Indiana University-Purdue University Indianapolis (IUPUI)

This thesis examines the political thought of Achille Mbembe. It deploys decolonial critical analysis to unmask traces of coloniality with regard to the African existential conditions foregrounded in the conception of the African subject, its subjection, and subjectivity. The theoretical foundation of this thesis is decolonial epistemic perspective—the epistemic intervention that serves as a lens to understand Mbembe’s work and—that is the theoretical foundation outside the Euro-North American “mainstream” canon foregrounded in coloniality. Decolonial epistemic perspective in this thesis is deployed to expose three kinds of coloniality in Mbembe’s work, namely: coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge and coloniality of being. The thrust of this thesis is that Mbembe’s political thought is inadequate for the understanding of the African existential condition in that it does not fully take coloniality into account. In order to acknowledge the existence of coloniality through decolonial critical analysis, the political thought of Mbembe is examined in relation to modes of self-writing, power in the postcolony, the politics of violence in Africa, Frantz Fanon’s political thought, and the idea of South Africa as major themes undertaken in this thesis. Decolonial critical analysis deals with foundational questions that have relevance to the existential condition of the African subject and the manner in which such an existential crisis can be brought to an end. These foundational questions confront issues like—who is speaking or writing, from where, for whom and why? This thesis reveals that Mbembe is writing and thinking Africa from outside the problematic ontology of the African subject and, as such, Mbembe precludes any form of African subjectivity that challenges the Euro-North American canon. This then reveals that Mbembe is not critical of coloniality and this has the implications in that subjection is left on the wayside and not accounted for. Having explored the genealogy, trajectory and horisons of decolonial critical analysis to understand the political thought of Mbembe, this thesis highlights that it is essential to take a detour through the shifting of the geography of reason. Herein lies the originality of this thesis, and it is here that Africa is thought from within a standpoint of decolonial critical analysis and not Africa that is thought from the Euro-North American canon. Therefore, the shifting of the geography of reason is necessary for the authorisation of the subjectivity of the African subject in order to combat subjection. / Political Sciences / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Politics)

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2013. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In one of Uganda’s main national newspapers, the New Vision, women and men advertise that they seek ‘white’ partners. Using emergent design, this study set out to explore this yearning for local - ‘white’ relationships. I conducted exploratory and semi-structured interviews with 20 of these women and men. As I started conducting the interviews, it became clear that this was a topic which provoked emotionally charged responses and a great deal of ‘identity work’, with participants identifying with, or disidentifying from, particular groups and categories, notably ‘prostitutes’ and ‘traditional’, ‘cultural’ or ‘modern’ women and men. Engaging critically with post-colonial writings and contemporary feminist research, I argue that my respondents provided important insights into the broader dynamics of gender, sexuality, race and power, as well as processes of identity construction in post-colonial Uganda. I explore the fantasy constructions and stereotypes perpetuating beliefs in ‘white’ superiority and address the various influences upon which respondents draw to bolster constructions of ‘whites’ as superior. These are marked by explicit beliefs in racial hierarchy, as well as ‘modernisation’ and ‘developmental’ discourses which positively associate ‘modernisation’ with ‘Westernisation.’ I discuss respondents’ negative constructions of local, ‘black’ men and women born out of past experiences with local partners. Male respondents expressed frustration with Ugandan women, whom they constructed as ‘money minded’, whom they believe forfeit dignity, for love of money, in their search for modernity. ‘Tradition’ and ‘culture’ were often invoked by men against women, who were seen as failing to live up to presumed cultural standards of femininity. I also explore female respondents’ appeals to ‘tradition’ and ‘culture’ which they feel benefit Ugandan men to the detriment of women and romantic relationships. I show that female respondents draw on discourses of Western ‘modernity’ and human rights, to illustrate the extent of gendered inequalities in Uganda, and find that Western humanism, embodied in the ‘white’ male, is constructed as a solution to their relationship dilemmas. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: In New Vision, een van Uganda se vernaamste nasionale nuusblaaie, plaas vroue, sowel as mans, advertensies waarin hulle aandui dat hulle op soek is na ‘wit’ metgeselle. Hierdie etnografiese studie steek voelers uit en probeer vasstel wat die motivering is om in verhoudings met ‘wit’ metgeselle betrokke te raak. Semigestruktuele onderhoude was met respondente (wat advertensies geplaas het) gevoer. Die studie vind dat respondente hul geslags- sowel as rasse-identiteit konstrueer. In sommige gevalle word dit gedoen deur identiteite te konstrueer waarmee hulle hulself nie wil assosieer nie. Deur bogenoemde in diepte te ondersoek, kry ons insig in die wyse waarop, in die kontemporêre Ugandese konteks, identiteitsvorming plaasvind. Ek ondersoek ook respondente se verbeeldingryke konstruksies en stereotipes wat die opvatting wil vestig dat ‘wit’ gelyk aan ‘superieur’ is. Ek spreek dan ook die verskeie beïnvloedingsvelde aan wat respondente gebruik en waarop hulle hul ‘wit is superieur’ opvatting bou. Ek dui aan dat die beïnvloedingsvelde dikwels gekenmerk word deur ‘n eksplisiete geloof in die bestaan van ‘n bepaalde hiërargie van ras. Diskoerse oor modernisering en ontwikkeling waarin ‘modernisering’ en ‘vooruitgang’ sterk geassosieer of gelykgestel word met verwestering is ook aan die orde van die dag. Voorts bespreek ek respondente se negatiewe konstruksie van plaaslike mans en vroue en die feit dat dit dikwels gebore is uit hul vorige (negatiewe) blootstelling aan plaaslike metgeselle. Manlike respondente spreek dikwels hul frustrasie uit met ‘geldgierige’ Ugandese vroue wat, volgens hulle, van hul eertydse waardigheid afstand doen in hul koorsagtige soek na modernisasie. Mans assosieer sterk met eie ‘tradisie’ en ‘kultuur’ en hulle voel dikwels dat vroue nie voldoen aan die mans se selfopgelegde kulturele standaarde van vroulikheid nie. Voorts ondersoek ek die pleidooie van vroue waarin hulle aanvoer dat sekere ‘tradisionele’ en ‘kulturele’ gebruike Ugandese mans onbillik bevoordeel. Ek dui aan dat vroulike respondente gebruik maak van redenasies oor Westerse modernisasie asook menseregte, in hul pogings om die mate van geslagsongelykheid wat in Uganda bestaan, uit te lig. Laastens vind ek dat Ugandese vroue Westerse humanisme (wat verpersoonlik word deur ‘wit’ mans) beskou as die oplossing vir hul verhoudingsprobleme.

Thesis (MA (VA)(Visual Arts))--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / This thesis consists of a study that identifies and analyses the origins, nature, and spectrum of different stereotypes of Africans in popular texts. The past can only be explored through texts, which are unavoidably mediated, re-interpreted, fictional and temporary. No text can be read in isolation – it is imperative to gain knowledge about the social and ideological context in the analysis of any historical text. History shows that racism is a constructed concept, and the roots of stereotypical perceptions of the ‘Other’ can be found in antiquity – in Ancient Egypt, Classical Greece and the Jewish Torah, as well as during the Middle Ages. A historical synopsis is given of the conception and development of racial stereotyping through the ages until the present. The study demonstrates how stereotypes gradually adapt with history, politics, and ideology. Stereotypes are in my opinion not necessarily constructed on purpose. Stereotypes are developed and based on historical events, but are transformed in time to fulfil new purposes. My conclusion is that racist stereotypes of Africans are created in the West, by the West, for the West. In many ways, the adaptation of the stereotypes of Africans act as a timeline for Western involvement on the continent. The stereotypical portrayal of Africa as the Dark Continent, “White Man’s Burden” and Godforsaken Continent will firstly be studied. Secondly, the depiction of African-Americans, especially in American popular culture, is discussed through stereotypes like Mammy, Uncle Tom, Jezebel, and Buck. The theme of my practical component, a two part series about the Cape Carnival, discusses the stereotype of the “Jolly Hotnot” or “Coon” and examines the portrayal of Africans as comical. The study shows the important role popular media plays in spreading and reaffirming stereotypes. Stereotypes are often used as a survival method to make the multiplicity of reality manageable, recognisable, and understandable. Stereotyping becomes problematic if the stereotypes are used as generalisations to marginalise a group in terms of features such as skin colour. A type of “cultural decolonisation” would be necessary to counteract this marginalisation, through popular culture created by in Africa, by Africans, for Africans and international popular culture.

This thesis examines the political thought of Achille Mbembe. It deploys decolonial critical analysis to unmask traces of coloniality with regard to the African existential conditions foregrounded in the conception of the African subject, its subjection, and subjectivity. The theoretical foundation of this thesis is decolonial epistemic perspective—the epistemic intervention that serves as a lens to understand Mbembe’s work and—that is the theoretical foundation outside the Euro-North American “mainstream” canon foregrounded in coloniality. Decolonial epistemic perspective in this thesis is deployed to expose three kinds of coloniality in Mbembe’s work, namely: coloniality of power, coloniality of knowledge and coloniality of being. The thrust of this thesis is that Mbembe’s political thought is inadequate for the understanding of the African existential condition in that it does not fully take coloniality into account. In order to acknowledge the existence of coloniality through decolonial critical analysis, the political thought of Mbembe is examined in relation to modes of self-writing, power in the postcolony, the politics of violence in Africa, Frantz Fanon’s political thought, and the idea of South Africa as major themes undertaken in this thesis. Decolonial critical analysis deals with foundational questions that have relevance to the existential condition of the African subject and the manner in which such an existential crisis can be brought to an end. These foundational questions confront issues like—who is speaking or writing, from where, for whom and why? This thesis reveals that Mbembe is writing and thinking Africa from outside the problematic ontology of the African subject and, as such, Mbembe precludes any form of African subjectivity that challenges the Euro-North American canon. This then reveals that Mbembe is not critical of coloniality and this has the implications in that subjection is left on the wayside and not accounted for. Having explored the genealogy, trajectory and horisons of decolonial critical analysis to understand the political thought of Mbembe, this thesis highlights that it is essential to take a detour through the shifting of the geography of reason. Herein lies the originality of this thesis, and it is here that Africa is thought from within a standpoint of decolonial critical analysis and not Africa that is thought from the Euro-North American canon. Therefore, the shifting of the geography of reason is necessary for the authorisation of the subjectivity of the African subject in order to combat subjection. / Political Sciences / D. Litt. et Phil. (African Politics)

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts in African Languages. Wits University, Johannesburg, 2015 / This report interrogates the representation of blackness in post-1994 black-centred films in South Africa. With a particular focus on Khalo Matabane’s films, I analyse Conversations on a Sunday Afternoon (2005), When We Were Black (2007) and State of Violence (2011) across a spectrum of themes. I also interrogate and introduce several critical concepts such as ‘blackness’, ‘the image of blackness’, ‘black identity’, ‘masculinity’, ‘femininity’, ‘the Gaze’ and ‘Otherness’. These concepts are interlinked in ways that bring about an understanding of the concept of black-centred films, which is central to the research report. Amidst the different interpretations of black-centred films, the vantage point from which the concept is used is interested in black-centred films as films that are made by a black filmmaker, whose content addresses issues of blackness and is targeted at a black audience. However, these three factors need not always resonate in a single film in order for it to be considered and analysed as a black-centred film. The lens through which Matabane holds the camera questions his representation of the black image and whether it is from an insider or outsider’s perspective. The view from which Matabane holds the camera is important in establishing whether he has purported to represent historically stereotypical images of blackness, or whether his endeavours in filmmaking are occupied by the relentless pursuit to present new images of blackness.

Submitted by Filipe dos Santos (fsantos@pucsp.br) on 2018-10-22T12:31:17Z No. of bitstreams: 1 Ramon Silva Chaves.pdf: 1284894 bytes, checksum: 1ac63025fa80746c4b2dd18e342dae2a (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2018-10-22T12:31:17Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 Ramon Silva Chaves.pdf: 1284894 bytes, checksum: 1ac63025fa80746c4b2dd18e342dae2a (MD5) Previous issue date: 2018-09-05 / Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior - CAPES / This thesis looks at paratopia of stigma and black identity in the literary discourse Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha written by Lima Barreto in Brazil in 1909. Our research is based on French Discourse Analysis and predominantly on the theoretical-methodological assumptions of Dominique Maingueneau (1997;2015) about the constitutional literary discourse and literary paratopia. The main concern of this research is how the identity of the black Brazilian, an identity built under a violent system of social, economic and historical exploitation, behaves in the literary discourse Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha? Our research hypothesis is that paratopia engender through stigma, a concept developed by Goffman (2012) to remodel the black identity through a historical reassessment and thus, promoting the effect of giving an account of oneself, a concept developed by Butler (2017). Our main goal is to study paratopia and use it to evaluate the construction of a black identity shaped early in the 20th century so as to become stigmatized. Our specific objective is to verify the scenographic organization and the constitution of the discursive ethos in the composition of literary paratopia in Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha. Our thesis innovate when evaluating a corpus that is usually analyzed in Literature. Furthermore, it broadens the paratopia category by proposing the paratopia of stigma and associating it to ethnic-racial issues / Esta tese examina a paratopia do estigma e a identidade do negro no discurso literário Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha, de Lima Barreto, produzido em 1909, no Brasil. Nossa pesquisa está fundamentada na Análise do Discurso de inspiração francesa, sobretudo, nos pressupostos teórico-metodológicos de Dominique Maingueneau (1997;2015) sobre o discurso constituinte literário e a paratopia literária. A questão central que essa pesquisa busca resolver é: como a identidade do negro brasileiro, construída sob um violento esquema de exploração social, econômico e histórico se comporta na construção do discurso literário Recordações do Escrivão Isaías Caminha? Como hipótese de pesquisa, entendemos que a paratopia se engendra por meio do estigma, noção apresentada por Goffman (2012), para remodelar a identidade do negro por meio de uma revisão histórica, promovendo, deste modo, o efeito de relato de si, noção apresentada por Butler (2017). Nosso objetivo geral é o de examinar a paratopia e por meio disso a avaliar a construção da identidade do negro que, no início do século XX, foi modelada de maneira a se tornar estigmatizada. Como objetivo específico queremos verificar a organização da cenografia e a constituição do ethos discursivo na composição da paratopia literária em Recordações do escrivão Isaías Caminha. Nossa tese inova ao avaliar um corpus tradicionalmente analisado pela Literatura. Além disso, busca ampliar a categoria de paratopia, pela proposição da paratopia do estigma, associando-a às questões étnico-raciais

The cultural and historical construction of African American identity in the United States has been closely tied to the dialectical relationship formed between sound and silence. This thesis examines the modernist and postmodernist representation of sound and silence in the African American novels Passing (1929), by Nella Larsen, and Jazz (1992), by Toni Morrison, as indicators of African American identity and racial oppression during the Harlem Renaissance. I analyze the soundscapes of both texts to expose the mobility of language, power, and space, especially as these soundscapes relate to the production of sound (both musical and non-musical) by African Americans, and the surveillance of these sounds by white audiences. Through my analysis of repetitive sound-images and embodied silence in Passing and Jazz, as well as textual representations of oral performance, I argue that there is harm in restricting African American voices to approved modes of audibility and/or limiting African American voices to one a singular narrative. This thesis introduces critics and theories from the disciplines of sound studies and African American studies, and applies the widely known theory of double consciousness, established by critic and author W.E.B. Du Bois, as the foundation for my literary and cultural analysis of sound in print. / Graduation date: 2013

This dissertation reviewed extant literature about McGuire’s distinctiveness theory, the Elaboration Likelihood Model of Persuasion, in-group bias theory, racial identity, race source effects, and cultural cues pertaining to targeting African American and Latino consumer markets. Mexican and African American informants were interviewed after viewing magazine advertisements targeted to the other group to determine if distinctiveness to the other’s images and cultural cues occurred. Observations were also reported from ethnographic excursions across Des Moines, Iowa, a city and state where African Americans and Mexicans are numerical rarities or minorities. Results revealed that the majority of informants spontaneously delivered responses that reflected salience with the other group. In fact, both groups saw themselves as a part of a greater people of color community--extending their ethnic identities. Furthermore, informants exhibited a provisional ethnic backlash against viewing Anglos in product advertisements in their ethnic magazines. However, when ads presented a message about diversity, informants thought Anglo images should be included. Both groups said they valued the use of people of color and socially responsible messages in ads for high involvement and low involvement products, however, these images and cultural cues would not lead to purchases of new brands because informants were weary about wasting money on unfamiliar brands in a stressed economy. Consumers also scanned ads for models’ races, and paid attention to how their ethnic group and other people of color were treated in ads. Also, informants reported discussing racial issues often in social circles. A black-brown racial divide was expressed when there was a perceived scarcity of resources and when one group discussed how they felt the other group perceived their race. Finally, class and having on-going personal relationships with members of the other group affected responses. This study offers many academic, managerial, practitioner, social and political implications and recommendations. / text

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