Thesis (MA (Afrikaans and Dutch))--University of Stellenbosch, 2010. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie studie ondersoek die wyse waarop die ruimtebeelding in Joe Speedboot deur Tommy Wieringa in wisselwerking tree met die identiteitsontwikkeling in die roman. Aan die hand van teoretisering deur onder andere Henri Lefebvre word die uitbeelding van die sosiale ruimte in die roman aan die orde gestel. Die klassifikasie van Joe Speedboot as ‟n ontwikkelingsroman is hierby ‟n noemenswaardige uitgangspunt, omdat Wieringa die sentrale karakters se adolessensie, oftewel vormingsjare, in die roman uitbeeld. Die identiteitskonstruksie wat in die roman voorgestel word, strook met teoretiese beskouings van identiteit as ‟n dinamiese en gekonstrueerde konsep wat deur sosiale en kulturele oorwegings beïnvloed word. ‟n Ondersoek na die gesimuleerde werklikheid waarin Wieringa sy hooffigure situeer, dui aan dat die parogiale ruimte in die roman as stagnerend en voorspelbaar uitgebeeld word. In teenstelling tot die stilstand wat die ruimte kenmerk, word ‟n preokkupasie met beweging en vooruitgang aan die sentrale karakters toegeskryf. Beide die fisiese én eksistensïele dimensies van beweging en beweeglikheid figureer prominent in die roman. Dit word nóú verweef met die liminale posisie wat die karakters as adolessente in die gemeenskap beklee. Daar word geponeer dat die opposisie tussen stilstand en beweging nie net ingespan word by die ruimtebeelding en strukturele samestelling van die roman nie, maar ook ten grondslag lê aan die uitbeelding van die hoofkarakters se ontwikkelende identiteite. Die outeur kies in Joe Speedboot ‟n hoofkarakter met beperkte opsies en demonstreer hoe sy fisieke belemmeringe onafwendbaar op ‟n slot afstuur wat negatief óf positief geïnterpreteer kan word. In die lig van die hoë lof wat hierdie roman toegeswaai is, val dit vreemd op dat so min navorsing tot dusver oor Joe Speedboot onderneem is. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study explores the way in which the construction of space interacts with the development of identity in Joe Speedboot by Tommy Wieringa. On the basis of theoretical perspectives of, inter alia, Henri Lefebvre attention is given to the construction of the social space in the novel. The classification of Joe Speedboot as a Bildungsroman is an important point of departure in this regard, due to the fact that Wieringa depicts the central characters‟ adolescence in the novel. The portrayal of the construction of identity in the text corresponds with theoretical thoughts on identity as a dynamic and constructed concept that is affected by social and cultural considerations. An exploration of the simulated reality in which Wieringa situates his characters, indicates that the parochial space in Joe Speedboot is sketched as being stagnant and predictable. In contrast to the standstill which characterizes the social space, a preoccupation with movement and progress is ascribed to the central characters. Both the physical and existential dimensions of movement and mobility figure prominently in the novel. It is also interwoven with the liminal position the characters occupy in the community due to their adolescence. It is postulated that the opposition between stagnation and movement is not only exerted in the construction of space and the structural composition of the text, but is also presented as playing a determinative role in the development of the characters‟ identities. The author chooses for a main character with limited prospects and demonstrates how his physical handicap necessarily leads to a conclusion that allows for both positive and negative interpretations. Given the critical acclaim that the novel has received, it seems strange indeed that Joe Speedboot has thusfar not been the subject of analytical research.

Modern conflict transformation emerged after World War II as a discipline and a field of academic research. Since the early 1990s it has increasingly concerned itself with psycho-social issues (e.g. trauma treatment or reconciliation) in the aftermath of violent protracted social conflicts. Within this psycho-social space there has been a growing interest in the use of music in conflict transformation to improve relationships between in and out-groups. However, the field of music and conflict transformation is still nascent, with little in-depth research available. The majority of studies have been undertaken by interested parties or relies on anecdotal evidence from organisers and musicians with little concern for the context of the music use. Participants, whose attitudes and relationships to out-groups are the focus of conflict transformation interventions, are largely overlooked and their views are rarely discussed. Furthermore, there are few detailed studies on exactly how music affects conflict transformation outcomes. Instead allusions are often made to terms such as “the power of music” which act as a black box intended to explain how music “works”, but patently fail to do so. This thesis attempts to fill these two gaps in the literature by focusing on the participants’ experiences in two different conflict transformation contexts, a multi- cultural music project for school children in Noway and the casual music use in a settlement of internally displaced persons in Sudan. Through qualitative research methods, rich descriptive data from different parties is gathered. The data is analysed using grounded theory. As a result a very different and more complex picture emerges that enriches the current understanding of how music is used and perceived in conflict transformation contexts. In particular, how participants view these activities and how power relationships, though rarely mentioned, affect the music use is explored in detail. Some tentative suggestions indicate that music works best when used in longitudinal bottom-up activities and that music can augment conflict transformation activities rather than replace them. Additionally, it is proposed that music may work as a form of benign interruption in conflict transformation activities and that musical events provide a liminal space where the real work lies in the process of bringing any changes in attitudes from the liminal space into everyday life.

The potential of communities for sustainability learning and governance has generated substantial interest in sustainability discourses, but their specific roles and remits are not always critically examined. This thesis' original contribution to these discourses lies in the analysis of community projects as liminal spaces for pro-sustainable change that are limited in scope within wider political landscapes that do not sufficiently address wider challenges of an unravelling biosphere. The particular manifestation of community projects which emerges in Scotland as a result of Climate Challenge Fund funding made available by the Scottish Government is one example of sustainability governance at a local level. The present study draws upon data from field notes of eleven months of fieldwork, and semi-structured interviews with fifty-two informants, constructing two case studies with references to a third one. A transdisciplinary analysis of findings examines leadership and organisational structures and their implication for governance, and similarities and differences in practices and values identified within the case studies. Community projects are described as liminal spaces which facilitate the learning, practice-based and theoretical knowledge of sustainable practices (such as food growing or energy efficiency), and stimulate thinking on behalf of the group of participants or wider community. Community projects may also build temporary spaces demonstrating sustainable solutions visible to passers-by (such as raised vegetable beds in community gardens, or second-hand clothing in a swap shop). However, the longevity of these solutions is uncertain once the grant funding has come to an end. It is argued that in wider Scottish society, high-carbon lifestyles, inequalities and economic growth are the norm, and sustainable practices, community sustainability governance of tangible assets, and Education for Sustainable Development need to become less marginal and more widely embedded across all social and economic institutions.

“Liminal Spaces and The Disabled Body” explores Edmund Burke’s aesthetic paradigms as established in his An Enquiry into the Origin of Our Notions of the Sublime and the Beautiful to recover what disability meant for an eighteenth-century audience. I examine Burney’s Camilla and Eugenia’s disability as well as Dacre’s Zofloya and Victoria’s figurative hermaphroditism in terms of eighteenth-century views of deformity and physiognomy to argue that both Eugenia’s and Victoria’s deformities—Eugenia’s smallpox scars and injured leg and Victoria’s beautiful but too boldly delineated features—challenge the prevailing structures of aesthetics and expectations of feminine beauty. My thesis questions how eighteenth-century aesthetic theory constructs the modern concept of the “disabled” individual to argue that the female body with a disability or deformity surpasses the terms of submission and diminution instated by Burkean aesthetics. In turn, the disabled female gains purchase in literature due to her “liminal, between-categories status” as it strains masculine power structures and aesthetic and gender classification systems.

This diploma thesis aims to depict the nature of identity formation in the main characters of two works of postcolonial literature, Hari Kunzru's The Impressionist and Anita Desai's Baumgartner's Bombay. The concept of identity is approached from two perspectives, the traditional and the postcolonial one. Apart from that, the reactions of the two characters to their identity crises are scrutinized. The goal of this thesis is to determine what consequences the extreme implementation of a fluid, therefore ideal postcolonial identity, and the fixed one, as its extreme opposite, might have upon human lives. Special attention is paid to the three terms crucial in the postcolonial theory, liminality, hybridity and mimicry and how they predetermine the characters of the two novels. The analysis shows that neither extreme approach proves to be viable or beneficial for the life of an individual.

La tension politique qui se développait en Colombie depuis les années 40 contre les idéologies conservatrices et les libéraux officieux et dissidents après les élections de 1946, a déclenché un sentiment de mécontentement qui a éclaté le 9 avril 1948 avec l’assassinat de Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, dirigeant libéral à Bogota. Cet événement, connu sous le nom El Bogotazo, provoqua des manifestations violentes, des meurtres, des agressions, de l’harcèlement, de la terreur et des troubles dans tout le pays. Comme conséquence, au cours des années suivantes, les guérillas libérales se sont organisées et pendant une décennie ont laissé plus de 200.000 morts dans le pays et ont provoqué des milliers de migrations rurales vers les grandes villes. Plus tard, certains dirigeants ont formé les guérillas communistes, après l'assassinat de plusieurs ex commandants démobilisés, qui perpétuaient le conflit armé dans le pays, dont certains survivent aujourd'hui. Les FARC, Forces Armées Révolutionnaires de Colombie-Armée Populaire, les plus anciennes du monde, puissantes et nombreuses en Colombie, sont actuellement en pourparlers de paix avec le gouvernement national à La Havane, Cuba. Ces pourparlers de paix sont dans leurs phases finales. L'ELN, l’Armée de Libération Nationale, le deuxième groupe de guérilla en importance et du nombre de combattants en Colombie, est en approchements préliminaires, tendant à entamer des pourparlers de paix avec le gouvernement. Ce conflit a produit un nombre immense de victimes (¡Basta ya!: 2013) et dans ce contexte, les dramaturges et activistes Patricia Ariza et Nohora Ayala proposent un projet artistique qui interroge les actions violentes du pays à partir de la perspective de la femme dans les conflits armés. Leurs productions s’inscrivent dans la création collective du Teatro La Candelaria, où la recherche s’infitre dans l’art de la scène, en déconstruisant la réalité socio-politique et en faisant parler les témoignages. Ainsi, ce travail se prendre sur six œuvres qui explorent les liminalités politico-corporelles qui se déconstruisent dans la mise en scène en tenant compte des réseaux complexes qui sont tissés à partir des femmes et les multiples Antigones créés dans le contexte historique du pays. En outre, l’analyse examine la notion de la corporalité à partir des corps non-absents (victimes de disparition forcée) qui montrent la déterritorialisation des corps dépossédés. Le premier chapitre de la thèse traitée propose une approche théorique centrée sur les concepts de la représentation, du théâtre, de la performance et de la théâtralité politique. Le chapitre mobilise également les notions de corps sans organes et corps dépossédés pour éclairer la coupure épistémologique entre le corps matériel et le corps des disparus dépossédés. Le deuxième chapitre analyse trois œuvres de Patricia Ariza: Antigone (2006), Mujeres en la Plaza (2009) et Somma Mnémosyne (2013), lesquelles montrent un exercice d’artivisme et d'engagement politique par rapport à l'histoire moderne de la Colombie. Le troisième chapitre présente trois œuvres de Nohora Ayala: Fémina ludens (1995), Piel (2010) et Rosas secas (2012) , où l’exploration du corps met en évidence les traces de la mémoire historique du pays. Finalement, le dernier chapitre propose un questionnement face à la réception du spectateur et la théâtralité du pays. / The political tension that developed in Colombia since the 40s, between conservative ideologies and, the divergency in the official liberal party and dissident liberal party, brought out a feeling of disagreement that collapsed when Jorge Eliecer Gaitan, leader of dissident party, was killed in Bogota on 9 April 1948. This event, well known as The Bogotazo, unchained violent protests, murders, assaults, harassment, terror and unrest throughout the country. As a result, in the subsequent years the liberal guerrillas were formed and over a decade the conflict ensued in more than 200,000 murders in the country and thousands of rural migrants in the cities. Later, some leaders formed the communist guerrillas who perpetuated the armed conflict in the country, some of them are known today as FARC, the oldest group of guerillas in the world and the most powerful in Colombia, and ELN. Actually, the FARC are in the final negotiation for peace in Havana, Cuba. This violent historical context has produced a staggering statistics of victims (Basta ya!, 2013), in which the artists and activist dramatists, Patricia Ariza and Nohora Ayala propose a new aesthetic that questions the violent actions of the country from women’s perspective. Their theatrical productions are part of the Collective Creation in the Teatro La Candelaria, where the research is faced with the aesthetics of the scene and confronted with the deconstruction of reality counted, telling or testimonials. This dissertation examines six plays by Ariza and Ayala whose political and bodily liminalities deconstruct dominant ideas of history, while illuminating the complex networks surrounding the women and the Antigones produced by the country. I explore the materiality of non-absent bodies (victims of forced disappearance) which exposes the deterritorialization of dispossessed bodies. The first chapter of the thesis discerns recent theoretical approaches to the concepts of representation, theater, performance and political theatricality which I have found pertinent for my examination of the work by Ariza and Ayala. At the same time, I elaborate on the notions of the body without organs and of dispossessed bodies in order to shed light on the epistemological break between the material present body and dispossessed bodies of the disappeared. In the second chapter, I analyze three plays by Patricia Ariza: Antigone (2006), Mujeres en la Plaza (2009) and Somma Mnemosyne (2013), which evince an exercise in artivism and engagement with the political history of Colombia. The third chapter presents three plays of Nohora Ayala: Fémina Ludens (1995), Piel (2010) and Rosas Secas (2012), where the body is part of a radical practice of questioning colombian historical memory. Finally, the concluding chapter examines the role of political and corporeal theatricality in engaging spectators’ critical participation in the work of Ariza and Ayala.

This dissertation begins with a discussion of the rediscovery and rehabilitation of masks as tools of performance and pedagogy in Western theatre over the past century, considering the work of various theorists, directors, teachers and performers in whose work the mask occupies a significant position. Discussion then focuses on the development of the neutral mask as an object and as a paradigm of pedagogy for the actor over the past eighty years and undertakes a comparative investigation of the concept of neutrality as a performant state. The discussion takes in the teaching of Jacques Copeau, Etienne Decroux and Jacques Lecoq, and extends to the theories of Eugenio Barba, considering the possible parallels between Barba's 'pre-expressive' state and the state of neutrality which the mask assists to develop in the actor. The dissertation further proposes that the term 'performative liminality' is an appropriate term to adopt for this performant state, and makes this proposal with reference to the theories of anthropologist Victor Turner regarding the liminal state. The practice-as-research component of the project sought to investigate and document the various uses of the neutral mask and its application to the creative processes of the actor, and aimed to provide qualitative analysis and evaluation of the neutral mask when used in a developmental workshop environment. The dissertation contains a full account of the practice component of the project and details the processes used to investigate the neutral mask, offering analysis drawn from the inside experiences of the actors and the outside observations of the researcher. Within that analysis is a consideration of the neutral mask as a tool for developing the scenic presence of the actor. / Masters Thesis

<p>This dissertation presents an ethnography of youth in Liberia and of how their lives became affected by a civil war which raged in the country between 1990 and 1997. The focus is on the experiences, motivations, and reflections of young combatants who fought for a variety of rebel factions. For these young people, the daily prospect of poverty, joblessness and marginalisation effectively blocked the paths to a normal adulthood; drawing them instead into a subculture of liminality, characterised by abjection, resentment and rootlessness. As opportunity came, their voluntary enlistment into one of the several rebel armies of the civil war therefore became an attractive option for many. Based upon one year of fieldwork during 1998, conducted among groups of ex-combatant youths in both the capital Monrovia and in a provincial town in the rural hinterland, I describe and analyse the young people’s own accounts of their involvement in the civil war; their complicity in atrocities, their coping strategies in the context of armed conflict, their position as ex-combatants in a post-war environment, and their outlook on their past, present and future.</p><p>In the first chapter I set the scene of the Liberian civil war and discuss the central concepts on which my dissertation is built. Chapter two then takes up the methodological issues relating to the particular fieldwork conditions found. This is done by providing an account of my participant observation within a volatile community of ex-combatants in Monrovia. Chapter three deals with the nature of pre-civil war Liberian political and military organisational structures and their rootedness in pre-state institutions such as local warlordism and secret societies. In chapter four I look at the cultural setting of my fieldwork and track elements found within the legacy of violence, to oral literature and patterns of socialisation. Chapter five focuses specifically on the role and predicament of young women in the civil war. Whilst some became active fighters, most participated as auxiliaries in various capacities. Their accounts convey not only the tremendous hardship and suffering, but also reveal mechanisms which helped at least some to survive. In chapter six I discuss the question of a post-war reintegration of ex-combatants into peacetime society and show that the prospects of different groups depend primarily on their social and geographical situation, rather than on the negligible effectiveness of aid programmes routinely executed by international organisations and NGOs.</p>

My dissertation explores postcolonial implications of performances in Brian Friel's plays. While showing Friel's theatre is performative with its alienation effect and artistic activities of music, songs, dances, and recitations, I demonstrate that Irish self, culture, and history in Friel's plays are performative as well, because they are shown to be socially constructed rather than inherently possessed, constantly contested rather than comfortably settled, in dynamic process of remaking rather than fixed as finished products. Examining performances in Friel's theatre, characters' daily lives, historical narratives, and cultural ceremonies, I argue that those performances also shed light on the (post)colonial situation in Ireland¡ªa split island with mongrel arts, interstitial characters, disparate histories, and mythologized or relegated cultures. Showing that Irish self, history, and culture are not homogenous, linear, or monolithic entities but hybrid, contested constructs, Friel's plays subvert the binaries embedded in British colonialism, Irish nationalism, and developmental historicism. However, as Friel's characters fail to negotiate the symbiotic yet opposing forces such as the north and the south, English and Irish, official history and personal story, national myth and folk culture, tradition and modernity, my dissertation concludes that in Friel's plays to be Irish is to suffer a hybrid yet split and liminal existence, to be framed by official discourses and cultural myths, and to contend for alternative expressions of history and culture. Friel's concern with performance thus culminates in his performative conception of Irish identity¡ªas a heterogeneous composite with ongoing contestation between different selves, historical narratives, and cultural practices, it cannot but remain open to different expressions and constant (re)definitions.

The present dissertation investigates the use of the fantastic and its functions in contemporary prose, the initial hypothesis being that the fantastic is not historically exhausted, but continues to be productive. The major part of this study consists of a close reading of four novels printed between 1995 and 2001: Marie Hermanson’s Värddjuret (1995), Majgull Axelsson’s Aprilhäxan (1997), Karen Duve’s Regenroman (1999) and Elfriede Kern’s Schwarze Lämmer (2001). Tzvetan Todorov’s definition of the fantastic as structural ambiguity is fundamental to the dissertation. In order not to bind the definition to a normative concept of genre, the fantastic is in this study considered as a narrative strategy. The dissertation’s analyses demonstrate that in these contemporary novels there is considerable variation of narrative devices, as well as of intertextual motifs deriving from the ‘archive’ provided by the tradition of the fantastic. The fantastic is to a great extent intertextual, but does not merely function as a “signal of fiction” in a postmodern game where ambiguity is no longer relevant. Instead, the narrated world in these novels is characterized by a deeply-rooted ambivalence, heterogeneity and instability. Both attractive and dangerous, the fantastic corresponds to a meeting with “the other” and the unknown, while dampening the conflict between the supernatural and the natural so clearly seen in Todorov. What is central is not the crisis of perception undergone by the novel’s characters as they choose between two opposing views of reality, but their mental state of mind. These characters are in a condition of “betwixt and between”, which in all four novels is linked to the theme of the artist. Via the fantastic, Regenroman initiates a confrontation with male myths of the artist and images of women. Schwarze Lämmer also engages the romantic fantastic tradition and investigates the link between adolescent delusions of grandeur and artistic creativity. Värddjuret, on the other hand, depicts the genesis of a female artist, while Aprilhäxan presents the female artist’s monstrous image of herself and fantasies of omnipotence. An additional function of the fantastic in these four novels is to thematize a concept of reality that is based, not on the contrast between the natural and the supernatural, but on the possibility of several different realities.