This study seeks to understand colonial narratives of Zimbabwe 1860-1900 as a locus of transgression and opposition. I investigate the range and complexity of discourses within the imperial project open to both European male and female writers, their shifts over time or within one or more texts. Narratives of the explorer, missionary, hunter and soldier are examined as a literary genre in which attempts were made to re-imagine the Western self through an encounter with Africans. I consider how positions from which the European in the colonies could speak and write were reformulated. This study will employ Foucauldian discourse theory in an analysis of the British 'civilizing mission' in Central Southern Africa. The Introduction examines existing historical and theoretical approaches in this field and argues for a particular use of Foucualt's insights and vocabulary. Chapter One is concerned with the way European explorers constituted notions of 'civilized nations' in Europe and 'primitive tribes' in Africa . I then question how this process of division and exclusion was reinforced by the mythography of an EI Dorado in the African interior. In Chapter Two I consider how Colonial Man was constituted in different ways by Victorian discourses of adventure, travel and conquest. I also attempt to account for the effects that followed the activation, within colonial culture, of structures of exclusion and division based on race or class. Chapter Three focuses on the economic dimension of a dissident LMS missionary and the sustained resistance to Western philanthropy among the Ndebele. I also examine the later Mashonaland mission where the missionary-administrator became instrumental in the division and control of Africans. In the final chapter I consider discursive formations which sought to constrain African resistance during the 1896-7 Chimurenga and the institutionalization of a settler order in the post-Chimurenga era. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1998.

More than any other people, the Bushmen - like the Aborigines on the Australian continent - have epitomized the sub-human other in South African historiography. My primary concern in this study will be to interrogate the representations that gave rise to such entrenched notions of Bushman alterity, and the consequences these have had for Bushman lives. Through an assessment of the writings of nineteenth- and early twentieth-century travellers, missionaries, settlers, colonial officials and scholars, I shall examine understandings of ‘otherness’ and ‘difference’, and the ways in which alterity discourse opened up a space for the ensuing colonial policies of genocide and subjugation against the Bushmen. By allowing the Bushman ‘voices’ to talk back - through an exploration of verbal and visual forms of Bushman creative expression - I hope to present a more balanced sense of Bushman ‘identity’, and expose the fundamental intolerance of difference that lies at the heart of alterity discourse. I shall conclude the thesis with a problematization of contemporary trends of representation, an examination of how these often inadvertently continue the process of othering, and a consideration of their repercussions for present-day Bushman lives. Aside from the obvious relevance of such a study to an understanding of both the destructive events and representations of history, and the current traumatic circumstances of Bushman lives, the questions that this thesis raises can be seen to have more far-reaching implications. In a country such as South Africa, with its long history of segregation and discrimination, issues of otherness and difference take on a particularly compelling resonance. It seems crucial - especially at this point in our national progress - to interrogate our historical attitudes towards otherness, and posit more constructive ways of approaching difference, that allow others their distinct identity, without either demonizing or collapsing such difference; or, to phrase it in Homi Bhabha’s question: “How can the human world live its difference? how [sic] can a human being live Other-wise?” (1994:122). / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1998.

Proceeding from the premise that the meaning of performances flows from contextual, textual, and nonverbal elements, this dissertation explores layers of meaning arising from performances of selected South African struggle songs, poems and plays. In particular, it focuses on performances of the Mayibuye Cultural Group which functioned as an adaptive mechanism in the changing sociopolitical landscape of the 1980s and early 1990s, and on contemporary performances. The analysis of the songs, poems and play underscores the importance of nonverbal elements for the interpretation of performances, and proposes that performances functioned as debate and as a discursive presence in the public sphere. In particular, the performances glorified a masculine conception of the struggle and of South African society which highlighted the fragile gender politics in South Africa, and functioned as a vibrant mechanism for the expression of sanctioned criticism especially for the marginalised and for those at the fringes of power. / Anthropology / M.A. (Anthropology)

Proceeding from the premise that the meaning of performances flows from contextual, textual, and nonverbal elements, this dissertation explores layers of meaning arising from performances of selected South African struggle songs, poems and plays. In particular, it focuses on performances of the Mayibuye Cultural Group which functioned as an adaptive mechanism in the changing sociopolitical landscape of the 1980s and early 1990s, and on contemporary performances. The analysis of the songs, poems and play underscores the importance of nonverbal elements for the interpretation of performances, and proposes that performances functioned as debate and as a discursive presence in the public sphere. In particular, the performances glorified a masculine conception of the struggle and of South African society which highlighted the fragile gender politics in South Africa, and functioned as a vibrant mechanism for the expression of sanctioned criticism especially for the marginalised and for those at the fringes of power. / Anthropology / M.A. (Anthropology)