Narratives of South African heteroseual relationships: understanding masculine and feminine togetherness
- Authors: Tracey, Tiffany
- Date: 2007
- Subjects: Heterosexuality , Heterosexism , Homosexuality , Gender identity
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , D Soc Sc (Psych)
- Identifier: vital:11601 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/176 , Heterosexuality , Heterosexism , Homosexuality , Gender identity
- Description: Heterosexuality often appears as a monolithic way of being that has been disciplinarily defined as right and natural for all sexual subjects (Foucault, 1979). However, it may also be viewed as a social construction, subject to alteration and variation according to social and historical context. In the following research, the stories of ten couples and from the South African soap opera Isidingo reveal the ways that heteronorms shape togetherness between men and women. In the research a queer stance is used to interrogate the ways that togetherness appears as natural and normal, such that the contingency of such togetherness is revealed. The queer stance was used to unsettle the unquestioned assumption of heteronormativity by interrogating the construction from a political position not included by the norm (Stein & Plummer, 1994). Within the general queer stance the concept of performance has been used to account for the ways in which subjects are able to unsettle normative constraints: Butler’s (1993) conception of repetition, Holzman’s (1991) account of the revolutionary developmental potential of performance, Billig’s (1991) understanding of the rhetorical constructions of everyday philosophers. Further Bakhtin’s (1994) dialogic ontology suggests that utterances, performances and/or narratives Using these theoretical underpinnings, the narratives show how stories of togetherness collude with heteronorms while at the same time existing alongside alternative forms of togetherness. Possibly because norms are broad, overarching constructions, they do not define the entirety of the couples’ tales. Rather moments of resistance and alteration are interwoven with normative themes. This unpredictable ambivalence appears in the couples narratives as the assertion that all relationships are the same, and that all relationships are unique. Couples position themselves within a social network, and this network instructs the couple on heteronormative ways of being together. They also witness normative performances in a way that is similar to the observation of disciplines, suggested by Foucault (1979). Although couples often go with their social network’s observations, the manner in which couples position themselves within this network assists them in arguing for alternatives to heteronorms. Spatial expressions also at times serve to fix togetherness. Homes are structured in line with social constructions of heteronorms. However, couples can and do mould their understandings of their homes, such space is reveal as an intersection between social and individual concerns. Narratives of work again reveal that heteronorms structure but can also be ignored within heterosexual relationships. Couples tell of receiving particular benefits from normative performances, and it is likely that these dividends make it difficult to opt for an altered version of togetherness. At the same time, the gender dualism of a heteronormative division of labour inserts oppression into togetherness, and this may lead couples to seek an unusual way of being together. In these ways, heterosexuality can be read as a multiple and contingent performance, rather than an immovable, unchangeable imperative.
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- Date Issued: 2007
Community development education: the integration of individual and collective consciousness for community well-being within a social development paradigm in South Africa
- Authors: Maistry, Savathrie
- Date: 2008
- Subjects: Community development -- South Africa , Social planning -- South Africa , Public welfare -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Development Studies)
- Identifier: vital:11754 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/182 , Community development -- South Africa , Social planning -- South Africa , Public welfare -- South Africa
- Description: This study focused on community development education and practice for the democratic and transformative South context. Social and community development are relatively new approaches to social welfare and community development is emerging as a discipline and profession to contribute to the goal of developmental social welfare. Community work, albeit to a minimal extent and not community development was viewed as a method of social work during apartheid. With community development being prioritized as an intervention strategy for poverty reduction by the national government, the gap in community development education needs to be addressed. The goal of the study was to develop an undergraduate curriculum framework for community development education that would produce a new generation of ethical community development professionals to contribute to the goal of developmental social welfare. The study focused on the integrated approach to community development education and practice; with education of the student as a whole human being as critical for community development in a transformative South Africa. To achieve its goal, the study identified three themes that were critical to the research: a conceptual framework, clarifying key terms; a curriculum framework for community development education; and qualities and ethics for a new generation of development practitioners. The qualitative study was based in the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa and because of the lack of a referential framework for community development education, the researcher looked towards learning from India which has over fifty years of experience in social and community development education and practice. The state of Kerala established a social development approach in 1957 and was chosen as a learning experience. The state’s Kudumbashree Mission which aims at poverty alleviation through the empowerment of women was chosen as a case study. The integral and values based education system of Sri Sathya Sai University in the state of Andhra Pradesh and the community development education and practice of Loyola College in the state of Kerala were examined. The research design was exploratory, conceptual, descriptive and developmental in nature. The qualitative methodology best suited the nature of this study and a combination of methods to obtain data from a variety of sources across national boundaries was employed. The participants interviewed in both countries were purposively selected for their involvement in social and community development directly as target groups, practitioners, managers and policy makers. The research produced a philosophical and theoretical framework that is unitary and integral and aligned with the current social development policy to guide community development education and practice. The unitary and integral framework encompasses the individual within the family and community context and locates the various dimensions of development such as the social, physical, cultural, psychological, spiritual, political and economical dimensions within a unitary platform. The framework is dominated by the holistic and humanistic philosophies without negating the rational and pragmatic perspectives. In conclusion, the study conceptualizes community development as a natural process; the integration of individual and collective consciousness and an intervention. The outcome of the study is a recommended curriculum framework for community development education that would be of relevance to the Eastern Cape Province in particular and for the South African context generally.
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- Date Issued: 2008
Livestock, rural livelihoods and rural development interventions in the Eastern Cape: case studies of Chris Hani, Alfred Nzo and Amathole district municipalities
- Authors: Phiri, Christopher
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Rural development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Province , Livestock -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rural poor -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , D Soc Sc (Rural Development)
- Identifier: vital:11937 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/184 , Rural development -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape Province , Livestock -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Rural poor -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape
- Description: This study explores how livestock in rural communities were accessed, used as livelihoods portfolios and how off-farm activities and portfolios such as social grants, support from family members and employment assisted the rural poor to build their asset base. Empirical data was collected from 26 villages in the three districts. In particular the study examines firstly, the nature of rural poverty in these villages in the three districts and how households with and without livestock (cattle, sheep, goats, dogs, pigs, cats, ducks, horses and donkeys) used livestock local knowledge to sustain a living. Secondly it explores how the local government and related rural development agencies, intervened in livestock production and the thesis highlights the problematic nature of these interventions, and the implications this has for the form and nature of livestock ownership and use in relation to rural livelihoods. Arising from this, the thesis thirdly explores Ruliv‟s through concrete case studies, the challenges, constraints and implications of a pre-dominant top-down approach to rural development. Contrary to this approach, the study illustrates, through the Rhoxeni case study, the potential effectiveness of a „bottom-up‟ actor oriented approach to rural development. Fourthly, the study explores how local government initiatives intervened in the development of a rural livestock project in Alfred Nzo District Municipality through the Integrated Sustainable Rural Development Programme Goat Project. Here iv the concerns of „commercialisation‟ of livestock production are explored and the thesis points to the implications that the exclusion of social and cultural meanings of livestock have for assumed paths of commercialisation and its associations with development. Fifthly the study explores the potentiality of emerging black commercial farmers who had acquired large areas of agricultural land through local government interventions (Land Redistribution Agricultural Development) but who lacked further support and capacity to transform themselves into commercial farmers. The thesis concludes that their livestock and crop farming activities remained more subsistence and livelihood based, than any transition to expected technical market oriented commercial farming. Overall, the thesis argues that while local government planning for rural development prioritised commercial agriculture as the basis of rural development and the key mechanism of rural poverty alleviation in developmental policies (PGDP, IDP, LED), rural poverty has actually been deepening. In this context, the study argues that the value of livestock to the rural poor lies „outside‟ of its assumed economic value and is more firmly and determinedly located in its social meanings and values, despite these significant levels of material poverty. This has major implications for understanding livelihoods, engaging livestock agency, defining farming and what it means to be a „farmer‟ and engaging with prevalent understandings and practices directed at rural development.
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- Date Issued: 2009
'Visible hectares, vanishing livelihoods': a case of the fast track land reform and resettlement programme in Southern Matabeleland- Zimbabwe
- Authors: Mabhena, Clifford
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Sustainable development -- Zimbabwe , Rural poor -- Zimbabwe , Rural development -- Zimbabwe , Land tenure -- Zimbabwe , Land reform beneficiaries -- Zimbabwe , Livestock -- Breeding -- Zimbabwe , Land settlement -- Zimbabwe
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , D Soc Sc
- Identifier: vital:11423 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1001193 , Sustainable development -- Zimbabwe , Rural poor -- Zimbabwe , Rural development -- Zimbabwe , Land tenure -- Zimbabwe , Land reform beneficiaries -- Zimbabwe , Livestock -- Breeding -- Zimbabwe , Land settlement -- Zimbabwe
- Description: Land reform has been going on in Zimbabwe since the state attained independence from Britain in 1980 as a way of enhancing agrarian livelihoods for the formerly marginalized people. This study argues that, the Land Reform Programme in Southern Matabeleland rather than enhancing agrarian livelihoods, well established livelihoods have actually been drastically reduced. This has been exacerbated by the state programme of land re-distribution that prescribes a „one size fits all‟ model. Yet this is contrary to the thinking in development discourse that equitable land distribution increases rural livelihoods. As a way of gathering data this study utilized ethnography and case study methodologies. I spent two years interacting and interviewing purposively selected new resettles, communal residents, migrant workers and gold panners in this region. Results from this study confirm that, land reform has greatly reduced livelihoods, particularly agrarian livelihoods. Also, this research has found out that, the majority of residents now depend on off-farm livelihoods such as gold panning and migration to neighbouring South Africa. This thesis therefore concludes that, despite a massive expropriation of former commercial farms, people of Southern Matabeleland have not benefitted much as the village settlements (A1) and the small size farms (A2) have not received support from this live-stocking community. People in this region pin their hopes on livestock rearing to sustain their livelihoods and this study therefore recommends that, any agrarian transformation programmes should address the issues that promote livestock rearing
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- Date Issued: 2010
Land use, compensational justice and energy resource extraction in Nigeria: a socio-historical study of petroleum and coal mining communities
- Authors: Umejesi, Ikechukwu
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Compensation (Law) -- Nigeria , Right of property -- Nigeria , Mines and mineral resources -- Nigeria , Coal mines and mining -- Nigeria
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Sociology)
- Identifier: vital:11950 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/344 , Compensation (Law) -- Nigeria , Right of property -- Nigeria , Mines and mineral resources -- Nigeria , Coal mines and mining -- Nigeria
- Description: Scholarly and public analyses of state-community conflict in resource-rich communities, especially in Nigeria, often portray the compensational practices of the state and extractive enterprises as unjust and unsustainable. According to this view, at least three issues foreground the “unjustness”, namely: a) Inadequate compensation of land owners when land is expropriated or degraded in the process of natural resource exploration and production; b) inadequate periodic rents paid by extractive firms to land owners; and c) lack of, or inadequate socio-economic infrastructure in the host communities of extractive operations. Most analysts have therefore argued for a revamp of the compensation system and have presented the inadequacy of compensation as the underlying cause of conflict in Nigeria‟s mining communities (see Frynas, 2000b:208; Okoji, 2002:205). This thesis subjects the compensation discourse to a closer examination, especially against the backdrop of underdevelopment, pervasive poverty, environmental damage and continuing corporate-community conflict in Nigeria‟s resource-rich rural communities. The main argument is that, because of some of its underlying neoliberal assumptions, much of the compensation discourse is flawed – which is why the discourse obscures the true character of state-community and corporate-community conflict. This more so, because the discourse relies mainly on post-colonial (that is, post-1960) experiences and contemporary advocacy literature, ignores the interplay between history and contemporary developments in state-community relations, and treats compensation as an independent variable. Drawing on the concept of collective memory, and utilising historical, ethnographic and survey data from two of Nigeria‟s oldest petroleum and coal-mining communities, the thesis examines how the evolution of the Nigerian state and collective memory about aspects of that evolution have shaped state-community relations in the extractive sector. It situates state- iii community resource-related conflict within the wider socio-historical matrix of state and community contestations for ecological and natural resource sovereignty. The key finding of the thesis is that within the context of socio-ecological rights, compensation demands by local communities are textured. In the case of the communities selected for the study, such demands are often made outside, rather than within, local ethnographic ideas of “justness” and “fairness”. Hence, land-related grievances associated with natural resource extraction persist, regardless of whether or not local demands for compensation are “adequately” met by the state and extractive corporations. The thesis enriches and extends our understanding of natural resource conflict by privileging both the sociological and historical contexts of the conflict and raising questions about the dominance the state enjoys over local communities and indigenous ecological spaces.
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- Date Issued: 2010
The impact of the Western conceptualization of the Christian gospel on its communication in a non-Western environment, with particular reference to the AmaXhosa
- Authors: Higgs, Michael John
- Date: 2010
- Subjects: Christianity and culture -- South Africa , Church history , Missions -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Xhosa (African people) -- Religion , Communication -- Religious aspects -- Christianity
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , D Th
- Identifier: vital:11800 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/356 , Christianity and culture -- South Africa , Church history , Missions -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Xhosa (African people) -- Religion , Communication -- Religious aspects -- Christianity
- Description: This thesis examines the extent and nature of the impact of the contextualization of Christianity upon the amaXhosa from the missionary irruption in the nineteenth century to the present day, and proceeds to examine the implications of this impact for the presentation of the Christian gospel in the contemporary Eastern Cape. Chapter One describes the problem, offers definitions of key concepts and outlines the procedural method for the rest of the thesis. Chapter Two deals with the question of the cross-cultural communication of the Christian gospel in theory. Doctrinal questions such as the nature of the gospel are examined. The basic hermeneutical issue of the categorization of doctrinal tenets according to whether they are required or simply permitted is discussed in terms of Osborne's categories: 'cardinal', 'non-cardinal'. Tenets which are found to be 'anti-scriptural' would be rejected. Specific hermeneutical topics such as language and meaning, symbolics, textuality and orality are then discussed. This is followed by a survey of secular influences which affect a conceptualization. This chapter is preparatory to, and definitive for, the discourse which follows. Chapter Three outlines the cultural heritage from which the Western missionary contextualization of Christianity developed. It shows the extent to which this presentation of the gospel was dependent upon the philosophy which Britain and Europe inherited from the classical Greek culture. More modern developments such as the Enlightenment, Empiricism and Historicism bring the discourse up to the point at which the missionaries arrived. Chapter Four deals with the initial encounter between the missionaries and the amaXhosa. A brief account is given of the nature of the religious and spiritual aspects of the Xhosa culture which first encountered Christianity. The doctrinal section of this chapter deals with those doctrines in the missionary message which became issues for the amaXhosa. The hermeneutical section shows how the cultural setting of the West (vii) affected both the contextualization by the missionaries and the conceptualization by the amaXhosa. To a large extent, the missionaries made the double mistake of imposing their culture on the amaXhosa and failing to accord respect, even recognition, to the Xhosa culture. This amounted to imperialism, which, together with the political imperialism of Britain as the colonizing power, evoked responses from the Xhosa community which are outlined in section 4.4, including those of Nxele and Ntsikana. Because the impact of the Western contextualization is an on-going phenomenon, the thesis continues to trace its development up to the present time. Apartheid is briefly mentioned in Chapter Five. The point is made that all white people were perceived by the amaXhosa to be Christians, and the architects and practitioners of apartheid claimed to be Christians. This ideology therefore had a direct effect on the Xhosa conceptualization of the gospel. The architects of apartheid actually believed that they were accepting God's gift and mandate. This chapter includes Black theological reaction to apartheid in terms of the South African version of Liberation theology. Chapter Six returns to Western Theology in order to bring the sphere of discourse from the point at which it left off at the end of Chapter Three up to the present time. The schools of thought in this period are: Secularism and Existentialism, together with their theological extension, Demythologization. The main religious movements are the Charismatic Movement and Neo-Pentecostalism. Postmodernism came as a later philosophical school, to be followed by Globality. Chapter Seven deals with black South African reactive and proactive responses. The predominant theologies are those of Dwane, Buthelezi, Boesak and Mtuze. Although Dwane, Buthelezi and Boesak came on the scene at the same time as the black theologians reviewed in Chapter Five, their work is placed here because it differs significantly from the more radical responses of the latter. Mtuze is post-apartheid, and responds to the developments outlined in Chapter Six. Chapter Eight draws the findings of the thesis together, by considering how the Christian Gospel ought to be presented to the various contemporary sub-cultures of the amaXhosa. (viii) The last Chapter applies the findings of the thesis to the task in hand. The desired outcomes are listed and briefly discussed. The task ahead is enunciated in terms of manpower and other resources for the effective communication of the Christian gospel in the twenty-first century. The past, present and projected programmes of the Bible Institute Eastern Cape [the target institution] are described and assessed. Finally, topics which presented themselves in the course of the preparation of this thesis are suggested for future research.
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- Date Issued: 2010
A participatory communication approach of rural cattle project: a case study of Nguni cattle project in the Eastern Cape, South Africa
- Authors: Usadolo, Sam Erevbenagie
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Communication in community development -- South Africa , Nguni cattle -- South Africa , Participatory rural appraisal
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Com)
- Identifier: vital:11370 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1015407 , Communication in community development -- South Africa , Nguni cattle -- South Africa , Participatory rural appraisal
- Description: project. It did this by reviewing relevant literature in development communication. The review done showed that literature is replete with arguments critical of the dominant paradigm due to its top-down nature of communication. Scholars critical of dominant paradigm argue that participatory communication should be given a prominent role to ensure that stakeholders work in concert to realise the stated objectives of their development project. The study highlighted many contentious issues surrounding the nature and practices of participatory communication. It pointed out that the issues have played themselves out in literature in the form of different typologies of participatory practices, which were dealt with extensively in this study. The discussion of participatory communication in literature is also mindful of different models of communication and the space they occupy in participatory communication practices. In this study, there was a discussion of transactional communication models as depicted by Nair and White (1993:52) and Steinberg (1997:19). Both scholars emphasise that participatory communication will not achieve its stated purpose without mutual agreement of the parties in communication. They equally stress the recognition of the possible effects of some contextual factors which may have bearing on the prevailing nature of communication. A review of different communication tools used by participatory development communicator was given in the study. These different communication tools were discussed in view of how these tools can be used to advance participatory practice in a development project, especially with reference to the project examined in this study. Using qualitative research method, different and appropriate interview methods such as semi-structured, focus group and post-survey interviews were used to collect data from the respondents in this study. The analysis and discussion of the data revealed that different challenges on the ground could affect participatory communication practices in a development project. With regard to the project examined in this study, the analysis showed that there is a weak stakeholder relationship, especially stakeholders identified in this study as field officers. The study highlighted that stakeholders such as the agricultural extension officers and animal health technicians are not very active in the implementation process of the project. Some of the reasons pointed out is the fact that the secondary stakeholder such as the Provincial Department of Agricultural (PDoA) to which these field officers belong is not playing active role in ensuring that they complement the efforts of other field officers such as the IDC representatives. The second reason is the fact that the participatory focus of the project was not properly communicated to the beneficiaries. This also transpired in their inability to reflect participatory practice in their relationship with the beneficiaries and other stakeholders of the project. Other challenges, among others, as pointed out in the analysis showed that participatory communication practice requires expert personnel to be successful. In the case of the project examined, apart from the fact that there is shortage of manpower to handle the challenges mentioned in the study, there is no communication expert among the few active personnel in the field. The findings of this study showed that there was no clear role and identification of responsibilities let alone coordination of all actors involved in the project. Through the selected case study, this study has not only provided avenue to explore both theoretically and practically participatory communication, but has added to participatory communication discourse that there is no easy answer to challenges field officers encounter in practice. This is the reason the different participatory practices characterising nature of the project this study has investigated was given.
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- Date Issued: 2011
Crime, violence and apartheid in selected works of Richard Wright and Athol Fugard: a study
- Authors: Makombe, Rodwell
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Apartheid in literature , Politics and literature -- South Africa , Race discrimination -- South Africa , Crime -- South Africa , Violence -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DLitt et Phil (English)
- Identifier: vital:11888 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/525 , Apartheid in literature , Politics and literature -- South Africa , Race discrimination -- South Africa , Crime -- South Africa , Violence -- South Africa
- Description: Different forms of racial segregation have been practiced in different countries the world over. However, the nature of South Africa‟s apartheid system, as it was practiced from 1948 until the dawn of the democratic dispensation in 1994, has been a subject of debate in South Africa and even beyond. Apartheid was a policy that was designed by the then ruling Nationalist Party for purposes of dividing and stratifying South Africa along racial lines - whites, blacks, coloureds and Asians. It thus promoted racial segregation and/or unequal stratification of society. In South Africa‟s hierarchy of apartheid, blacks, who constituted the majority of the population, were ironically the most destitute and segregated. Some historians believe that South Africa‟s racial policy was designed against the backdrop of Jim Crow, a similar system of racial discrimination which was instituted in the American South late in the 1890s through the 20th century. Jim Crow and apartheid are, in this study, considered as sides of the same coin; hence for the sake of convenience, the word apartheid is used to subsume Jim Crow. Although South Africa‟s apartheid system was influenced by different ideologies, for example German missiology as applied by the Dutch Reformed Church, historian Hermann Giliomee (2003: 373) insists that „the segregationist practice of the American South was particularly influential.‟ Given the ideological relationship between apartheid and Jim Crow, the present study investigates the interplay of compatibility between apartheid/Jim Crow and crime and violence as reflected in selected works of Richard Wright (African American novelist) and Athol Fugard (South African playwright). The aim of the study is firstly, to examine the works in order to analyse them as responses to apartheid and by extension colonial domination and secondly to investigate crime and violence. The three criminological theories selected for this study are strain theory (by Robert Merton), subculture theory (Edwin Sutherland) and labelling theory (Howard Becker). While criminological theory provides an empirical dimension to the study, postcolonial theory situates the study within a specified space, which is the postcolonial context. The postcolonial is, however understood, not as a demarcated historical space, but as a continuum, from the dawn of colonization to the unforeseeable future. Three postcolonial theorists have been identified for the purposes of this study. These are: Frantz Fanon, Homi Bhabha and Bill Ashcroft. Fanon‟s psychoanalysis of the colonized, Homi Bhabha‟s Third Space and hybridity as well as Ashcroft‟s postcolonial transformation are key concepts in understanding the different ways in which the colonized deal with the consequences of colonization. It has been suggested particularly in Edward Said‟s Orientalism (1978) that the discourse of orientalism creates the Oriental, as if Orientals were a passive object of the colonial adventure. This study uses Bhabha‟s and Ashcroft‟s theory of colonial discourse to argue that the colonized are not only objects of the colonial enterprise but also active participants in the process of opening survival spaces for self-realization. The various criminal activities that the colonized engage in (as represented in the selected works of Richard Wright and Athol Fugard) are in this study viewed as ways of inscribing their subjectivity within an exclusive colonial system.
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- Date Issued: 2011
Poverty attribution and reaction to income inequality in Nigeria: the case of Badia community in Lagos
- Authors: Ige, Kehinde Davies
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Income distribution -- Nigeria , Poverty -- Nigeria
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Sociology)
- Identifier: vital:11951 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/329 , Income distribution -- Nigeria , Poverty -- Nigeria
- Description: This study was about the reaction of disadvantaged groups and persons to inequality and deprivation. Set in Badia, a low income community in Lagos, Nigeria, it investigates the main effects of community members’ attributions of causes of poverty in motivating or impeding their reaction to inequality. Relative Deprivation (RD) theory proposed that dissatisfaction with social outcomes depend on subjective feelings rather than objective criteria. However scholars found empirical difficulties in predicting collective action on the basis of RD. Resource Mobilization proponents argued on the contrary that feelings are not salient within the framework of action. The infusion of Social Identity Theory (SIT) into RD research however resolved the paradox of action with SIT’s argument that action was contingent upon the perception of permeability and legitimacy of inter-group structures. However, despite successes of SIT, scholars found that it was unable to predict the type of actions group members will take in response to injustice and the nature of possible actions. Propositions of RD and SIT were therefore suitable for integration into the proposition of Taylor & McKirnan’s (1984) Five Stage Model (FSM) of inter-group relations that reactions to RD feelings were predicated upon the dynamics of the social philosophy guiding stratification. Using an integrated RD, SIT and FSM framework, this study shows how disadvantaged group members’ responses to deprivation proceeded as predicted by the FSM from mutual acceptance to collective action mediated by their perception of causes of poverty. This complements the trend in the literature on reaction to inequality and it's almost ii exclusive focus on instrumental and affective concerns while neglecting the role of consensually shared beliefs in motivating or impeding action and willingness to act in response to injustice. The study hypothesized that the pattern of causal attributions of poverty of respondents will shape their ‘predisposition to act’ and the type of action they would engage in. The main hypothesis of the study therefore was that poverty attribution mediates the relationship between ‘feelings of injustice’ and ‘reaction to inequality’. For instance where respondents attribute poverty to individual or fatalistic factors they will adopt individual action whereas where attributions are structural, responses will be collective, where feelings of injustice were present. A survey was conducted using a five-level Likert scale to decipher respondents’ perceptions of feelings of injustice, their causal attribution of poverty, their levels of willingness to embark on collective action and actions taken in the preceding year. In the first stage of analysis, responses (n = 383) were reduced using Principal Components Analysis (PCA) to determine how questionnaire items contributed to variables under consideration. Subsequently, variables extracted were correlated and regressed. While bivariate correlation was used to test simple relationships between variables, a stepwise hierarchical regression analysis was used to decipher how sub-dimensions of poverty attribution mediate the relationship between respondents’ feelings of injustice and their willingness to embark on collective action entering variables in succession into the regression equation. Furthermore, a 1 x 3 x 5 Multivariate Analysis of Covariance (MANCOVA) was used to test the mediation effects of poverty attribution sub-dimensions on the relationship between injustice feelings and actions. The results showed iii that structural attribution was the preferred explanation for poverty among Badia residents, as this explanation was preferred by a majority of the respondents. It was also shown that while 96.9% of respondents used more than one causal attribution, a majority of structural attributors adopted fatalistic attribution as second choice of explanation for poverty. On the basis of the above, and in line with previous studies (Mann, 1970; Bobo, 1991), it was deduced that the possibility for radical action would be diminished as a result of this ‘dual/split consciousness’. The result further confirmed as hypothesized, that fatalistic attribution had a negative correlation with willingness to embark on collective action as respondents in the fatalistic condition were not willing to embark on collective action. However, respondents in the structural conditions were more willing to engage in collective action. While attributions predicted willingness to embark on collective action, MANCOVA showed that action proceeded in a continuum as predicted by the FSM. For example, while the introduction of fatalistic and individual attribution to the equation hypothesizing the relationship between injustice feelings and action showed that resultant actions were predominantly individual normative, post-hoc inclusion of the structural dimension to the equation showed an addition variance to the equation for collective action. This indicated that structural attributions enhance collective normative action. However, consistent with most studies in the literature, the results did not predict collective non-normative action1. Results indicated low adherence of subject to items eliciting collective action suggesting that past studies which reported high preference of collective action by disadvantaged groups may have been influenced by ‘social desirability effects’, given Topf’s (1995) assertion that what people say they will do is often not what they do but what they perceive as right in the particular situation. 1 The only notable exception is Boen & Vanbeselaere (1998) 2 A full discussion of lay explanations of poverty is reserved for chapter 4 of this thesis. iv The study however proposed on the basis of the salience of structural attributions that poverty attributions may become useful for Social Movement Organizations (SMOs) interested in fostering social change. However, while the study showed that attribution influences willingness to embark on action it does not show how attribution becomes salient in group membership. Thus there is a need for future studies to investigate how attribution affects group identification. Similarly, given the dearth of studies of the attribution of the ‘actual poor’ of poverty, it is necessary for future studies to test the validity of the result from the present study indicating stronger adherence to fatalistic than individualistic attributions of poverty among the disadvantaged. While many past studies of attribution and those of reaction to injustice have been on samples of middle-class adults in developed countries, or artificially created deprived groups, the present study being of the ‘real life’ poor in a Third World setting, provides evidence of ‘real world’ actions and attributions of people experiencing poverty.
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- Date Issued: 2011
An archaelogy of South Africanness: the conditions and fantasies of a post-apartheid festival
- Authors: Truscott, Ross
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Nationalism -- South Africa -- History -- 20th century , Whites -- Race identity -- South Africa , Afrikaner loyalists , Psychoanalysis , Discourse analysis , Multiculturalism -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , D Soc Sc (Psych)
- Identifier: vital:11610 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/539 , Nationalism -- South Africa -- History -- 20th century , Whites -- Race identity -- South Africa , Afrikaner loyalists , Psychoanalysis , Discourse analysis , Multiculturalism -- South Africa
- Description: It has become commonplace in academic studies, particularly those with a critical bent, to view nations as being historical constructs, as being without essence, though not without effects of exclusion and inclusion, of the constitution of the „authentic‟ national subject and the „other of the nation.‟ The critical impetus at work here is to show how a nation is constructed in order to bring into view the knowledge and power relations this construction entails, to show whose interests the construction serves, and whose it does not. This study examines the discursive production, the performative enactment and the spatial emplacement of post-apartheid „South Africanness‟ through a case study of Oppikoppi music festival. Oppikoppi is an annual event that emerged in 1994, on the threshold of the „new South Africa.‟ The festival is attended predominantly by young white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans and is held on a farm in the northernmost province of Limpopo, South Africa, an area notoriously conservative in its racial politics. Yet, curiously, Oppikoppi has been repeatedly referred to, and refers to itself with an almost obsessive regularity and repetitiveness, as a „truly South African‟ event. Indeed, the festival has been promoted, since 1998, as „The Home of South African Music,‟ and in 2009 the site of the festival was unofficially declared a „national monument.‟ Through the employment of concepts drawn from the writings of French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault – particularly his earlier archaeological works – and from Sigmund Freud – particularly his metapsychological works – this study has posed two broad sets of questions. Firstly, from a Foucauldian perspective, what have been the conditions for the production of „South Africanness‟ at this festival? What have been the requirements, the discursive „rules of the game‟ for whiteness and Afrikanerness to become „South African‟? To what extent does this constitution of the festival as a „South African‟ event preserve older lines of division, difference and oppression? To what extent does this bring about meaningful social change? Secondly, from a psychoanalytic perspective, what are the fantasies constellated in the discourse of the festival as a „South African‟ event? Who, in these fantasies, is constituted as the „other of the post-apartheid nation‟? How has fantasy provided a kind of „hallucinatory gratification,‟ a phantasmatic compensation for, and a means of conserving, the losses of privilege in the new nation? And how has fantasy oriented the festival towards post-apartheid sociality, soliciting identifications with the post-apartheid nation? The overarching argument proposed is that anti-apartheid post-apartheid nation building has cultivated a melancholic loss of apartheid for whites in general and Afrikaners in particular, a loss that cannot be grieved – indeed, a loss that should not be grieved – and, as such, a grief that takes on an unconscious afterlife. Apartheid and the life it enabled – not only racialised privilege, but also a structure of identification and idealisation, of being and having – becomes a loss that is buried in, and by, the injunctions issued to post-apartheid memory and conduct. Without the discursive resources with which to symbolise this loss, disguised repetitions of the past, a neurotic refinding of the lost objects of apartheid, and melancholia are the likely outcomes, each of which engender a set of exclusions and enjoyments that run along old and new lines.
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- Date Issued: 2012
An investigation into challenges facing Further Education Training (FET) leaners in the study of Isixhosa in the Port Elizabeth district
- Authors: Mpofu, Nombulelo Patience
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Xhosa language -- Study and teaching (Secondary) , Port Elizabeth (South Africa) , Effective teaching
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DLitt
- Identifier: vital:11840 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1013389 , Xhosa language -- Study and teaching (Secondary) , Port Elizabeth (South Africa) , Effective teaching
- Description: The essential function of a language is communication. Effective communication takes place when speakers understand each other‟s language. Speakers of different languages these days stay with each other. This kind of setting results into multilingualism. Multilingualism refers to the use or maintenance of more than one language in a certain context. In this regard it may refer to the fact that many languages are spoken in South Africa. It serves as a natural solution to the problem of language contact that is extremely widespread throughout South Africa and the world at large. The recognition of the multilingual nature of South African society by the Constitution of this country , as (Made 2010) puts it, necessitates the creation of tools of implementation and redress, in the form of appropriate language policies. Such language policies are designed to correct the universal tendency to practise monolingualism in multilingual societies which disempowers non-mother tongue speakers of the dominant language, to the detriment of both their rights as citizens and in communicative equity in exercising these rights. Many Black South Africans took employment in the industrial centres through urbanization, where they learnt many languages such as Fanakalo, English, Afrikaans and many other languages in the African continent. This resulted into linguistic heterogeneity. Heterogeneity brings speakers of languages together at different workplaces, schools and even places of abode.
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- Date Issued: 2012
An investigation of strategies used by Ndebele translators in Zimbabwe in translating HIV/AIDS texts: a corpus-based approach
- Authors: Ndhlovu, Ketiwe
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Translating and interpreting -- Zimbabwe , Corpora (Linguistics) , Culture -- Study and teaching -- Zimbabwe , Translators -- Zimbabwe , HIV infections -- Zimbabwe , AIDS (Disease) -- Zimbabwe , Taboo, Linguistic , Ndebele (African people) -- Social life and customs
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (African Languages)
- Identifier: vital:11149 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/524 , Translating and interpreting -- Zimbabwe , Corpora (Linguistics) , Culture -- Study and teaching -- Zimbabwe , Translators -- Zimbabwe , HIV infections -- Zimbabwe , AIDS (Disease) -- Zimbabwe , Taboo, Linguistic , Ndebele (African people) -- Social life and customs
- Description: In Zimbabwe, translation studies is yet to be recognized as a discipline worthy of study in its own right, hence, not much research has been carried out into the theory and practice of translation. Furthermore, there is no tertiary institution that offers professional translation courses. In light of this information most translations are carried out by untrained/partially trained translators with only a few translators who have gained experience over time. The aim of this study was to investigate strategies used by Ndebele translators in the translation of specialized terms and cultural taboos in selected HIV/AIDS texts, as well as factors that can be used to improve the translation situation of Zimbabwe. Three main theoretical approaches were used in a complementary fashion, namely Descriptive Translation Studies (DTS), Cultural Studies and Corpus-based Translation Studies (CTS). DTS provided the researcher with a theory to understand the Ndebele translations in their wider environment; Cultural Studies provided the researcher with the means by which to understand Ndebele culture and taboos; Corpus-based Translation Studies (CTS) provided the researcher with the methodological tools and analytical techniques to analyse the corpus of texts. An English-Ndebele Parallel Corpus (ENPC) was created using fourteen English source texts and their corresponding Ndebele translations. The ENPC was interrogated by means of ParaConc, a parallel concordancing program. The study found that when translating specialised terms, Ndebele translators used strategies such as a general or neutral word, cultural substitution, paraphrasing and omission. The strategy of omission was misused in most cases because Ndebele translators omitted valuable information which did not reach the target readers. With regards to translation strategies that contributed to term creation, it was found that Ndebele translators relied on external as well as internal resources. The translators used strategies such as pure loan words; pure loan words preceeded by an explanation and indigenised loan words. From the Ndebele language itself, the translators resorted to semantic shift, compounding, coinage and paraphrasing, among others. From the ENPC it is clear that Ndebele translators did manage to transfer the message from English to Ndebele to an extent. However, the ENPC has to be used with caution by other researchers since the translations included in the corpus are full of errors such as misinterpretations of the source texts, mistranslations, incorrect terms and incorrect orthography. This factor points to a dire need to establish translation as an academic discipline and profession in Zimbabwe so as to elevate the quality of translations and offer better translation services to all users.
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- Date Issued: 2012
Dreams, sexuality and fantasy: a psychoanalytic reading of K. Sello Duiker’s novels
- Authors: Kirton-Els, Teneille
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DLitt et Phil
- Identifier: vital:11890 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1020154
- Description: The primary aim of this thesis is to provide a text-based literary study exploring the characters and themes created by K. Sello Duiker in the three novels, Thirteen Cents, The Quiet Violence of Dreams and The Hidden Star. Duiker’s work is significant because it highlights prominent societal challenges prevalent in post-apartheid society. By analysing Duiker’s novels one acquires a better understanding of this author, an understanding of the world that contributed to the creation of his texts and his contribution to South African literature. Insight into Duiker’s fictional world allows for a careful investigation of the prominent societal issues prevalent in Duiker’s work - a world riddled with violence, issues of sexuality and psychological distress. For this purpose this thesis is premised on the notion that underpinning K. Sello Duiker’s oeuvre is a central focus on dreams, sexuality and fantasy. Logically, therefore, the main focus of the study is specifically on the inner working of the characters’ minds and how they deal/ or are unable to cope with contemporary social concerns, often resulting in psychological turmoil and dysfunctionality. For this reason, prominent themes examined in this study are the interpretation of dreams, an exploration of sexuality and an examination of fantasy in the three novels. Psychoanalytic literary theory, with the main focus being specifically on the theories presented by Sigmund Freud is used as an analytic tool to read Duiker’s texts. Psychoanalytic theory is arguably the most appropriate for analysing Duiker’s novels as it allows one to investigate the characters’ psyches and the psychological effect of societal influences on these characters. In addition, one is also able to examine how the characters are able/ unable to deal with the trauma caused by the contemporary issues in society – issues of violence, sexuality and psychological distress. Thus, one is able to grasp an overall understanding of the characters’ behaviour and actions. Furthermore, the characters’ experiences are based on the behaviour and incidents of real people, people suffering from psychological dysfunctionality, sexuality issues and identity crisis. The first chapter discusses post-apartheid literature, and provides a brief background on Duiker, his works and his conception as a writer. Chapter two provides an overview of psychoanalytic theory and on the relevant theories of Sigmund Freud. Chapter three offers a reading of Thirteen Cents, a novel that pays particular attention to the lives of children living on the streets of Cape Town. In the next chapter The Quiet Violence of Dreams is examined with a special focus on Duiker’s experimentation with form in the construction of this novel. Aspects pertaining to sexuality and dreams are also examined. Chapter five pays particular attention to magical realism and fantasy in The Hidden Star.
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- Date Issued: 2012
Hiv/Aids communication and youth behaviour in South Africa: a study of female high school students in the Eastern Cape Province
- Authors: Mpofu, Nkosinothando
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: HIV infections -- Social aspects -- South Africa , AIDS (Disease) -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Communication in public health -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Com)
- Identifier: vital:11368 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1015374 , HIV infections -- Social aspects -- South Africa , AIDS (Disease) -- Social aspects -- South Africa , Communication in public health -- South Africa
- Description: Human Immuno-Deficiency Virus and Acquired Immune-Deficiency Syndrome communication remains one of the most significant tools in the fight against HIV/AIDS given the absence of the cure to fight the growth and spread of the global pandemic. Through the use of information, HIV/AIDS communication seeks to empower recipients or societies with skills that will help reduce their risk of infection. South Africa has seen a high visibility of HIV/AIDS communication programmes or campaigns aimed at empowering different audiences, whilst paying particular emphasis on the most vulnerable. Young people, in particular young women, have a higher prevalence of HIV/AIDS in South Africa. This has prompted the development of many youth focused communication campaigns which have sought to address factors that increase young people`s vulnerability to HIV infection. However, despite the high visibility of HIV/AIDS communication campaigns targeting young people, high risk behaviours are still being seen among young women. Important to note are the high teenage pregnancy rates, growing abuse of substances and even the premature engagement of sexual activities among female youths. This, therefore, raises questions on the effect of HIV/AIDS communication programmes in encouraging protective behaviour against risky behavioural practices amongst young women. Using both quantitative and qualitative research approaches to this study, an investigation was conducted into whether current HIV/AIDS communication campaigns have been limited (in terms of effectiveness) when it comes to communicating with young women on issues relating to HIV/AIDS. Awareness of HIV/AIDS and HIV/AIDS communication programmes, relevance of HIV/AIDS communication programmes, the factors that influence the use and understanding of HIV/AIDS messages and the impact of HIV/AIDS communication on attitude and behaviour change amongst female youths is measured. A total of 350 questionnaire copies were self-administered to 350 participants, with a 100 percent response rate. From the 350 participants, seventy five took part in focus group discussions. Data obtained was analysed using SPSS (for descriptive statistics), and the grounded theory. The results of the study indicate that all participants were aware of HIV/AIDS with at least 60% of the participants aware of at least three HIV/AIDS communication campaigns. When measuring the relevance of HIV/AIDS communication campaigns, participants (58%) indicate that issues discussed in most HIV/AIDS communication campaigns increased the relevance of HIV/AIDS messages to young women although such relevance was, for some respondents, affected by limited access to communication campaigns. Results also show that levels of knowledge and understanding of factors that expose young women to HIV infections differed amongst participants in as much as the factors that hinder the use of advice contained in HIV/AIDS messages also differed. Sixty-nine percent of the participants have knowledge and a better understanding of factors that expose young females to HIV infections. Twenty-five percent of the participants identified peer pressure, whilst 23% identified limited access to HIV/AIDS communication campaigns and another 18% identified a disregard of HIV/AIDS messages as significant factors that limit the ability of individuals to implement advice contained in HIV/AIDS messages. The results also indicate that although HIV/AIDS communication campaigns seem to have played a role in empowering some participants, there is still a significant minority whom communication has not effectively communicated with. Based on these findings, the study suggests, amongst other things, the need to intensify current HIV/AIDS communication campaigns through the provision of consistent messages on appropriate condom use, the identification of easily accessible communication channels and the development of thought provoking and attention grabbing campaigns as well as the need to continue to directly involve young women in the processes of their own development.
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- Date Issued: 2012
Knowledge retention strategies in selected Southern Africa public broadcasting corporations
- Authors: Dewah, Peterson
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Knowledge management , Intellectual capital -- Management , Employee retention , Broadcasting -- South Africa , Broadcasting -- Zimbabwe , Broadcasting -- Botswana
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:11572 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/438 , Knowledge management , Intellectual capital -- Management , Employee retention , Broadcasting -- South Africa , Broadcasting -- Zimbabwe , Broadcasting -- Botswana
- Description: Knowledge is now regarded as the most important resource surpassing other resources like land and capital. It is a foregone conclusion that knowledge flows out of organizations through various ways such as resignations, retirement and death yet, it does not seem as if organizations are employing strategies to retain such a vital component of production and service delivery. This study investigated the knowledge retention strategies in three Southern Africa Development Community (SADC) public broadcasting organizations of the South African Broadcasting Corporation in South African (SABC), the Department of Broadcasting Services (DBS) in Botswana and the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation (ZBC) in Zimbabwe. The aim of this study was to establish how knowledge is captured and retained at such organizations. The objectives of the study were; to find out the types of strategies the three broadcasting organizations employ to capture and retain knowledge; establish how the three broadcasting organizational cultures enable knowledge acquisition, transfer, sharing and retention; establish the role of ICTs as tools and enablers of knowledge retention, creation, transfer and sharing in the three broadcasting organizations; and to propose recommendations on the best strategies for retention of knowledge in the three public broadcasting organizations as well as suggest areas for further and future research. v The study used the survey method and employed the triangulation design for data gathering. Data were collected from three SADC public broadcasting organizations. The population sample comprised 240 professional staff including 38 managers from different sections of the broadcasting organizations. The researcher collected data by administering a questionnaire to staff, interviews with managers and observations. Documentary analysis was also conducted in order to supplement data and fill in gaps. The researcher was mainly interested in gathering data that would give a comprehensive picture about knowledge retention methods in broadcasting organizations. There were four main findings. First, knowledge management as a relatively new concept and practice has not yet been properly embraced in the public broadcasting organization system in order to capture and retain knowledge that is acquired and generated in the organizations. There are no measures put in place in the organizations to retain the knowledge to ensure that once those who hold vital tacit knowledge are gone, the knowledge may still be available and accessible. Second, the study established that the respective organizational cultures impede on organizational knowledge retention. The study established that there was no culture of knowledge sharing. It also emerged that employees were not free to share their knowledge because of government regulations, prevailing political contexts, mistrust and general lack of incentive to share knowledge. Third, the study established that the organizations have no strategies or systems in place to capture the experts‟ knowledge or the knowledge of experienced staff and vi those approaching retiring age. The Human Resources Departments hold exit interviews that cover issues purely to do with why the person is leaving the organization instead of recording the work experiences and expertise of the departing employees. Fourth, the study revealed that the public broadcasting organizations still lag behind in collaborative and communicative technologies that facilitate knowledge transfer and sharing of tacit knowledge but retention of knowledge generally. The study also found that, some of the organizations studied did not have internet connectivity and websites were not yet functional, which hampered acquisition and sharing of knowledge for retention purposes. The importance of this study is that it has made a contribution and provided literature on knowledge retention strategies for public broadcasting corporations as part of knowledge management practice. On the basis of these findings the study recommended the following: appointment of knowledge management officers, establishment of Communities of Practice, encouraging knowledge sharing between employees, introduction of joint programmes with other broadcasting organizations by managers and their supervision of mentoring programmes; organizations to facilitate acquisition of information and communication technologies that enable knowledge management
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- Date Issued: 2012
Participation and paradoxes: community control of mineral wealth in South Africa's Royal Bafokeng and Bakgatla Ba Kgafela communities
- Authors: Mnwana, Sonwabile Comfords
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Political participation -- South Africa , Natural resources -- Co-management -- South Africa , Rural development -- South Africa , Mining corporations -- South Africa , Platinum mines and mining -- South Africa , Sustainable development -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Social Sciences)
- Identifier: vital:11952 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/526 , Political participation -- South Africa , Natural resources -- Co-management -- South Africa , Rural development -- South Africa , Mining corporations -- South Africa , Platinum mines and mining -- South Africa , Sustainable development -- South Africa
- Description: Resource control as a form of community participation in the mineral economy has gained much recognition. One prevailing argument is that direct control of natural resources by local communities is an important precondition for equitable utilisation of the natural resource wealth, peaceful co-existence between mining corporations and indigenous communities, and congenial relations between local communities and the state. Studies have also shown that the absence of direct community control of mineral wealth remains a major factor in the communal resistance and socio-political conflict witnessed in the natural resource-endowed regions of countries such as Nigeria, Ecuador, Sierra Leone and the Democratic Republic of the Congo. However, little is known about mineral resource control at the community level. Does community control necessarily translate to equity? How does local involvement in the mobilisation of mining royalties benefit different segments of the community? Indeed, how do different segments of the community “control” the wealth? What is the specific model adopted to engender broad-based community participation in the utilisation of mineral wealth – and does it matter? These theoretical and practical questions were the impetus for undertaking this study in the Royal Bafokeng and Bakgatla Ba Kgafela – two platinum-rich ‘traditional’ communities in South Africa’s North West Province that have significant control over platinum resources in their territories. Utilising ethnographic data collected in the two study communities in 2008 and 2009, the thesis examines the character of community participation in platinum wealth utilisation; specifically, the conditions under which community participation promotes or hinders sustainable community development. The analysis uses a “three-dimensional participation ladder” conceptual scheme, based in part on Sherry Arnstein’s (1969) “ladder of citizen participation” and subsequent typologies of participation. Among the key findings of the thesis are that despite observed benefits, the interface of resource wealth and community development is fraught with tokenistic participation, elite-targeted grassroots anger, and local tensions – all linked to the contradictory nature of participation. The thesis further reveals that in some instances the challenge of platinum wealth-engendered community development tends to undermine existing customary and democratic spaces for participation, and that this is exacerbated by community-level issues such as poverty and inequality. The findings of the study compel a shift of analytical focus from conflict as an epiphenomenon of collective community exclusion and deprivation (as in the case of many natural-rich countries in Sub-Saharan Africa and elsewhere), to conflict as also resulting from collective community inclusion (in natural resource utilisation). At the policy level, the study generates insights that will, hopefully, assist mineral resource-endowed countries, such as South Africa, in dealing with the challenge of developing appropriate policy frameworks for regulating business and social partnerships between local communities and mining corporations, and within resource-rich communities themselves.
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- Date Issued: 2012
Re-tracing representations and identities in twentieth century South African and African photography: Joseph Denfield, regimes of seeing and alternative visual histories
- Authors: Mnyaka, Phindezwa Elizabeth
- Date: 2012
- Subjects: Historical museums -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Natural history , Photography -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (History)
- Identifier: vital:11536 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/540 , Historical museums -- South Africa -- Eastern Cape , Natural history , Photography -- South Africa
- Description: The thesis examines the photographic collection of Joseph Denfield, an archivist and historian who experimented with photography over a twenty-year period. The study is located within the field of critical visual studies that focuses on historical photography in its depiction of identities and groups in the context of social change. The thesis pays attention to the manner and extent to which Denfield participated in regional visual economies at various moments during his photographic career in order to establish his contribution towards a visual history in Africa and more broadly Southern Africa. It follows Denfield’s career trajectory chronologically. It begins with a study of his photographic work in Nigeria which was oriented around so-called ‘pagan tribes’ and which was framed within the discourse of ethnography. It then pays attention to his growth as an artist in photography that resulted from years of exhibiting in salons. I read these photographs and texts in relation to his earlier work in Nigeria given the extent to which he drew on anthropological discourses. It is through his involvement with photographic art circles that Denfield developed as a historian as a result of his research into the history of photography and regional visual histories. This took the form of both unearthing historical photographs as well as photographing historical sites to construct the past in particular ways through the visual. At each stage he translated these histories into public forms of representation and power thus he figures among a small group of ‘colonial’ photographers that shaped the visual economy of Southern Africa. Through a detailed study of his work, the thesis thus aims to re-think through new dimensions of visual culture.
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- Date Issued: 2012
An assessment of energy use as a rural development strategy: the case of Chiwundura communal area, Zimbabwe
- Authors: Mangizvo, Remigios Vurayayi
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: vital:11444 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1013595
- Description: Households in Chiwundura Communal Area continue to depend on traditional biomass fuels, that is, fuelwood, agricultural residues and in some cases dung. This is despite the fact that grid electrification has been introduced in the communal area. A few households have been able to adopt the grid electrification whilst the rest remain rooted in the use of the inefficient and polluting traditional biomass. Some of those who have adopted the grid electricity only use it for lighting and entertainment whilst they continue to use fuelwood for cooking. A number of households that have connected to grid electricity have reverted to the use of the traditional biomass. This means that the generality of people in Chiwundura Communal Area continue to be subjected to energy poverty, which is a constrained access to modern energy services such as electricity. As a result these households will not be able to meet the millennium development goals among many other achievements. This state of affairs motivated the researcher to conduct this study. The study wanted to find out why the transition from traditional biomass energy forms to modern energy services was slow in Chiwundura Communal Area. The study also wanted to establish the factors that influenced household en ergy choices as well as establish the ways in which the traditional biomass energy forms had affected the livelihoods of households in the study area. In order to get information on the above mentioned questions, this study which was a case study of Chiwundura Communal Area utilised the triangulation of both qualitative and quantitative techniques. These methods were meant to complement each other and benefit from the strengths of each method. The study used questionnaires, interviews, observations, transect walks, focus group discussions and content analysis. The researcher spent up to three months in the study area so as to get first hand information on the issues under study. A total of 215 households and 106 school children were conveniently sampled to respond to the questionnaires whilst fifty household heads participated in the interviews. The study looked at three energy theories namely the energy ladder, the leapfrogging and the multiple fuels use models as well as consumption and decision making theories to open this discussion. The study made a number of critical findings. Firstly, there was very little transition as most households remained as users of biomass energy; hence they were at the lower rungs of the energy ladder. Those that had moved up the ladder tended to back switch to the use of fuelwood. This made them multiple fuel users. Generally fuelwood was the dominant source of energy as it was used mainly for cooking, space and water heating, space lighting and other domestic needs such as smoking meat. About 22% of all respondents were connected to the grid and used electricity mainly for lighting. Candles, paraffin, gensets and solar energy were part of the energy mix. It was established that income was the most important determinant in the energy choices made by the different households. Most of the households were peasant farmers who could not harvest excess crops for the market. A few households with members in paid employment or obtained remittances from relatives in South Africa or the Diaspora were able to get connected to the grid or could afford to purchase fuelwood from vendors. Households could not procure solar house systems as the start up costs were beyond their reach. Those who were able to acquire generators could not run them for many hours as they could not afford to refuel them regularly. Household characteristics such as age and education of household- head were also important factors. It was however established that cultural and traditional factors were as usual not given the attention they deserved yet they were very significant in determining the type of fuel a household chose. Food preparation and taste always played an important role in determining whether a household chose traditional fuels for certain cuisines. It was also realised that failure by numerous households in the study area to access modern energy sources meant that they could not attain the millennium development goals by 2015. They could not move out of abject poverty as they lacked irrigation schemes to assure them of food security. Universal access to education was affected by lack of light to use for studying and reading after hours. Adult education was also frustrated. The boy child was worst affected as he came to school late or at times missed school altogether collecting fuelwood for the household. In Chiwundura Communal Area men and boys were responsible for collecting fuelwood. This signified a shift in gender roles. Men and boys took it upon themselves to have these responsibilities as women and girls could not walk the long distances. The health of the household particularly women and children who spent several hours close to the fire was compromised as most huts were poorly ventilated. They therefore could not adequately deal with indoor air pollution challenges. Other MDGs were also likely not to be achieved by the families. The study also found out that men were not dictatorial in determining the fuel that a household used. Some form of democracy existed within homes and negotiations between husband and wife often took place away from the public domain. Oftentimes women often aped their colleagues who owned modern energy technologies within the villages; hence they pressurised their husbands to buy them SHSs and gensets. This was conspicuous consumption. The study established that there was need for modern energy in the study area. Grid electricity was not the panacea for this as it was beyond the reach of many. It was therefore important to look at renewable energy forms such as gel fuel, SHSs and biogas. It was also pertinent to educate and make households aware of dangers posed by indoor air pollution. The government and different stakeholders must give it equal importance and publicity as that given to HIV and AIDS as it kills several children annually. Housing interventions should be made so that households build huts with proper ventilation.
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- Date Issued: 2013
Re-appraising entertainment-education praxis and reception in subaltern spaces: the case of Tsha Tsha in South Africa
- Authors: Makwambeni, Blessing
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , PhD (Com)
- Identifier: vital:11369 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1015380
- Description: The entertainment education (E-E) strategy has gained currency in development communication scholarship and praxis. However, the theoretical treatment of the strategy has mostly emphasised questions of effectiveness thereby paying minimal attention to substantial resistances encountered at the message reception level. This study investigates the praxis and reception of the E-E television drama Tsha Tsha. It uses the Cultural Studies approach and reception theory to explore the consumption of Tsha Tsha by subaltern black South African youths located within specific socio-historical contexts. Audiences’ negotiated readings were used to critique the assumption that E-E messages are ‘unproblematically’ received by target audiences. Tsha Tsha’s E-E strategy and its theoretical and methodological inputs were also appraised with a view to locating the intervention within the trajectory of E-E and development communication interventions. The emerging insights were critical in understanding whether contemporary E-E interventions have transcended modernisation practice. While the focused synthesis approach, consisting of qualitative content analysis, document analysis and literature review, was used to evaluate Tsha Tsha’s use of the E-E strategy, reception analysis comprising of focus group discussions and follow up in-depth interviews with selected subaltern black South African youths was employed to explore viewers’ social production of meaning from the media text. This process enabled the study to identify the locus of meaning between the two contenting poles: the media text and situated readers. The study’s findings indicate that some contemporary E-E interventions have transended ‘modernisation practice’. Their conceptual and methodological approaches have embraced the central tenets of communication for social change. The results from the reception study also clearly indicated that E-E enterventions face resistances in subaltern discursive spaces. Situated readers’ negotiation of Tsha Tsha showed that viewers are not passive readers of E-E texts. Rather they are engaged in an ongoing process of re-interpreting and resisting the ‘preferred text’. Audiences situated discourses and lived experiences at times provided alternative frameworks through which the ‘dominant meanings’ were re-interpreted and even opposed.
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- Date Issued: 2013
Significance of accuracy in the orthographical development of isiXhosa in a post-democratic South Africa
- Authors: Saul, Zandisile Wilberforce
- Date: 2013
- Subjects: Xhosa language , Xhosa language -- Grammar , Xhosa language -- Orthography and spelling , South Africa -- Languages
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Doctoral , DLitt et Phil (African Languages)
- Identifier: vital:11589 , http://hdl.handle.net/10353/d1005642 , Xhosa language , Xhosa language -- Grammar , Xhosa language -- Orthography and spelling , South Africa -- Languages
- Description: IsiXhosa language is one of the first languages in sub-Saharan Africa to be reduced into writing. The first written texts in isiXhosa were produced by British missionaries in the Tyhume river valley as early as 1824. In spite of these early developments, there still remain today many inconsistencies and anomalies with regard to the standardization of isiXhosa orthography that require attention. This research focuses on the status quo of the current orthography of isiXhosa which is used in the writing of the selected texts which were published from 2000 to date. The research study investigates how these texts are written, that is, whether they are written according to the principles of the writing of this language as developed by the respective language boards or not. The reason for doing this is that this language has become one of the official languages of the Republic of South Africa. Therefore, in order for it to be read and written without any difficulty by anyone, as it is expected to be used as a medium of instruction even at tertiary level in the future, it should be written accurately and consistently. The study analyses a number of isiXhosa written texts including the following: (1) Selected literary texts which were published from 2000 to date. (2) Selected publications by government departments. (3) Selected translated texts. (4) Some of the newspapers and magazines which are currently in circulation in this language. (5) Some dictionaries of isiXhosa. (6) The updated isiXhosa Orthography as compiled by the PanSALB (2008). The aims of the study are outlined in Chapter 1. This chapter also provides the theoretical framework within which the research is located. Chapter 2 is about the theoretical perspectives on the development of the art of writing and orthography. The historical background, that is, the development of the art of writing and the general as well as the specific requirements of a good orthography are discussed. Chapters 3, 4 and 5 observe and analyse the orthographical features of some written documents of isiXhosa such as writing of capital letters, word division, usage of concords, etc. These three chapters also observe and analyse the various anomalies and inconsistencies in the spelling of isiXhosa words that were identified in the consulted texts. Chapter 6 is devoted to the conclusion and the recommendations.
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- Date Issued: 2013