abstract: Implementing an assimilative agenda within the traditional U.S. education system has prevented the authentic inclusion, validation, and development of American Indian students. The enduring ramifications, including the loss of cultural identity, underscored the critical need to decolonize, or challenge, the historic assimilative agenda of the school space. The purpose of this action research study was to examine the connection between the cultural exploration activities of Culture Club, cultural identity, and the creation of a Third Space to serve as a decolonizing framework for this Indigenous program conducted within a school space. The epistemological perspective guiding this study was that of constructionism. The theoretical frameworks were post-colonial theory, Indigenous methodology, and, most prominently, Third Space theory. A thorough review of Third Space theory resulted in deduction of four criteria deemed to be necessary for creating a Third Space. These four theoretically-deduced criteria were (a) creating new knowledge, (b) reclaiming and reinscribing hegemonic notions of identity and school, (c) creating new or hybrid identities, and (d) developing more inclusive perspectives. The criteria were employed to create the Culture Club innovation and to determine whether a Third Space was effectively created within Culture Club. This qualitative action research study focused on the Culture Club innovation, an after-school, cultural exploration, extracurricular program for sixth-grade American Indian students, at a Title I school in a large southwest metropolitan area. The participants were five, sixth-grade American Indian students. The role of the researcher was to facilitate a Third Space within Culture Club, as well as collect and analyze data. Data were collected using semi-structured interviews; recorded Culture Club sessions; phase 3, and research journal entries. Once the data were transcribed, eclectic coding methodology, consisting of open, descriptive, and in vivo coding was employed and interpretive analysis procedures followed. Findings showed modest changes in participants’ cultural identities but confirmed the creation of a Third Space within Culture Club. Findings have important implications for both practice and future research. Recommendations for improving and sustaining the decolonizing framework of Culture Club to create safe spaces for American Indian students and their explorations of their Indigeneity are also proposed. / Dissertation/Thesis / Doctoral Dissertation Leadership and Innovation 2017

This study investigates about the meaning of the USA PATRIOT Act of 2001. The purpose of this study is to illustrate the meaning of the USA PATRIOT Act from an archaeological perspective (in the Foucauldian sense). Rather than accepting the Act and its formulations this study excavates the discursive elements that give meaning to the Act within the current socio-political sphere. In this sense this is a Foucauldian archaeology of patriotism in the United States of America illustrated and explicated through the current discourse created by the USA PATRIOT Act. Moreover, this research intends to illustrate how the patriotic discourse affects our current spatial practices. By analyzing the contemporary patriotic discourse through the lens of spatial theory what is sought is to briefly sketch the conceptual landscapes that are created through this discourse. This study applies the concepts and theories of Michel Foucault, Edward Soja, and Homi Bhabha as well as other postcolonial theorists to analyze the USA PATRIOT Act as a discourse that is linked and shaped by history and a discourse that is active in the design and content of our spaces.

The study takes its point of departure in the urgent problem of slums that follow on the rapid urbanisation worldwide. Focusing on the small informal settlement of Kambi Moto in Nairobi, Kenya, the study tries to answer the question of how power can be worked out in slum upgrading – a way to change the physical environment of a slum without demolishing and rebuilding the whole settlement. The theoretical tool to answer this question is taken from Edward Soja’s reading of Henry Lefebvre in the concept Thirdspace – an extended and politicised way to look at space, where space is not only seen as a stage for historical and social processes, but as something that is shaping our thoughts and actions; a social space that includes and goes beyond the material Firstspace and the mental Secondspace. From a spatialized reading of history today’s situation – where 60 % of the population of Nairobi live in informal settlements – is traced back to the ideological structuring of space in the colonial cityplans. The informal settlements are established as a Thirdspace: both a negative outcome of the dominating Secondspace of the colonial administration and as a counterspace, where traditional ways of life could live on and where revolutionary movements could grow. The study then focus on how the two scales to view the city, the macro and the micro, are resolved in the Shack/Slum Dwellers International (SDI), a global network of local federations that organizes slum dwellers. The network empowers the individual slum dweller in making him/her an actor in a peer to peer exchange, and also creates a social space for political struggle. This is manifested in Muungano wa Wanavijiji, a citywide movement for a collective struggle for spatial rights, empowering the slum dwellers in taking charge of the social production of human spatiality. In a case study of a slum upgrading effort in Kambi Moto the shifting of power from the government, international organisations and professionals to the lived Thirdspace of the habitants, as well as the internal power relations within the community, are looked at in a concrete situation.

This study and the accompanying design project explore postmodern identity construction as a nomadic state of being in relation to the shared experience of space. The potential of the relationship between postmodern identity and physical space is explored both theoretically and through practical application. The main theory explored is ‘third space’, with specific reference to the concept of ‘thirdness’ as articulated by American psychoanalyst Jessica Benjamin (in Frosh&Baraitser 2009). This study examines how shared spaces can, through narrative reframed by ontology (Somers 1994), be seen as physical manifestations of the ‘third space’ as envisaged by the likes of Homi K Bhabha (1994) and Edward Soja (1996). The notion of ‘thirdness’ is used to explore the relationship between individuals and shared space. ‘Thirdness’ is also paralleled to Ubuntu. ‘Thirdness’ is investigated as a means to access shared relational spaces that provide an abundance of symbolic narratives that can be gathered and integrated into the self. This study explores how being connected through shared space has the potential to be constructive in identity formation in the wake of unstable postmodern identity. This study uses a design process adapted from Karl Aspelund (2006) as an approach to the research. In the context of this study, design is seen as more than the resulting artefact. It encompasses the thought process, the methods used and steps taken to reach a particular research outcome. This study attempts to form a synthesis between the theoretical research conducted and design praxis in the form of the design outcome. As inspiration for the design action, the design process followed in this research facilitates the exploration of theory that is perhaps unfamiliar to design discourse. The steps in the process allow the refinement of concepts, application of the theory in a practical environment (a paper making workshop) and finally, the visualisation of the theory via the design artefact (an animated short). The medium of animation is selected purposively in order to convey the interpretive narrative derived from the process. The paper produced in the workshop reflects the theory, inspires the narrative of the animation and is used to create the environment and characters of the animation, which, in turn, embody the overarching concepts of the study. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2012. / Visual Arts / unrestricted