Thesis (M.S.)--Boston University

[Abstract Omitted] / Arts, Faculty of / French, Hispanic, and Italian Studies, Department of / Graduate

Bibliography: leaves 84-88. / Africa was not a white man's grave just because it killed people, it was a white man's grave because it threatened to destroy the crops and animals that were the basis of the settlers' survival. Thus in 1891 the first research institute of its kind in Southern Africa if not in Africa was established in South Africa to deal with this threat. Its life span of fourteen years was accompanied by both personal and institutional achievement. Although still within the original aim of research, there was pursuit of 'breakthrough glory' that led to blunders and, in part, to the downfall of the man and the closure of the institute. The Colonial Bacteriological Institute (CBI) sometimes known as the Colonial Institute was the first bacteriological research laboratory set up in the Cape Colony to investigate human and stock diseases. This dissertation seeks to examine the history of that institute, from its beginning in 1891 to its closure in 1905.

This thesis examines the nature of the distinction between public and private space at the South African College (SAC) between 1880 and 1918. By viewing the College within increasingly wide lenses of analysis, examining the micro-level of student experience, to situating the College within its immediate, national and imperial location, the thesis indicates the ways in which institutions should be seen as products of, and permeable to, their historical contexts. Chapter one begins by examining the gendered identity formation of the College students. This is followed by an in-depth examination of the role of the College Council, in particular, in the "public" life of the Cape, and also in the "private" decision making processes within the College.

Includes bibliographical references.

This dissertation aims to put two seemingly stable and unchanging categories, namely the 'nation' and the 'body', into conversation with each other in order to interrogate how the disabled body, in particular, became a site for nation building in South Africa's transition from apartheid to democracy in the 1990s. More specifically, this dissertation aims to explore how, framed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), different bodies took on disparate meanings that both affirmed and challenged the emergence of the euphemistically termed, 'New Nation'. Relying on insights from disability studies, postcolonial scholarship and critical race and gender studies, this dissertation endeavours to interrogate how the emergent post-apartheid state relied on the collective memory and identity generated through particular ideas of violence and politics evidenced by the injured bodies on display at the TRC. Drawing on the TRC transcripts, the TRC Final Report and the Truth Commission Special Report coverage of the proceedings, this dissertation seeks to ask new questions about the shifting and uneven sites of embodied meaning-making in post-apartheid South Africa.

Bibliography: pages 215-230. / COSAWR consisted mainly of white male South Africans who avoided whites-only conscription into the South African Defence Force (SADF) by going into exile in Britain and the Netherlands. COSAWR was founded in 1978 with the assistance of the African National Congress (ANC) and the British Anti-Apartheid Movement. Its goals were to advance war resistance both within South Africa and overseas, research the militarisation of Southern Africa, influence the ANC's opinion on war resistance, bring Western European peace groups and soldiers' unions into the fold of the antiapartheid movement, and involve white South Africans in the anti-apartheid movement and the ANC. The thesis puts COSAWR in the context of South African history in the 1970s and 1980s. The dissertation evaluates COSAWR in relation to the personal and political dynamics of the individual members who shaped the organisation, the development of the South African war resistance movement, its association with the ANC and the broad international anti-apartheid movement, its antagonistic relationship with the South African government and the militarisation of South Africa. The discourse explores the exiles' personal and political motives for avoiding military service. These reasons helped to determine the extent to which the organisation was successful. It is a general history, because the security consciousness of interviewees and the lack of access to certain COSAWR and South African government records inhibited the writing of a detailed study.

The South African War of 1899−1902 or Anglo-Boer War was one of the modern examples of propaganda in history. It revealed an enormous agitprop conducted by British and Boer forces. The European and American public closely followed the struggle between the mighty British Empire and the “little white Christians”. This thesis examines the pro-British propaganda of the Ottoman intellectuals and policy-makers by focusing on the work of Ismail Kemal Vlora, Transval Meselesi. Ismail Kemal Bey’s pamphlet on the war is a crucial propagandist instrument and legitimiser of British imperialism in South Africa and in other British colonies. This work aims to grasp the understanding of imperialism and civilisation by the pro-British Ottoman intelligentsia, by looking at their attitude towards the South African War of 1899-1902. In this sense, it aims to make a contribution to Ottoman and South African history.

Includes bibliographical references. / The National Union of South African Students (NUSAS) was established in 1924 as a forum for white South African students. The rise of Afrikaner Nationalism in the 1930s and the establishment of the ultra-nationalist Afrikaanse Studentebond (ANS) led to the disaffiliation from NUSAS of the student bodies of the Afrikaans-medium universities. Until the end of the Second World War, two groups of students jostled for control of NUSAS. The first championed the ideal of a broad white South African national feeling and worked for the return of the Afikaans-speaking centres, while the second group, predominantly left-wing radicals based at Wits, called for NUSAS to become a racially more inclusive organisation and admit Fort Hare to membership.

This thesis is a history of the northern Cape frontier zone between the years 1700 and c.1815. It describes and analyses the interactions which occurred between the principal peoples of this spatio-temporal area as the Cape colony expanded into the arid heartland of South Africa. The study's geographical focus of attention moves, with the frontier zone itself, from the banks of the Berg River in the south-western Cape of 1700 to beyond the northern banks of the Orange River in the early nineteenth century. The western and eastern limits of this area are formed by the Atlantic Ocean on the one hand and the eastern frontier district of Graaff-Reinet on the other. Within the frontier zone of this vast and hitherto neglected region, it is argued, there emerged, during the course of the eighteenth century, a set of practices and attitudes which, precisely because they were prototypical, exerted a profound influence on the subsequent colonial history of South Africa. Although developments within the northern Cape frontier zone are not seen as being more important than those which were taking place elsewhere in the colony (such as the south-western Cape or the eastern Cape frontier zone) they are seen as being equally important. Our picture of eighteenth century colonial society in South Africa has, until now, been a lopsided one in that the archival evidence for the largest part of the colony - the northern Cape frontier zone - has been underutilised. This thesis, based on extensive archival research, attempts to rectify this imbalance by discussing key themes in northern frontier history as they emerged and developed over a period of more than one hundred and ten years. A primary concern of this study is to provide an account of the dynamics of colonial expansion which is based on a consideration of both the principal productive activity of the frontier zone - pastoral production - and the most important political and military institution of the frontier zone - the commando. In the course of this account the focus of attention falls on those colonists who took up the life of semi-nomadic pastoralists (trekboers) in the Cape interior. Related to this, and of equal importance, is an examination of the impact which colonial expansion had on the Khoisan societies of the Cape interior. The processes by which these societies were either conquered, annihilated or incorporated into colonial society are discussed. So too are the ways in which the Khoisan resisted colonial domination. Thus, a large part of this thesis deals with the various forms or practices which shaped intergroup relationships on the frontier, ranging from genocidal warfare, at one extreme, to symbiotic co-operation and collaboration at the other Particular attention is paid to the conditions under which many Khoisan became unfree labourers within the colonial economy. The many instances of primary resistance, guerrilla warfare, rebellion, flight and protest which are discussed in these pages serve as testimony to the fact that the subjugation of the Khoisan was neither quick nor easy. Indeed, the pervasive violence arising from the protracted struggle for dominance in the northern Cape frontier zone is, in itself, an important thematic concern of this study. Although the major protagonists of the frontier zone were the colonists and Khoisan there were other important frontier societies which are discussed here. New groups emerged as a result of the processes of interaction and acculturation taking place within the frontier zone. People of mixed racial or cultural origin (known in the parlance of the day as "Bastaards" or "Bastaard- Hottentots") gradually acquired a new cultural and political identity. Some of them, in an attempt to escape the increasing discrimination which they experienced in the colony, removed themselves beyond the limits of colonial settlement altogether. These Oorlam groups, as they became known, played an important part in the history of the frontier zone and their contribution is given due consideration. Also important were a variety of other colonial fugitives - runaway slaves, Company deserters, bandits, murderers and assorted criminals - whose impact on both Khoisan societies and colonial fanners was frequently immense. The significance of such drosters (deserters) is acknowledged here. The thesis concludes with a consideration of those forces which tended towards promoting the social, economic and political closure of the frontier zone. In this respect the exertions of missionaries become particularly important since they first appear in the northern Cape in the last years of the eighteenth century and herald the arrival of a new era in frontier history. Missionary activity was, amongst other things, a symptom of the desire for greater state control over the turbulent regions of the colony's northern limits. The state-approved conversion of the leader of the most powerful Oorlam bandit group ( 1815) marked an important symbolic moment in the closure of the frontier zone. Even more important, however, was the promulgation of the Hottentot Proclamation of 1809 for this signalled that the new British government of the Cape intended to recognise and entrench the colonists' subjugation of their Khoisan and "Bastaard- Hottentot" labourers. For the first time there was a government at the Cape powerful enough to impose its will on the frontier regions. Unfortunately, by backing the colonists, this government endorsed and ensured the outcome of the long process of struggle, decided in the northern frontier zone, for the land, labour and livestock resources of the Khoisan of the Cape interior.