Thesis (M.A. (Applied Language and Literacy Education))--University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, 2017 / This study critically analyses a set of folktales from the African Storybook website, which is an open licence digital publishing platform supporting early reading in Africa (www.africanstorybook.org). The selected folktales were mostly written by educators and librarians working in the African Storybook project pilot sites. The folktales were illustrated and published as indigenous African language and English storybooks during 2014 to 2015. The analysis is centrally concerned with the settings in which the folktales take place (with a distinction made between space, place and time), and the age and gender associated with central characters. The analytical tools used and the perspectives applied are drawn predominantly from post-colonial studies, African feminism, critical literacy, broad folktale scholarship, and theory from local – as opposed to global – childhoods. The analysis is interested in the conventions of the folktale genre, as it is constructed in the narratives by the writers. The three central findings with regards to the settings of folktales are as follows: (i) 90% of the folktales are set in rural environments in or near villages or small settlements. The somewhat idealised villages and settlements appear to have been relatively untouched by modern communications and infrastructure, and represent a “nostalgic, imagined past”. (ii) The study found that 75% of the folktales are set in the remote past, indexical of the folktale genre’s oral roots. (iii) Supernatural characters, objects and events occur in nearly 75% of the folktales. This suggests a possible interpretive space of intersecting temporalities and dimensions of existence, as well as possibilities for imaginative problem-solving. In addition, it raises challenging questions about the limits of human agency. The study also found that the ASb folktales, perhaps somewhat unsurprisingly for a genre that tends to employ archetypes and stereotypes, seemingly offer no characterisation outside of heteronormative family roles. But despite the heteronormativity and narrowly-defined family roles, especially for women characters, the folktales also present other positions for female gendered characters, and by extension for girl child readers – courageous, interesting, clever and unconventional female characters are in no shortage in these narrative populations. The findings suggest that the ASb folktales provide a range of identity positions for both girls and boys in African contexts, and my study reflects on how educators might navigate this complex territory. In particular, the findings point to how teachers and other adult caregivers might balance the moral and cultural lessons in folktales with the need for children to imagine and construct different worlds and positions for themselves. / MT2017

This thesis finds that Dr SM Molema made a considerable contribution to the construction of the history of black people in South Africa, and was the first African historian to do so. Yet, he and other African writers were marginalised from the mainstream twentieth-century canons of South African history. Therefore, the thesis investigates the reasons for which Dr Molema (a medical doctor) became an historian and an ethnographer in 1920, and explores the nature of his critical engagement with the ways in which these disciplines represented black people. To understand the controversial treatment of black historical writers, this study appraises South African historiography and its tendency to construct debates about black people, while rendering black writers marginal to such debates. Further, the thesis explores the generic complexity of Molema’s work and finds he wrote in a hybrid genre, autoethnography. This complexity may have contributed to the many misreadings of his work. This study outlines the generic specificity and implications of autoethnography and finds that, like autobiography, autoethnography has been one of the genres of the Self (of personal testimony) that, under colonialism and apartheid, many black writers employed in providing corrective versions of mainstream versions of South African history. Autoethnography enabled Molema to represent his own life, but — more importantly — that of his community (the Rolong boo RaTshidi of Mafikeng) as a form of cultural translation for readers at home and abroad. Methodologically, the thesis understands that Molema’s own family history played a large part in motivating him to write history. In order to explore this relationship between the experience of history and its representation, the thesis has a dual structure: the first four chapters present biographical studies of three generations of the Molema family: Chief Molema, the founder of Mafikeng, his son Chief Silas Thelesho Molema, and Silas’ son, Modiri Molema, the historian and ethnographer. Chapters Five and Six present an exposition and critique of his first work, The Bantu Past and Present. Dr Molema’s biographies of Chiefs Moroka and Montshiwa are used as ancillary texts.

Esta pesquisa de doutorado teve como objetivo deslindar trajetórias individuais e coletivas das mulheres no Sul de Moçambique sob o jugo do colonialismo português. A partir de diferentes tipologias documentais atinentes à primeira metade do século XX, a investigação buscou compreender como viveram aquelas com o status de indígenas. Ser indígena era estar atrelado ao um status, determinado por um conjunto de leis, decretos e práticas coloniais, que basicamente estabeleceu as relações entre cidadãos (brancos, indianos e negros e mulatos assimilados) e indígenas (africanos/negros), os últimos considerados pelos colonizadores portugueses como sub-humanos e, por isso, relegados à uma cidadania de segunda classe. Nossa proposta foi fazer uma história social e feminista das mulheres indígenas privilegiando a agência feminina tendo em vista (e apesar d)a violência estrutural do projeto de dominação, patriarcal, colonial e capitalista levado à cabo pelos portugueses. Pretende-se demonstrar que as mulheres que viveram no Sul de Moçambique na primeira metade do século XX, apesar da brutalidade misógina expressa tanto pelas tradições africanas como pela administração colonial, foram capazes de ativar diversas estratégias e práticas que contrariavam a dominação masculina. / This PhD research aimed to disentangle individual and collective trajectories of women in southern Mozambique under the control of Portuguese colonialism. From different document types relating to the first half of the twentieth century, the study aimed to understand how they lived those with the status of indigenous people. Being Indian was to be linked to a status determined by a set of laws, decrees and colonial practices, which basically established the relationship between citizens (whites, Indians and blacks and assimilated mulattoes) and indigenous (African / black), the latter considered by Portuguese colonists as subhuman and therefore relegated to one second-class citizenship. Our proposal was to make a social history and feminist indigenous women focusing on women\'s agency for (and despite of) the structural violence of domination project, patriarchal, colonial and capitalist carried out by the Portuguese. We intend to show that women who lived in southern Mozambique in the first half of the twentieth century, despite the misogynist brutality expressed by both African traditions and the colonial administration, were able to various strategies and practices opposed to male violence.

Esse trabalho propõe-se a uma investigação histórica do longo processo que originou o Estado do Sudão do Sul, tornado independente em 2011 após plebiscito. Para tanto, buscamos traçar uma longa história do Sudão, do bilad al-sudan oriental aos dias atuais. Nos apoiamos, principalmente, em algumas obras da extensa historiografia do Sudão para desenhar esse quadro contextual de nosso objeto de estudo. Apresentado o palco, buscamos interpretar os eventos, as relações políticas e sociais e mudanças econômicas e culturais a afetar o Sudão, depois Sudão do Sul em sua intricada relação com seus vizinhos regionais e as potências globais. Terminamos nosso trabalho apresentando algumas notas e reflexões acerca de temas mais precisos, como “construção nacional”, “uso político da identidade étnica”, e o “papel das elites” no Sudão do Sul, dentre outras. / This work is the result of a historical investigation of the long process that originated the State of South Sudan, independent in 2011 after a national referendum. We sought to draw a long history of Sudan, from the eastern bilad al-sudan to modern days. We based our work mostly on some of the broad historiography on Sudan, from which to develop a contextual idea of our object of study. Having set the stage, we sought to interpret the events, political and social relations and economic and cultural changes that have affected Sudan and later South Sudan in their intrincate relation with regional neighbors and global powerhouses. Our work concludes presenting some observations ad reflections concerning specific issues, such “nation-building”, “political use of ethnic identity” and the “role of elites” in South Sudan, among others.

O presente trabalho tem por objetivo estudar e compreender a trajetória e o contexto de vida de Gustavus Vassa (que se auto denominava, também, Olaudah Equiano) (1750- 1797), um africano que atuou como marinheiro nas embarcações do Atlântico, tendo por base sua autobiografia escrita e editada em 1789. O objetivo principal é verificar a validade desse texto enquanto fonte histórica, analisar a vida desse sujeito como marinheiro durante o período e discutir sua memória em relação ao continente africano. Pretende-se a partir de tal texto reconstruir aspectos do cotidiano dos marinheiros que trabalhavam no Atlântico durante o século XVIII, e analisar a maneira pela qual o seu autor apresenta a memória de sua comunidade de origem, a comunidade Igbo, da atual República da Nigéria, na África ocidental. Esse trabalho foi baseado principalmente na autobiografia desse homem que se intitulava Olaudah Equiano, o africano, mas que possuía um nome de batismo ocidental, Gustavus Vassa. A obra desse marinheiro tem sido reeditada desde sua primeira edição em 1789 e hoje faz parte do cânone de textos conhecidos como literatura afro-americana. São diversos os estudos ligados a outras áreas de pesquisa, como Literatura, que utilizam desse relato para estudar o cotidiano dos escravos e ex-escravos no período em questão. Nossos principais objetivos nesse trabalho foram verificar a validade desse texto enquanto fonte histórica, analisar a vida desse sujeito como marinheiro durante o período e discutir sua memória em relação ao continente africano. Procuramos colocar à prova o texto de Gustavus Vassa enquanto fonte histórica acerca do cotidiano dos marinheiros e também em relação a seu passado em África. Pretendemos, a partir do texto desse africano, reconstruir um pouco do cotidiano dos marinheiros que trabalhavam no Atlântico durante o século XVIII. Além disso, podemos também observar que muitos desses marinheiros eram africanos ou afro-americanos que engajavam-se nessa lide com o objetivo de ascender socialmente, ou mesmo para sobreviver de uma forma mais digna do que os outros escravizados nas plantations do novo mundo. / The paper aims to study and understand the biography and life context of Gustavus Vassa (who also called himself Olaudah Equiano) (1750-1797), an African who worked as a sailor in the vessels of the Atlantic. Our study is based on his autobiography, written and edited in 1789. Our main objectives in this work were to verify the validity of the text as a historical source, analyze the life of this subject as a sailor during the period of his life and discuss his memory in relation to the African continent. By analyzing the text, we also seek to reconstruct aspects of the daily life of sailors that worked in the Atlantic during the 18th century and analyze the way the author presents the memory of his native community, the Igbo who currently reside in the Republic of Nigeria in West Africa. The work was based on the autobiography of this man, who called himself Olaudah Equiano, the African, but had a western forename, Gustavos Vassa. This sailor‟s work has been reedited since its first edition in 1789 and today is part of the canon of known texts of african-american literature. There are several studies connected to other research areas, such as Literature, that use this account to study the daily life of slaves and former slaves in the period in question. We tried to put to the test Gustavus Vassa‟s text as a historical source about the lives of sailors, as well as his past in Africa. Based on this African man‟s text, we sought to reconstruct a bit of the everyday life of sailors who worked in the Atlantic during the eighteenth century. In addition, we also observed that many of these sailors were African or African-Americans who commited to this activity in order to ascend socially or even seeking a better life than other slaves in the plantations of the New World.

abstract: The Egyptian New Kingdom city of Akhetaten (modern: Tell el-Amarna, el-Amarna, or simply Amarna) provides a unique opportunity to study ancient biocultural dynamics. It was a disembedded capital removed from the major power bases of Memphis and Thebes that was built, occupied, and abandoned within approximately 20 years (c. 1352–1336 BCE). This dissertation used the recently excavated Amarna South Tombs cemetery to test competing models for the development of disembedded capitals, such as the geographic origin of its migrants and its demographic structure in comparison to contrastive models for the establishment of settlements. The degree to which biological relatedness organized the South Tombs cemetery was also explored. The results suggest that the Nile Valley into the New Kingdom (1539–1186 BCE) was very diverse in dental cervical phenotype and thus highly mobile in respects to gene flow, failing to reject that the Amarna city was populated by individuals and families throughout the Nile Valley. In comparison, the Amarna South Tombs cemetery contained the least amount of dental phenotypic diversity, supporting a founder effect due to migration from larger, more diverse gene pools to the city or the very fact that the city and sample only reflect a 20-year interval with little time to accumulate phenotypic variation. Parts of the South Tombs cemetery also appear to be organized by biological affinity, showing consistent and significant spatial autocorrelation with biological distances generated from dental cervical measurements in male, female, and subadult (10–19 years of age) burials closest to the South Tombs. This arrangement mimics the same orderliness in the residential areas of the Amarna city itself with officials surrounded by families that supported their administration. Throughout the cemetery, adult female grave shaft distances predict their biological distances, signaling a nuclear family dynamic that included many females including mothers, widows, and unwed aunts, nieces, and daughters. A sophisticated paleodemographic model using simulated annealing optimization projected the living population of the South Tombs cemetery, which overall conformed to a transplanted community similar to 19th century mill villages of the United States and United Kingdom. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Anthropology 2018

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Lewis Burwell II designed Fairfield plantation in Gloucester County to be the most sophisticated and successful architectural and agricultural effort in late seventeenth-century Virginia. He envisioned a physical framework with the intent to control the world around him so that he might profit from growing tobacco, while raising his family's status to the highest in the colony through the display of wealth and knowledge and the enslavement of both Africans and the natural surroundings. The landscape he envisioned contrasted with those of the enslaved Africans he purchased and put to work in the fields and buildings surrounding his '1694 brick manor house. These overlapping and often competing landscapes are visible in the surviving material culture, archaeological remains, and historic documents. Individuals created these landscapes from their personal experiences, a product of their constantly changing perspectives extending outward from themselves, their "way of seeing" tempered by a culture rooted in Senegambia, England, or Virginia. at a crucial period in Virginia history, perhaps the most significant period of plantation development prior to the Civil War, Lewis Burwell II's Fairfield plantation reflected the struggle between the co-dependent strains of agricultural expansion and racialized slavery. This dissertation attempts to explain how and why individuals created and manipulated these landscapes, how landscapes provided opportunities and constrained possibilities, defined interpersonal relationships, individual and group identities, and the relative success and failures of a society constantly confronted with a physical environment it could not wholly control. By studying past landscapes and how others used them to define and redefine their identities, it is possible to gain insight into our present condition, deepening an understanding of how our interactions with landscape define our own identity.

abstract: This work explores the underlying dynamics of democracies in the context of underdevelopment, arguing that when society has not attained a substantial degree of economic independence from the state, it undermines democratic quality and stability. Economic underdevelopment and political oppression are mutually reinforcing, and both are rooted in the structure of the agriculture sector, the distribution of land, and the rural societies that emerge around this order. These systems produce persistent power imbalances that militate toward their continuance, encourage dependency, and foster the development of neopatrimonialism and corruption in the government, thereby weakening key pillars of democracy such as accountability and representativeness. Through historical analysis of a single case study, this dissertation demonstrates that while this is partly a result of actor choices at key points in time, it is highly influenced by structural constraints embedded in earlier time periods. I find that Ghana’s historical development from the colonial era to present day closely follows this trajectory. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Political Science 2019

This study is a community-level analysis of an African American plantation neighborhood grounded in archaeological excavations at the Quarterpath Site (44WB0124), an antebellum quartering complex and post-Emancipation tenant residence occupied circa 1840s-1905 in lower James City County, Virginia. It asserts that the Quarterpath domestic quarter was a gathering place, a locus of social interaction in a vibrant and long established Chesapeake plantation neighborhood complex.;By the antebellum period, as marriage "abroad," or off-plantation, became the most common form of long term social union within plantation communities, enslaved social and kin ties in the Chesapeake region were typically geographically dispersed, enjoining multiple domestic areas across dynamic rural plantation neighborhoods. Such neighborhoods came to comprise 1) Sets of interrelated places common across virtually all large Chesapeake plantations, and 2) Sets of social relationships that transcended plantation borders, becoming invested and embedded in local places over time.;This work examines the ways in which structures of community became embedded in a variety of familiar places across the Quarterpath neighborhood as enslaved persons appropriated plantation landscapes through habitual practices and meaningful bodily orientations. It expands the frame of reference beyond the core domestic homesites to embrace the other grounds and places where residents spent much of their time, places in which relationships were built with neighbors performing common tasks on familiar grounds. It offers new insights to archaeological analyses concerning African American domestic sites throughout the African Atlantic diaspora, envisioning home grounds as dynamic social configurations embedded within mosaics of local places that came to embody community, family, and roots. It is an archaeology of a community in transition but it is also an archaeology of landscapes. It adopts a methodologically innovative approach intended to address often overlooked interpretive contexts and horizons of meaning, exploring mechanisms of community development and associated processes of place-making in a pre- and post-Emancipation African American community.