This article is a case study of the People’s Archive of Rural India, a multimedia digital archive founded by journalist P. Sainath, which debuted online in December 2014. PARI features photographs, videos, interviews, audio files and articles that seek to illuminate the lives of the over 833 million people who live in rural India. Focusing on the narrative form of the ‘story’ and the universalizing temporality of the ‘everyday’, the article asks, ‘What is the relationship between PARI’s rural India and the “New” India to which it ostensibly belongs? How do PARI’s textual and visual mediations work together to produce the rural as a region?’. The article explores the relevance of postcolonial theory for the study of cultural production in the time of ‘New’ India, while arguing that PARI offers a Janus-faced depiction of the rural as urban India’s historically entrenched Other, on the one hand, and as a critical outside to the neo-liberal imagination, on the other.

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Magister Artium - MA

Thesis deal with tuning of database Oracle, which is used by digital archive SAFE. In the concrete deal with setting parameters of database. It is divided to three parts. In first part it characterizes factors that influence performance of database. In second part it describes possibilities of tuning and setting Oracle database. In third part it is first introduced digital archive SAFE, after that it is chosen suitable testing tool for workload generation and described test scenarios and last are performed tests and compared results at different database database settings. Goal of thesis is description and trial tuning of Oracle database, which is used by digital archive SAFE. Other goal is test of files inserting into digital archive at different settings (saving to the database, on file system). These goals are achieved by testing tool workload generation and compare response time at different settings. Contribution of this thesis is above all trial of tuning Oracle database, which is used by digital archive SAFE. Document can be used like handbook for implementatory of tested implementation of digital archive SAFE.

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / The generation of biomedical research data on the African continent is growing, with numerous studies realizing the importance of African genetic diversity in discoveries of human origins and disease susceptibility. The decrease in costs to purchase and utilize such tools has enabled research groups to produce datasets of significant scientific value. However, this success story has resulted in a new challenge for African Researchers and institutions. An increase in data scale and complexity has led to an imbalance of infrastructure and skills to manage, store and analyse this data

The way we build is inherently bound to methods implemented when representing any proposed intervention. Superficially, it would seem that the techniques used for representing architecture have rapidly progressed, especially with regard to the influence technology has on the depiction of architectural form in a graphically accessible manner. However, when critically examining the consequential products that arise from either method, it becomes evident that very little has been gained through employing these new methods of creation and depiction. Through accepting, wholeheartedly, drawing conventions adapted from generation to generation- combined with the digitisation of methods used for depicting architectural intent and/or instruction, a schism emerged. There exists a divide between the act of drawing, and the primal meaning represented through the product. To escape the doldrums created by the aforementioned condition, this dissertation presents a fourfold investigation on ‘architectural drawing’ as entity. The four individual chapters should be understood as reflections on the methodological approaches employed in the formation of the resulting intervention. The summarised topics are as follows: It is important to note that all the drawings presented in this document were done by hand, and drawn with considerable love and precision. As such, The drawings are intended to be carefully studied and contemplated - with specific regard to the preceding text - in order to create a holistic view of the project. The resulting intervention is informed by, and thus a direct product of, investigative sketches that act as research- and mapping devices. This process enables the communication of internalised ideas, both to oneself and to others. Since communication is fully dependent on the clear translation of ideas, drawings become the embodiment of the formulated approach, instead of a representation of internalised ideas. The programme housed by the resulting architecture aims to further strengthen the proposed theoretical premise through emphasising the impact that drawing has on spatial hierarchy. The act of drawing possesses the power to define or alter perceptions of hierarchal value contained within artefacts. through manipulating the emphasis placed on an object within a drawing it becomes possible to manipulate it’s perceived importance. / Dissertation (MArch(Prof))--University of Pretoria, 2014. / Architecture / MArch(Prof) / Unrestricted

Magister Artium - MA / This mini-thesis thesis intends to grapple with silences by looking the possibilities of reconceptualising archives through notions of “traces,” “absence,” and “fragments.” Examining archives as bodies of knowledge, a window to telling us something about pastpresent- future representations is to think about navigating archives of colonialism and slavery as sites of historical memory. The aim of this paper is to enter the pedagogical problem of remembering and gendered representational voids by seeking to explore how artistic representations offer insights in the absence of detail in the colonial archives. In exploring the relationship between bodies, remembering and the historical trauma of slavery and colonialisation, specifically in relation to historical corporeal and flesh narratives attached to indigenous black women, and how women negotiate these meanings through embodied interventions in (post-) slavery South Africa. The positioning of the body as an archive probes questions on how the memory of traumatic wounding in a (post-)slavery South Africa body politics are inscribed to convey meaning, memory and identity. The notions of embodiment that this thesis is concerned with asks in what ways can we creatively and imaginatively re-construct, outside of conventional historiographies and knowledge(s), that which has been disembowled through colonial dominating narratives of enslaved subjects?

>Magister Scientiae - MSc / The generation of biomedical research data on the African continent is grow- ing, with numerous studies realizing the importance of African genetic diver- sity in discoveries of human origins and disease susceptibility. The decrease in costs to purchase and utilize such tools has enabled research groups to produce datasets of signi cant scienti c value. However, this success story has resulted in a new challenge for African Researchers and institutions. An increase in data scale and complexity has led to an imbalance of infrastructure and skills to manage, store and analyse this data. The lack of physical infrastructure has left genomic research on the continent lagging behind its counterparts abroad, drastically limiting the sharing of data and posing challenges for researchers wishing to explore secondary analysis, study veri cation and amalgamation. The scope of this project entailed the design and implementation of a proto- type genome archive to support the e ective use of data resources amongst researchers. The prototype consists of a web interface and storage backend for users to upload and browse projects, datasets and metadata stored in the archive. The server, middleware, database and server-side framework are components of the genome archive and form the software stack. The server component provides the shared resources such as network connectivity, le storage, security and metadata database. The database type implemented in storing the metadata relating to the sample les is a NoSQL database. This database is interfaced with the iRods middleware component which controls data being sent between the server, database and the Flask framework. The Flask framework which is based on the Python programming language, is the development platform of the archive web application. The Cognitive Walkthrough methodology was used to evaluate suitabil- ity of the software for its users. Results showed that the core conceptual model adopted by the prototype software is consistent and that actions available to the user are visible. Issues were raised pertaining to user feedback when per- forming tasks and metadata term meaning. The development of a continent wide genome archive for Africa is feasible by utilizing open source software and metadata standards to improve data discovery and reuse.

Masters of Art / At a lecture presented in London on June 5, 1994, Jacques Derrida discussed the complexities of the meaning of the archive. He described the duality in meaning of the word archive-in terms of temporality and spatiality-as a place of "commencement" and as the place "where men and gods command" or the ''place from which order is given". As the place of commencement, "there where things commence" the archive is more ambivalent. It houses, what could best be described as 'traces" of particular objects of the past in the form of documents. These documents were produced in the past and are subjective constructions with their own histories of negotiations and contestations. As such, the archive represents the end of instability, or the outcome of negotiations and contestations over knowledge. Yet as sources of evidence the archive also represents the moment of ending instability, of creating stasis and the fixing of meaning and knowledge.

This inquiry provides a narrative on the experiences of white Afrikaner females during 1980 and 1990 in South Africa. The Defence Amendment act of 1967 declared that every white male is to complete compulsory military service, and between 1960 and 1991 an estimated 600 000 white South African men were conscripted into the SADF. The conscription of white males had a profound impact on the experiences of white Afrikaner females in South Africa. Through a narrative inquiry into a familial archive, I trace an unknown local history that finds itself situated in the middle of the SADF’s campaign to a militarised South Africa. I contend that these stories of the ordinary offer up an opportunity to consider themes of whiteness, gender and memory. The inquiry identifies the role of Apartheid institutions such as the Dutch Reformed Church and SADF in the rise of Afrikanerdom and the lives of Afrikaners between 1980 and 1990. After the compulsory military service for white South African men ended in 1993, it became apparent to me that the experiences of the Border War were mainly silenced. I therefore provide a look into the photographs, objects of memory and practices of food making which speaks to the experiences of white Afrikaner women during 1980 and 1990 through the exhibit 'Pakkies aan Boetie’ (2019). The inquiry also considers, through the lens of popular culture, how Afrikaner youth born after 1994 navigate legacies of Apartheid and conscription. / Dissertation (MSocSci)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Historical and Heritage Studies / MSocSci / Unrestricted