Thesis (MA (History))--University of Stellenbosch, 2007. / Throughout the history of South Africa, the Afrikaners have been described as a "strange society". Calvinism was a key to their lifestyle and ideology and they saw themselves as God's special instruments. Their political philosophy of separate development was to a certain extent, revolutionary and was known as "apartheid". This was an attempt to remake a society according to a socio-political ideal which was rooted in the concept of safety in power. This thesis investigates the Afrikaners with regard to their primal ancestors, the origin of their identity, their identity during the reign of the NP government and their identity in the post apartheid South Africa. Discrepancies concerning Afrikaner identity during this time are also investigated. In this thesis special emphasis is placed on the right-wing actions of the Afrikaners, their political development from the time of separation from the NP which arose from the conviction that the leaders of this party were deviating from the moral and political prescriptions of their predecessors, their ideals and visions of freedom. The right-wing tends to qualify the term “nationalism” with the term “Christian” and they therefore believe that their nationhood is widely ordained. Culture, for the right-wing means an inclusive concept which covers every aspect of their lives. Language, i.e. Afrikaans, is seen as the verbal and written expression of their national culture. This study is directed towards the right wing of Afrikaners' quest for a "volkstaat" (state nation) and specifically the foundation of Orania in the Northern Cape and investigates whether it is a viable option for Afrikaners in general to live. The right-wingers believe that the only feasible constitutional option for peace in South Africa lies in partition The origin of the volkstaat idea , the early thoughts and the development of this concept are also investigated as well as the different models and role players. The main aim of this thesis is to investigate the success of Orania as a possible growing point of a "volkstaat" for Afrikaners. The early stages in the development of this small town e.g. the purchase, their efforts in achieving autonomy, their constitutional rights, their efforts in developing their community as well as their image to the outside world are investigated. During a visit to Orania in 2005 questionnaires were handed out to residents in order to compose a social profile and to investigate domicile statistics as well as views on Afrikaner identity. Ultimately this thesis indicates that although Orania functions successfully in most instances the possibility of it serving as a growing point of a “volkstaat” needs a much larger effort and larger support from other Afrikaners.

In 2004 Rhodes University celebrated its centenary. At a Critical Tradition Colloquium opportunity was given to explore the university’s past. In particular, its liberal image was questioned and its role during apartheid brought under scrutiny. This thesis investigates the questions raised at the Colloquium. It aims to cover the whole apartheid era in one coherent narrative by addressing the history of Rhodes during that era and how it handled issues of race and politics. It begins in 1933, when the first black student applied to Rhodes, and ends in 1990, when apartheid was drawing to a close.

Social problems that are identified by government policy are articulated in ways that confer the responsibility of their management onto the state. In this way, policy reform serves as a means to justify political rule, as the ‘answers’ to policy failures are located within the realm of state intervention. This role of policy is maintained by the traditional definition of policy as it enables policies to be presented as the outcome of ‘necessary’ actions taken by state institutions to better the wellbeing of citizens. Since 1994, mainstream research on basic education policy in South Africa has employed traditional understandings of policy and its function. In doing so, these inquiries have failed to question the very idea of policy itself. They have also neglected to identify the productive role played by policy in the practice of power. To illuminate the necessary limits of policy reform, an alternative approach to analyse basic education policy is necessary. This thesis premises policy as discourse and advances a governmentality analysis of basic education policy during the first fifteen years of democracy (1994-2009) in South Africa. By drawing on the work of Michel Foucault, the study argues that government – ‘those actions upon the actions of others’ – during this period in South Africa was informed by both a liberal and a neo-liberal mentality of rule. The tensions between these two rationalities contributed to the continuation of apartheid’s socio-economic inequalities in the postapartheid era; an outcome buttressed by the contradictory impulses within basic education policy. By considering policy as a productive translation of governmental reasoning, the boundaries of intervention for future policy reforms are highlighted. These show that the inequalities that were perpetuated during the first fifteen years of democracy justify policy responses similar to those responsible for their production

Almost fifteen years after democracy, issues of 'race' still hold daily South African life firmly in its grip. Following calls from foremost South African theorists on 'race', such as Sarah Nuttall, this thesis moves beyond a study of crude 'racism', to the more complex consideration of 'race' as an embedded ideological social formation within the spatial context of Rhodes University. Using analytical concepts such as 'silencing' and 'ritual' the thesis weaves an understanding (1) of how particular powerful representations of institutional history are produced and made dominant, and (2) how seemingly innocuous performances of institutional identity are key to reproducing 'racial' dominance within Rhodes' student life. This ultimately manifests in the production of a deeply 'racialized' commonsensical understanding of the 'most' legitimate and authentic representation and ownership of institutional space. The thesis delves into dominant representations of Rhodes University'S history, considering how these help produce and reproduce 'racial' dominance through, for instance, the production of defining apolitical narratives of 'excellence'. Central to the dominant apolitical institutional history is the production of silences about the past. History, I argue, is less compelling in any revelation of 'what happened' than in illustrating the production of silences used to enable the appropriation of a particular history as the sole relevant history. The 'inheritors of the past', those who are able to lay authoritative and representative claim to it, it is argued, ultimately claim ownership over institutional space. I argue too, that the dominant practices and performances of daily institutional life (re)produce the institutional space as a space of 'racial' dominance. Ritualized performance of the dominant institutional identity produces ownership of institutional space through making some articulations of 'Rhodes identity' more acceptable, legitimate and authentic than others. The dominance of 'drinking culture' in Rhodes student life produces a particular 'racialized' institutional identity as most legitimate. 'Racial' dominance is instituted, consecrated and reproduced through the ritualistic performance of 'drinking culture', which ultimately produces a superior claim of ownership over the institutional space through the reiteration of racial domination that these performances of institutional identity powerfully symbolize.

The enormous social, economic, and political government-led societal transformation South Africans have experienced over the past 15 years have brought about numerous societal and identity changes. The aim of the present study was to explore how dominant (White participants) and non-dominant (Black participants) groups experiencing the government-led societal transformation process deal with perceptions of intergroup differences based on Social Identity Theory (Tajfel & Turner, 1979, 1986) and related field research. Social Identity Theory predicts that in the presence of intergroup differences group members irrespective of their status position will apply identity management strategies to either improve or maintain their status position. The relationships between perceptions of intergroup relations and identity management strategies as proposed by Social Identity Theory were tested studying 170 second year Rhodes University psychology students. Sixty participants indicated themselves as Black South Africans (representing non-dominant group) and 110 participants identified themselves as White South Africans (dominant group). The results revealed that dominant and non-dominant groups differ systematically regarding the functional interaction between beliefs about the intergroup situation and identity management strategies. The results of the study indicate too, that ingroup identification differentiates between individual and collective strategies irrespective of the group’s status position.

Thesis (M.A. (Political Science)) -- University of Limpopo, 2022 / During the apartheid era in South Africa, Black women were mostly oppressed members of the population. They faced the triple whammy oppression of race, sex and class which prevented them from living their lives freely. These categories of oppressions overlapped into the democratic dispensation. Although South Africa has become a democratic Republic, Black women continue to experience the triple whammy oppression of racism, sexism and classism. These oppressions are prevalent among Black women in the Mankweng community of Limpopo Province, resulting in different types of social issues. This development has motivated Black communities to employ Womanist theory or Womanism to eradicate the triple whammy oppressions and social issues that have morphed into challenges in the communities. This theory considers the element of equality from different aspects of life in the society. The aim of this study was to explore the triple whammy oppression and its role in making Mankweng Community in Limpopo Province of post-apartheid South Africa an unsafe environment. The study utilised semi-structured interviews to collect and collate data. Collected data established that Black women and men have different and similar views on the triple whammy oppression and social issues that contribute to unsafe environments for Black women in Mankweng Community of Limpopo Province. The study further established that Black women are mostly the victims of oppressions and social issues. The study further recommends that black men must be educated about the importance of women and that the philosophy of Ubuntu must be practiced in the communities of Black people in order to have safe environments for everyone.

Thesis (Ph.D Ed.) -- Central University of Technology, Free State, 2007 / Since the advent of multicultural democratic governance in 1994, transformation has become crucial in South African higher education. This study is focused on the current discourses in Free State higher education institutions, especially after the mergers of the formerly black institutions and their white counterparts. The learning guide has been used to capture those debates, hence the location of its positioning between the dominant and the dominated discourses. The realisation that African culture and knowledge was being sidelined to the margins of the centre of knowledge production at higher education institutions necessitated this study. The study was qualitative, and has used Buskens-Meulenberg’s Free Attitude Interview (FAI) as an instrument to collect data. The in-depth interview with open-ended questions was used to put into practice Buskens-Meulenberg’s FAI and collect data from the respondents. In-depth interviews with-open ended questions were employed to obtain data from the nine academic respondents who constituted the sampled population. The instrumentation and the mode of data collection were important for this study because of their compatibility with critical theory and qualitative research, giving a “voice” and “space” for the voiceless – the subaltern culture, the formerly and still marginalised and peripheralised, the excluded – to be heard. Textually Oriented Discourse Analysis (TODA) was used in the analysis and interpretation of the texts through which the findings mentioned below were arrived at. The study was able to uncover the importance of the Africanisation of higher education in South Africa which seemed to be excluded in the agenda of the powers that be on the transformation of higher education. Critical theory was essential for this study because of its emancipatory underpinnings. The quantitative paradigm could not be used because of its tendency to maintain the status quo, which in the context of this study could entrench and perpetuate the exclusion and marginalisation of the subaltern culture from the centre of knowledge production. The study has taken care of the basics of TODA, namely ensuring that “textual or conversational structures” derive their framework from the cognitive, social, historical, cultural, or political contexts and in this way has prevented the interpretation of texts based only on surface structures and meanings of isolated and abstract sentences, especially from experts of the dominant discourse. This helped the study to obtain the following findings from the respondents: (i) Although the dominant discourse was diplomatic about benefiting financially from the compilation of learning guides, all indicators essentially pointed towards the existence of monetary gains from the process, even though the guides were purported to be less expensive compared to textbooks. (ii) Learning guides were only effective to the extent of helping students pass their courses, but on the other critical outcomes as outlined in the resource-based learning method document, they were lacking (see Chapter Four). (iii) The dominant discourse generally felt that it would be impossible for all the different cultures of South Africa to be incorporated into the curriculum of higher education. However, for the dominated culture, inclusion of indigenous knowledge systems in curriculum was non-negotiable and fundamental to any meaningful transformation of higher education in South Africa. (iv) The learning guide was regarded by the dominant discourse as neutral in the current debates in Free State higher education. The dominated discourse thought otherwise. In Chapter Four the dominated discourse clearly substantiated their position of learning guides as a tool for domesticating the dominated culture for the maintenance of the status quo. Considering the above findings, the study concluded that higher education transformation still had a long way to go before it bore any meaningful fruits for the downtrodden and poor people of South Africa, who happen to be Black. Under the present arrangement African culture will be dominated, demolished and diminished, and Eurocentricism will continue to reign supreme. A constant inflow of black academics with higher education qualifications (Ph.D.) may eventually tip the scales of justice may provided they continue with emancipatory discourses among the subaltern culture. In view of the above findings and conclusions, the study recommends that policy makers should intervene and formulate African cultural friendly policies as a matter of urgency and stop being advocates of Eurocentricism. In the same way that there are assessment mechanisms for quality control and assurance, there should be mechanisms for assessing higher education institutions on transformation issues. This can assist in a swift integration of the two cultures at the merged institutions for the emergence of a new African Institutional Identity. Moreover, this can only happen if African intellectuals establish Indigenous Knowledge Systems as a centre and a space for the subaltern and alternative “voice” to be heard.

The main aim of this study was to attempt to establish by the use of an environmental specific Personal Growth Programme, whether it is possible to assist students towards a more ‘holistic’ personal formation. It also aimed to investigate whether a move away from traditional education in the form of alternative or parallel programmes, would assist in bringing about an integrated individual, who is more capable of dealing with life as a whole (Krishnamurti 1953). The research was undertaken with adult students between the ages of 21 and 60, at the multi-cultural and extremely diverse residential theological College of the Transfiguration, in Grahamstown in the Eastern Cape Province. An overview of Holistic and Mainstream education was explored in this study, which included also the challenges and influences which each type of education faces. The study then went on to investigate whether it is possible to bridge the gap that exists between holistic and mainstream education using various methods of alternative education. In the qualitative study, the Personal Growth Programme Annual Review Questionnaire was used to obtain feedback from the students to assess the usefulness of the Personal Growth Programme in their journey towards wholeness. This, together with the student’s responses from the in-depth interviews were used to ascertain the study’s limitations, credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability.

The author strongly holds- in the thesis- that the Theology of liberation can inspi re the poor of South Africa to uproot the post-1994 socio-economic and political evil structures which continue unabated to impoverish them. The introductory chapter studies the reasons which motivated the author to write the thesis. It further discusses the method, the format and the limitations of the thesis. Chapter one focuses on the author's understanding of the Theology of liberation, and its historical background. Chapter two discusses the relationship between the Theology of Liberation and black theology, while chapter three contemplates on the possibility of the creation of what the author calls, An African Theology of Liberation. Chapter four studies the relationship between the Theology of liberation and the Social Teachings of the Catholic Church as taught by the pope and his council. The study of this relationship is extremely difficult because of the on-going, and seemingly insurmountable ideological differences between the two parties. The author suggests, as a solutio n, that each party seriously considers and recognizes the contextual limitations of its theology. Chapter five focuses on the implementation of the Theology of Liberat ion into the South African situation. The author highly recommends the inclusion of the veneration of the ancestors of Africa, as a perfect instrument by means of which the Theology of Liberation can succeed in achieving one of its major aims, which is to convert the poor to be leaders of their own liberation. The concluding chapter suggests concrete ways through which the Theology of Liberation can be kept alive and relevant within the South African situation. / Philosophy, Practical & Systematic Theology / D. Th. (Theological Ethics)

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2012. / Please refer to full text for abstract.