode of adaptation of those who settle in Grahamstown pennanently. Those who have been in town for several decades provide a background for the central focus of the study, the new irrmigrants who came to town a decade ago or more recently. The latter include people who migrated to town from August 1984, i.e. during a period of extra-ordinary political developments and serious unrest in Grahamstown. The study places an emphasis on the way the imnigrants themselves perceive the process. The aims of the study which have been mentioned above revolve around the impoverishment of rural inhabitants who must now work for wages with hardly any measure of autonomy over the major aspects of their lives while those who go and live in town must contend with a competitive urban economy in which economic opportunities are scarce. This is the central problem of this thesis.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1989
- Authors: Manona, Cecil Wele
- Date: 1989
- Subjects: Rural-urban migration -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Agricultural laborers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Economic conditions Agricultural laborers -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape -- Social conditions Government, Resistance to -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Grahamstown (South Africa) -- History
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:2088 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002651
- Description: The study deals with the migration of large numbers of black workers from white-owned farms in the Albany and Bathurst districts to Grahamstown. In South Africa the migration of farm residents to the towns has not yet received much attention from researchers. Instead, most migrant studies have concentrated on the migration from the 'homeland' areas and for this reason little is known about the people who have been associated with the farms in some cases for five generations. From the 1940s these farms were rapidly losing labour largely on account of the introduction of mechanization and land rationalization. At that time many farm dwellers were migrating to Grahamstown and, to same extent, Port Elizabeth. The past few decades witnessed a massive further migration from these farms and this, together with natural increase, contributed to the 53,9% increase in Graharnstown's black population in the 1970-80 decade. The study has these aims: 1. To consider the factors that have promoted the move away from the farms , especially as from the end of the Second World War. 2. To account for the overwhelming attraction of Grahamstown as a destination among those who must, or decide to, migrate. 3. To assess the mode of adaptation of those who settle in Grahamstown pennanently. Those who have been in town for several decades provide a background for the central focus of the study, the new irrmigrants who came to town a decade ago or more recently. The latter include people who migrated to town from August 1984, i.e. during a period of extra-ordinary political developments and serious unrest in Grahamstown. The study places an emphasis on the way the imnigrants themselves perceive the process. The aims of the study which have been mentioned above revolve around the impoverishment of rural inhabitants who must now work for wages with hardly any measure of autonomy over the major aspects of their lives while those who go and live in town must contend with a competitive urban economy in which economic opportunities are scarce. This is the central problem of this thesis.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1989
Jah children the experience of Rastafari children in South Africa as members of a minority group with particular reference to communities in the former Cape Province
- Authors: Bain, Pauline
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Western Cape , Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Northern Cape , Reggae music -- South Africa -- History and criticism , Rastafarian ethics -- South Africa , Rastafari movement -- Doctrines , Children of minorities -- South Africa -- Education , Socialization -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2087 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002650 , Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Western Cape , Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Northern Cape , Reggae music -- South Africa -- History and criticism , Rastafarian ethics -- South Africa , Rastafari movement -- Doctrines , Children of minorities -- South Africa -- Education , Socialization -- South Africa
- Description: This thesis is an ethnography of Rastafari childhood in the former Cape Province, South Africa, through the eyes of both parents and children. If children are a ‘muted group’, then what are the identity formation implications for “double-muted” groups, the children of ethnic minorities whose voices are not heard? Rasta parents’ experience of the struggle, ie. the opposition to apartheid, has shaped the Rastafari chant of ‘equal rights’ and ‘justice’ into a distinctly South African form of protest and resistance. Their childhood experiences have resulted in a desire to provide a better life for their children, using Rastafari as a vehicle. This is expressed in a continuation of the struggle that was started during apartheid, in the Rasta ideology children grow up learning. The Rasta child has become a contested body in this struggle. The South African Government, through policy, has a mandate to protect the child, and legislature exists to do so in accordance with international law. However, as child-raising differs phenomenally from culture to culture, these goals on the part of the State start infringing upon the rights and freedoms of minorities to raise their children according to their own cultural goals. This study examines the tension between Rastafari and government with regards to child raising, specifically looking at the following main points of contestation: public health, public schools and policy/legislation; in order to examine how Rasta children negotiate their identity in the face of these conflicting messages and struggles. Their identity can be influenced by three main groups, the Rasta family they grow up in; school; and multi-media. What these children choose to accept or reject in their worldview is moderated by their own agency. This study shows that this tension results in a new generation of Rastafari children, who are strongly grounded in an identity as Rastafari and take pride in this identity. It also illustrates how Rastafari are impacting on and changing government policy through resistance. Their successes in challenging the state on the grounds of multiculturalism and religious freedom, has helped in the attainment of a sense of dignity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
- Authors: Bain, Pauline
- Date: 2004
- Subjects: Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Western Cape , Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Northern Cape , Reggae music -- South Africa -- History and criticism , Rastafarian ethics -- South Africa , Rastafari movement -- Doctrines , Children of minorities -- South Africa -- Education , Socialization -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2087 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002650 , Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Western Cape , Rastafari movement -- South Africa -- Northern Cape , Reggae music -- South Africa -- History and criticism , Rastafarian ethics -- South Africa , Rastafari movement -- Doctrines , Children of minorities -- South Africa -- Education , Socialization -- South Africa
- Description: This thesis is an ethnography of Rastafari childhood in the former Cape Province, South Africa, through the eyes of both parents and children. If children are a ‘muted group’, then what are the identity formation implications for “double-muted” groups, the children of ethnic minorities whose voices are not heard? Rasta parents’ experience of the struggle, ie. the opposition to apartheid, has shaped the Rastafari chant of ‘equal rights’ and ‘justice’ into a distinctly South African form of protest and resistance. Their childhood experiences have resulted in a desire to provide a better life for their children, using Rastafari as a vehicle. This is expressed in a continuation of the struggle that was started during apartheid, in the Rasta ideology children grow up learning. The Rasta child has become a contested body in this struggle. The South African Government, through policy, has a mandate to protect the child, and legislature exists to do so in accordance with international law. However, as child-raising differs phenomenally from culture to culture, these goals on the part of the State start infringing upon the rights and freedoms of minorities to raise their children according to their own cultural goals. This study examines the tension between Rastafari and government with regards to child raising, specifically looking at the following main points of contestation: public health, public schools and policy/legislation; in order to examine how Rasta children negotiate their identity in the face of these conflicting messages and struggles. Their identity can be influenced by three main groups, the Rasta family they grow up in; school; and multi-media. What these children choose to accept or reject in their worldview is moderated by their own agency. This study shows that this tension results in a new generation of Rastafari children, who are strongly grounded in an identity as Rastafari and take pride in this identity. It also illustrates how Rastafari are impacting on and changing government policy through resistance. Their successes in challenging the state on the grounds of multiculturalism and religious freedom, has helped in the attainment of a sense of dignity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2004
Negotiating impoverishment: Farm worker responses to displacement following land invasions in Zimbabwe's "Fast Track Land Reform Programme"
- Hartnack, Andrew Michael Carl
- Authors: Hartnack, Andrew Michael Carl
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/197076 , vital:45834
- Description: This thesis investigates the impacts of sudden, unplanned, and violent displacement on farm workers such as Frank Juwawo during Zimbabwe’s recent Fast Track Land Reform Programme. It seeks to illustrate how the members of a complex community were differentially impacted by displacement and displayed differing abilities to mitigate the resulting social and economic impoverishment. In order to illuminate this particular displacement scenario, this thesis uses theoretical and analytical tools developed in the field of displacement studies, adapting them to suit the kind of displacement experienced by Zimbabwean farm workers. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Anthropology, 2006
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Hartnack, Andrew Michael Carl
- Date: 2006
- Subjects: Uncatalogued
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/197076 , vital:45834
- Description: This thesis investigates the impacts of sudden, unplanned, and violent displacement on farm workers such as Frank Juwawo during Zimbabwe’s recent Fast Track Land Reform Programme. It seeks to illustrate how the members of a complex community were differentially impacted by displacement and displayed differing abilities to mitigate the resulting social and economic impoverishment. In order to illuminate this particular displacement scenario, this thesis uses theoretical and analytical tools developed in the field of displacement studies, adapting them to suit the kind of displacement experienced by Zimbabwean farm workers. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Anthropology, 2006
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
Household, production and the organisation of cooperative labour in Shixini, Transkei
- Authors: Heron, Gavin Stewart
- Date: 1990
- Subjects: Xhosa (African people) , Agriculture -- South Africa -- Transkei , Agriculture, Cooperative -- South Africa -- Transkei , Cooperative societies -- South Africa -- Transkei
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2109 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007448 , Xhosa (African people) , Agriculture -- South Africa -- Transkei , Agriculture, Cooperative -- South Africa -- Transkei , Cooperative societies -- South Africa -- Transkei
- Description: Incidences of cooperation in agricultural activity are widespread phenomena in low-income third world communities. Two forms of cooperative labour groupings are identified in Shixini, Transkei . These are the work party and the ploughing company. It is argued that different organisational principles operate in the different cooperative forms. Work parties are based on principles of neighbourhood whi Ie ploughing companies are organised around kinship relationships. Factors which determine the principle of organisation are social values; the wider South African economic system; ecology; reciprocity; the constitution and structure of the household; economic differentiation; and labour demand and supply. The dissertation is divided into five chapters. The first is an overview of the Shixini social, economic and political systems. This chapter discusses the influence of the wider South African politico-economic system on agricultural production; the Shixini!Transkei political context; kinship and its relation to social organisation; and the likely effects of an agricultural 'betterment' scheme on the area. The second chapter is an overview of agricultural production in Shixini. It is found that the most significant determinants of agricultural production is the structure and constitution of the household and the way in which stock is distributed in the community. The third and fourth chapters describe and analyse Xhosa work parties and ploughing companies . Argument is lead as to the reasons for the specific organisational principles operating in each case. The penultimate chapter is an analysis of sacred and secular ritual. It is argued that both ritual forms reveal cooperative principles of organisation. Secular ritual dramatises the organisation of work parties while sacred ritual dramatises kinship relationships and so, the organisation of ploughing companies. , KMBT_363
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1990
- Authors: Heron, Gavin Stewart
- Date: 1990
- Subjects: Xhosa (African people) , Agriculture -- South Africa -- Transkei , Agriculture, Cooperative -- South Africa -- Transkei , Cooperative societies -- South Africa -- Transkei
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2109 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007448 , Xhosa (African people) , Agriculture -- South Africa -- Transkei , Agriculture, Cooperative -- South Africa -- Transkei , Cooperative societies -- South Africa -- Transkei
- Description: Incidences of cooperation in agricultural activity are widespread phenomena in low-income third world communities. Two forms of cooperative labour groupings are identified in Shixini, Transkei . These are the work party and the ploughing company. It is argued that different organisational principles operate in the different cooperative forms. Work parties are based on principles of neighbourhood whi Ie ploughing companies are organised around kinship relationships. Factors which determine the principle of organisation are social values; the wider South African economic system; ecology; reciprocity; the constitution and structure of the household; economic differentiation; and labour demand and supply. The dissertation is divided into five chapters. The first is an overview of the Shixini social, economic and political systems. This chapter discusses the influence of the wider South African politico-economic system on agricultural production; the Shixini!Transkei political context; kinship and its relation to social organisation; and the likely effects of an agricultural 'betterment' scheme on the area. The second chapter is an overview of agricultural production in Shixini. It is found that the most significant determinants of agricultural production is the structure and constitution of the household and the way in which stock is distributed in the community. The third and fourth chapters describe and analyse Xhosa work parties and ploughing companies . Argument is lead as to the reasons for the specific organisational principles operating in each case. The penultimate chapter is an analysis of sacred and secular ritual. It is argued that both ritual forms reveal cooperative principles of organisation. Secular ritual dramatises the organisation of work parties while sacred ritual dramatises kinship relationships and so, the organisation of ploughing companies. , KMBT_363
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1990