This thesis examines elements of the conceptualization of literature within literary studies and literary production in a UK context, considering the concept of exclusionary practices based on the negligence of intersectional categories of identity such as race, gender, class, sexuality, etc., in the practice of understanding and interpreting literature. The methodologies I employ are close reading of various narratives, such as literary texts, as well as a narrative analysis aimed at a holistic understanding of my material. The second part of this thesis envisions a decolonised approach to literature in which we situate our positionalities when we read and interpret literary works. I demonstrate this through the analysis of several poems, informed by decolonial concepts and sensibilities. The results show that the maintenance of these exclusionary practices advances a grand-narrative of Western civilisation, ignoring the multiple sites people inhabit both from within, and outside, the West and that these practices are effectively harmful. I argue that through the project of decolonising literature there is a possibility of disrupting the perpetual macro-narrative of Western domination and universality.

The zombie narrative has seen an increasing trend towards the emergence of a zombie sentience. The intention of this thesis is to examine the cultural framework that has informed the contemporary figure of the zombie, with specific attention directed towards the role of the thinking, conscious or sentient zombie. This examination will include an exploration of the zombie’s folkloric origin, prior to the naming of the figure in 1819, as well as the Haitian appropriation and reproduction of the figure as a representation of Haitian identity. The destructive nature of the zombie, this thesis argues, sees itself intrinsically linked to the notion of apocalypse; however, through a consideration of Frank Kermode’s A Sense of an Ending, the second chapter of this thesis will propose that the zombie need not represent an apocalypse that brings devastation upon humanity, but rather one that functions to alter perceptions of ‘humanity’ itself. The third chapter of this thesis explores the use of the term “braaaaiiinnss” as the epitomised zombie voice in the figure’s development as an effective threat within zombie-themed videogames. The use of an epitomised zombie voice, I argue, results in the potential for the embodiment of a zombie subject. Chapter Four explores the development of this embodied zombie subject through the introduction of the Zombie Memoire narrative and examines the figure as a representation of Agamben’s Homo Sacer or ‘bare life’: though often configured as a non-sacrificial object that can be annihilated without sacrifice and consequence, the zombie, I argue, is also paradoxically inscribed in a different, Girardian economy of death that renders it as the scapegoat to the construction of a sense of the ‘human’. The final chapter of this thesis argues that both the traditional zombie and the sentient zombie function within the realm of a posthuman potentiality, one that, to varying degrees of success, attempts to progress past the restrictive binaries constructed within the overruling discourse of humanism. In conclusion, this thesis argues that while the zombie, both traditional and sentient, attempts to propose a necessary move towards a posthuman universalism, this move can only be considered if the ‘us’ of humanism embraces the potential of its own alterity.

The apparent ‘invisibility’, or lack of representation of black men in contemporary mainstream gay visual cultures is the primary critical issue that the study engages with. The study presupposes that the frequency with which white men appear in popular representations of ‘gayness’ prevails over that of black men. In order to substantiate this assumption, this study analyses selected issues of the South African queer men’s lifestyle magazine Gay Pages. Gay visual cultures appear to simultaneously conflate ‘whiteness’ and normative homosexuality, while marginalising black gay men by means of positioning ‘blackness’ and ‘gayness’ as irreconcilable identity constructs. Images of the gay male ‘community’ disseminated by queer and mainstream media constantly offer stereotypical, distorted and race-biased notions of gay men, which ingrain the exclusive cultural equation of white men and ideal homomasculinity. The disclosure of racist and selectively homophobic ideologies, which seem to inform gay visual representation, is therefore the chief concern of the dissertation. By investigating selected images that ostensibly embody the complex cultural relationship between race and homomasculinity, the study addresses the following forms of visual representation: colonial representations of ‘blackness’; so-called gay ‘colonial’ representations; black self-representation; gay black self-representation; and contemporary representations of homomasculinity in advertisements and queer men’s lifestyle magazines such as Gay Pages. A genealogy of images is explored in order to illustrate the ways in which ‘blackness’ and ‘whiteness’ are respectively positioned as contradictory to and synonymous with dominant visual representations of homomasculinity in gay visual cultures. The hegemony of ‘whiteness’ in images sourced from colonial systems of representation, queer male art and commercial publicity, for example, are thus critiqued in order to address the various race-based prejudices that appear to be symptomatic of contemporary gay visual cultures. Copyright / Dissertation (MA)--University of Pretoria, 2009. / Visual Arts / unrestricted

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This thesis provides a complex understanding of the phenomenological experience of whiteness as a racial category. Based on theories of critical whiteness studies, intersectionality and (white) phenomenology, I conducted five semi-structured interviews with five white women about their understandings of their whiteness within a context of transnational travel. The interviews have been interpreted using thematic analysis, with the aim to show that whiteness is inherently relational and contextual, always in conjunction with Others and in interplay with the spatial context, while at the same time intrinsically related to other intersectional parts of the self. By making use of autoethnography as a methodology, my situated knowledge as a researcher was integrated within the entire thesis. The study has shown that whiteness never stands alone but is inherently relational, not only with racialized Others, but also with other intersections such as womanhood, which complexifies the experience and understanding of it. Moreover, whiteness is perceived as the most normalized standard from which everything different and other is measured by, while it serves as an invisible social category that can move through the world unnoticed. Consequently, the normality of whiteness creates a feeling of reassurance and comfort and thus keeps it in its place as the most normalized social category from which the world unfolds.

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Throughout the 19th century, large numbers of enslaved people were brought from southeastern Africa to work on Somali plantations along the Benadir Coast and Shebelle River. As these southeast Africans were manumitted or escaped bondage, many fled to the west and settled in the heavily forested and fertile Gosha district along the Juba River. Unattached, lacking security, and surrounded by Somalis-speaking groups, these refugees established agricultural communities and were forced to construct new identities. Initially these riverine peoples could easily access clan structures and political institutions of surrounding Somali sub-clans, which in pre-colonial Jubaland were relatively fluid, open, and—in time—would have allowed these groups to become assimilated into Somali society. British colonial rule however changed this flexibility. Somali identity, once porous and accessible, became increasingly more rigid and exclusive, especially towards the riverine ex-slave communities—collectively called the Gosha by the British—who were subsequently marginalized and othered by these new "Somali." This project explores how British colonial rule contributed to this process and argues that in Jubaland province a "Somali" identity coalesced largely in opposition to the Gosha. / Master of Arts

With the purpose of contributing to the field of social science research regarding racism in South Africa, this thesis aims to investigate how peoples’ experiences of everyday racism manifest in their lives. As well as explore their views of changes in society, regarding everyday racism, during their lifetime employing the theoretical frameworks of Erving Goffman’s (1986) Frame Analysis, and Othering. The purpose was achieved through semi-structured qualitative interviews with five black South Africans. The interviews generated an empirical data which displayed patterns of microaggressions, radicalisation, and white supremacy. The study concluded that the respondents have different views on changes regarding everyday racism in South Africa, some identifying a more progressive society, while others believe that apartheid still has a hold on society. / I syfte att bidra till området av samhällsvetenskaplig forskning om rasism i Sydafrika, syftar denna studie till att undersöka hur människors upplevelser av vardagsrasism tar sig uttryck i deras liv. Vidare utforskar studien respondenternas syn på förändringar i samhället angående vardagsrasism under sin livstid genom att använda de teoretiska ramverken Inramningsteori av Erving Goffman (1986), och Andrafiering. Syftet uppnåddes genom semistrukturerade, kvalitativa intervjuer med fem svarta sydafrikaner. Intervjuerna genererade empiriska data som visade mönster av mikroaggressioner, rasifiering och vit överlägsenhet. Studien kom fram till att de tillfrågade besitter varierande åsikter angående förändringar kring vardagsrasism i Sydafrika, vissa identifierar ett mer progressivt samhälle, medan andra anser att apartheid fortfarande har ett grepp om samhället.

This thesis explores how the general public understands and responds to dementia. In the context of this study the word ‘understanding' is used to convey the complex co-construction of knowledge and establishing of beliefs that constitutes public understandings of dementia. The study also examines the responses of members of the public to dementia, in the context of their understanding. Data were collected over a 12 month period and included a module in the Northern Ireland Life and Times (NILT) survey, five focus groups and nine interviews with participants from the focus groups. The survey module included thirty measures examining levels of knowledge and attitudes towards dementia. 1200 participants were targeted and the survey was administered by the Northern Ireland Research & Statistics Agency with a response rate of 58%. The focus groups and interviews provided the mechanism to gather a more nuanced picture, exploring the beliefs behind the attitudes and the self-reported responses of participants to people with dementia. Findings indicate that the general public has a reasonable knowledge of the symptoms and pathway of dementia in line with a bio medical model. However the findings also indicate that the general public holds a mix of theoretical and empirical knowledge and that this is often contradictory. A complex mix of scientific or medical information, experience, anecdote and assumptions contribute to the discourse. This information is stored and conveyed in the form of stories and a consequence of this interplay is that individual experiences told in the form of stories are generalised to become building blocks in the construction of what the general public understands dementia to be. The current construction of dementia among the general public is found to be both nihilistic and ageist with clear evidence that dementia is stigmatised. I will argue that that the relationship between dementia and ageing in the minds of the general public is a symbiotic one. Dementia has become a cultural metaphor for unsuccessful ageing marking entry to the fourth age. The stigmatising response of the general public is the result of a complex interplay of multiple factors. I have expanded on previous ideas of multiple jeopardy and intersectionality, suggesting that the stigma associated with dementia is unique and driven as much by emotional responses as by the social location of the person with dementia. I have borrowed Brooker’s (2003) term “Dementia-ism’ to describe this stigma. This thesis argues for a more complex and sophisticated approach to changing public attitudes and reducing stigma. Dementia-ism must be addressed with the same strength of purpose currently applied to sexism, racism and ageism.