Dialogues of sexualities: An action research project
- Authors: Graham, Nicola Susan Jearey
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3275 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021271
- Description: Risky and abusive sexual behaviours, stemming largely from inequitable gendered norms, are a pervasive feature of the South African socio-sexual landscape. Literature shows that sexuality education programmes can be effective in reducing risky sexual practices, but South African school sexuality education has been shown to be largely inadequate. The question arises as to how to engage with high school learners about sexualities in meaningful ways. In an attempt to answer this, I implemented a dialogical sexuality action research project at a lower middle class urban high school. Freirian principles of critical consciousness and dialogical pedagogy were utilized, and these were infused with feminist post-structural understandings of a discursively constituted subject. The initial consultative process started in 2012 with two projects at the school. Data from these projects, and a further consultation with the school principal, provided baseline information on the gendered norms and the sexuality education in the school. I then instituted a dialogical sexuality intervention with a group of Grade 10 learners, aiming to bring gendered and sexual norms to visibility, to trouble them (thereby promoting participants’ critical consciousness around gendered norms), and to provide recognition for participants in a variety of subject positions. Ten sessions were conducted, with the focus of each session being planned by the group. The action research project attempted to promote understandings of the processes required to facilitate such aims. The dialogical format of the group generated curiosity and engagement, and there were suggestions that some participants were taking up safe-sex messages in a reflexive manner. A partial normalisation of some ‘hidden’ aspects of sex, particularly around issues pertaining to female sexuality, was enabled, and critical consciousness around the gendered inequities in ‘cheating’ was promoted. However, abstinence was relatively silenced, and male same-sex remained heavily stigmatised. No substantial action component beyond the group meetings was generated. Participant feedback indicated that they placed great value on the dialogical processes in the group, and that they enjoyed being able to talk about sexual and other personal aspects of their lives. I theorise that the value of the group was in the recognition that participants received as they were positioned in a variety of subject positions. Whilst dialogue was shown to be extremely valuable, there were suggestions that other, non-dialogical modes of recognition were also needed by participants.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
- Authors: Graham, Nicola Susan Jearey
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3275 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021271
- Description: Risky and abusive sexual behaviours, stemming largely from inequitable gendered norms, are a pervasive feature of the South African socio-sexual landscape. Literature shows that sexuality education programmes can be effective in reducing risky sexual practices, but South African school sexuality education has been shown to be largely inadequate. The question arises as to how to engage with high school learners about sexualities in meaningful ways. In an attempt to answer this, I implemented a dialogical sexuality action research project at a lower middle class urban high school. Freirian principles of critical consciousness and dialogical pedagogy were utilized, and these were infused with feminist post-structural understandings of a discursively constituted subject. The initial consultative process started in 2012 with two projects at the school. Data from these projects, and a further consultation with the school principal, provided baseline information on the gendered norms and the sexuality education in the school. I then instituted a dialogical sexuality intervention with a group of Grade 10 learners, aiming to bring gendered and sexual norms to visibility, to trouble them (thereby promoting participants’ critical consciousness around gendered norms), and to provide recognition for participants in a variety of subject positions. Ten sessions were conducted, with the focus of each session being planned by the group. The action research project attempted to promote understandings of the processes required to facilitate such aims. The dialogical format of the group generated curiosity and engagement, and there were suggestions that some participants were taking up safe-sex messages in a reflexive manner. A partial normalisation of some ‘hidden’ aspects of sex, particularly around issues pertaining to female sexuality, was enabled, and critical consciousness around the gendered inequities in ‘cheating’ was promoted. However, abstinence was relatively silenced, and male same-sex remained heavily stigmatised. No substantial action component beyond the group meetings was generated. Participant feedback indicated that they placed great value on the dialogical processes in the group, and that they enjoyed being able to talk about sexual and other personal aspects of their lives. I theorise that the value of the group was in the recognition that participants received as they were positioned in a variety of subject positions. Whilst dialogue was shown to be extremely valuable, there were suggestions that other, non-dialogical modes of recognition were also needed by participants.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2016
South African memoirs in a decade of transition: Athol Fugard's Cousins (1994), J.M. Coetzee's Boyhood (1997), and Breyten Breytenbach's Dog Heart (1999)
- Authors: Roux, Christine Ann
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: Autobiography , Fugard, Athol , Coetzee, J. M., 1940 , Breytenbach, Breyten
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2191 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002233 , Autobiography , Fugard, Athol , Coetzee, J. M., 1940 , Breytenbach, Breyten
- Description: This thesis examines three South African memoirs using M. M. Bakhtin’s theories of the dialogical relationship in language and literature. By offering an alternative to a postmodern or multicultural interpretation of autobiographies, Bakhtin’s precepts, that define a dialogic, help to reframe a way of discussing memoirs and avoiding dead-ends previously arrived at by essayists in James Olney’s 1980 collection. Bakhtin’s ideas discussed here, which include the “once-occurrent moment”, “architectonic contraposition”, ”emotional-volitional tone”, “alibi”, “non-alibi”, and “centripetal” and “centrifugal” force, help to rebuild a discussion based on temporary and evolving self truth rather than fiction, the postmodern interpretation, or confession, the new-age secular spiritualism based on multicultural and politically correct standards. For this, each author’s memoir had to be examined separately and a conclusion was arrived at through inductive analysis. Rather than try to find similar characteristics, I focused on what made each memoir different and unique. Janet Varner Gunn’s Autobiography: Toward A Poetics of Experience (1982) refocused the debate over autobiography on process. The question, what steps did each author take toward writing about himself, led the discussion to an examination of the priorities each author exemplified. Beginning with Fugard who emphasized spatial, concrete, and sensory detail to help him contain his emotional life, the thesis moves on to an examination of Coetzee’s sense of justice. From the physical and intellectual world follows Breytenbach’s spiritual space-making. In each memoir, control of space is evident on different levels of experience. Articulating space inevitably leads to a discussion of boundaries. Here, Charles Taylor’s emphasis on the modern self’s need to articulate a horizon or a framework is helpful in generalizing the effect of the autobiographical process. The conclusion reached is that autobiography is inherently centrifugal: it moves away from the center of cultural thinking because its “truth” bolsters itself on dialogical process which does not depend on a fixed authority but rather on communicative exchange. As an example of exchange, autobiography’s central truth is that it returns to a “unique point of origin”, namely the self, only to reconnect to the other in a potentially eternal exchange of responsiveness moving away from the center.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
- Authors: Roux, Christine Ann
- Date: 2002
- Subjects: Autobiography , Fugard, Athol , Coetzee, J. M., 1940 , Breytenbach, Breyten
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2191 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002233 , Autobiography , Fugard, Athol , Coetzee, J. M., 1940 , Breytenbach, Breyten
- Description: This thesis examines three South African memoirs using M. M. Bakhtin’s theories of the dialogical relationship in language and literature. By offering an alternative to a postmodern or multicultural interpretation of autobiographies, Bakhtin’s precepts, that define a dialogic, help to reframe a way of discussing memoirs and avoiding dead-ends previously arrived at by essayists in James Olney’s 1980 collection. Bakhtin’s ideas discussed here, which include the “once-occurrent moment”, “architectonic contraposition”, ”emotional-volitional tone”, “alibi”, “non-alibi”, and “centripetal” and “centrifugal” force, help to rebuild a discussion based on temporary and evolving self truth rather than fiction, the postmodern interpretation, or confession, the new-age secular spiritualism based on multicultural and politically correct standards. For this, each author’s memoir had to be examined separately and a conclusion was arrived at through inductive analysis. Rather than try to find similar characteristics, I focused on what made each memoir different and unique. Janet Varner Gunn’s Autobiography: Toward A Poetics of Experience (1982) refocused the debate over autobiography on process. The question, what steps did each author take toward writing about himself, led the discussion to an examination of the priorities each author exemplified. Beginning with Fugard who emphasized spatial, concrete, and sensory detail to help him contain his emotional life, the thesis moves on to an examination of Coetzee’s sense of justice. From the physical and intellectual world follows Breytenbach’s spiritual space-making. In each memoir, control of space is evident on different levels of experience. Articulating space inevitably leads to a discussion of boundaries. Here, Charles Taylor’s emphasis on the modern self’s need to articulate a horizon or a framework is helpful in generalizing the effect of the autobiographical process. The conclusion reached is that autobiography is inherently centrifugal: it moves away from the center of cultural thinking because its “truth” bolsters itself on dialogical process which does not depend on a fixed authority but rather on communicative exchange. As an example of exchange, autobiography’s central truth is that it returns to a “unique point of origin”, namely the self, only to reconnect to the other in a potentially eternal exchange of responsiveness moving away from the center.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
A Zulu martyr? What are the factors that led to the sparse and irregular public commemoration of Maqbamusela Kbanyile in the Lutheran church to which he belonged?
- Nürnberger, Margarete Paula Luise
- Authors: Nürnberger, Margarete Paula Luise
- Date: 2001
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:21087 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6301
- Description: From Foreword: About a fortnight after I had submitted the thesis on factors that lead to the sparse and irregular public commemoration of Maqhamusela Khanyile in the Lutheran church to which he belonged when the archivist of the Norwegian Mission Society in Stavanger sent an e-mail that new material had been found. It consisted of a miscellany of various documents connected with the erection of the first cross, dating from 1926-1940, to be found in Misjonskapets archiv SA, boks nr. 2A legg nr. 8. The new material falsified two hypotheses on which the thesis had worked. The first of these hypotheses states that the initiative for the erection of the first monument to Maqhamusela had come from the Anglican interest in and research on him in 1935. Source 1a in the new material proves that in 1926 there were already appeals for contributions towards such a monument among the Lutheran congregations that grew out of the Norwegian work. The second hypothesis falsified by the new material had issued from memories of interviewees (e.g. Dean Shobete in interview 33) which stated that a stone with the Zulu inscription had been placed in the saddle of the hill where the execution had taken place before the erection of the first cross. The new material proves that the suggestion for a marble plate dates from 1927 (source 2a) and that the slab was eventually ordered in October 1939. A receipt (document 10) for "making the Maqhamusela monument" is dated 11.5.1940. Altogether, then, there was earlier commemoration of Maqhamusela in the church of which he was a member than the thesis had found, and the impetus to erect a monument had come from White and some black Norwegian Lutherans themselves.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001
- Authors: Nürnberger, Margarete Paula Luise
- Date: 2001
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:21087 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/6301
- Description: From Foreword: About a fortnight after I had submitted the thesis on factors that lead to the sparse and irregular public commemoration of Maqhamusela Khanyile in the Lutheran church to which he belonged when the archivist of the Norwegian Mission Society in Stavanger sent an e-mail that new material had been found. It consisted of a miscellany of various documents connected with the erection of the first cross, dating from 1926-1940, to be found in Misjonskapets archiv SA, boks nr. 2A legg nr. 8. The new material falsified two hypotheses on which the thesis had worked. The first of these hypotheses states that the initiative for the erection of the first monument to Maqhamusela had come from the Anglican interest in and research on him in 1935. Source 1a in the new material proves that in 1926 there were already appeals for contributions towards such a monument among the Lutheran congregations that grew out of the Norwegian work. The second hypothesis falsified by the new material had issued from memories of interviewees (e.g. Dean Shobete in interview 33) which stated that a stone with the Zulu inscription had been placed in the saddle of the hill where the execution had taken place before the erection of the first cross. The new material proves that the suggestion for a marble plate dates from 1927 (source 2a) and that the slab was eventually ordered in October 1939. A receipt (document 10) for "making the Maqhamusela monument" is dated 11.5.1940. Altogether, then, there was earlier commemoration of Maqhamusela in the church of which he was a member than the thesis had found, and the impetus to erect a monument had come from White and some black Norwegian Lutherans themselves.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2001
Labour migration, marriage and family life in a Ciskei village
- Authors: Manona, Cecil Wele
- Date: 1981
- Subjects: Migrant labor -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- Ciskei
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2107 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006884
- Description: From introduction: The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the effects of labour migration on marriage and family life. The field material is from Burnshill, a village situated in the Keiskammahoek district in the Ciskei. Keiskammahoek is bounded on the East by the districts of King William's Town and Stutterheim, on the West and South by Middledrift and on the North by Cathcart. The inhabitants of Burnshill are overwhelmingly Xhosa and Mfengu (the main ethnic groups in the Ciskei) but also include a small proportion of people whose clans are of Mpondo and Thembu origin. This village has undergone extensive change. As we shall show later, it was settled de novo by the Mfengu and the Xhosa during the second half of the past century. This is one of the reasons why it lacks the homogeneity and continuity of cultural tradition which are predominant features of long-established communities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1981
- Authors: Manona, Cecil Wele
- Date: 1981
- Subjects: Migrant labor -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- Ciskei
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:2107 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006884
- Description: From introduction: The aim of this thesis is to describe and analyse the effects of labour migration on marriage and family life. The field material is from Burnshill, a village situated in the Keiskammahoek district in the Ciskei. Keiskammahoek is bounded on the East by the districts of King William's Town and Stutterheim, on the West and South by Middledrift and on the North by Cathcart. The inhabitants of Burnshill are overwhelmingly Xhosa and Mfengu (the main ethnic groups in the Ciskei) but also include a small proportion of people whose clans are of Mpondo and Thembu origin. This village has undergone extensive change. As we shall show later, it was settled de novo by the Mfengu and the Xhosa during the second half of the past century. This is one of the reasons why it lacks the homogeneity and continuity of cultural tradition which are predominant features of long-established communities.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 1981
- «
- ‹
- 1
- ›
- »