This thesis examines the case of civil marriage in Lebanon as an example of the contestation of sectarian identities and a political system. Sectarianism in Lebanon and in the Middle East has become not only a seemingly naturally-produced social categorisation, but also the hegemonic epistemological concept through which every social and political act is interpreted. In contrast to this, the Lebanese civil married spouses interviewed in this thesis, challenge sectarian practices and discourse. I examined the context and identities civil married spouses practice. I conclude that certain sites of resistance favour the emergence of civil marriage, where individuals perform alternative practices and political identities. Practices of resistance may cycically trigger the emergence of other pockets of resistance where contestation happens. Nonetheless, as ethnographic research shows, isolated cases of civil marriage happen in many different contexts and circumstances. This research also investigates the limits of civil marriage as acts of social change. I have identified intention and consciousness as key drive which allow political acts to become transformative of power. Indeed, spouses that exhibited high levels of political consciousness identified at the same time sectarianism as an oppressive system to which they intended to subvert with their act of civil marriage. Further, politically-conscious-civilly married spouses demonstrated intersectional subversion not only to sectarianism, but also to other oppressing systems such as patriarchy, kinship or social classes. Ultimately, they contested sectarianism in a non-excluive fashion when it came to their choice of marriage. Finally, resistance, as a reflection of power, is never pure. That is, even self-conscious and self-reflexive individuals that contest sectarianism or other systems of powers do it while embedded in the same structures of power. Confronting one form of power in one context does not mean that they will confront the same form of power in another context.

Through this practice based research I argue that cultural democracy as a way of thinking contests dominant models of commissioning art to effect social change. A method of generative metaphor of critical distance emerges through four projects based on a contextual and theoretical framework that tests the conditions for recognising cultural democracy as a critical practice. Cultural democracy is distinct from the democratisation of culture, which means providing free, accessible professional culture to all. The socially engaged art commission is, I argue, an example of the democratisation of culture based on predefined economic, aesthetic and social values. Cultural democracy disrupts expected forms of participation and communication of culture, drawing attention to these values. As an uninvited act of disobedience, it is thought and practised as individuals reclaim the right to express themselves, creating conflicts with expected norms of behaviour. This research project began in 2006, nine years into New Labour's administration, and reflects an urgent question of the time: what are the implications of increasing dependency on a culture of commissioning art to effect social change that might perpetuate, rather than radically rethink, social injustices' These concerns are even more significant in a political and economic climate where public funding for critical, non-conformist participation in culture slips further down the agenda. My own career is a symptom of New Labour's neoliberal policies of social inclusion and the arts. A new period of 'austerity' may imply fewer paid opportunities for this professional class of socially engaged art workers, coupled with a distancing of the recognition of cultural democracy as a possible alternative, with further reliance on free, precarious cultural labour. For this reason, I hope this research will be of use to those who also find it an urgent task to address these issues critically and practically.

This dissertation can broadly be summarized as an examination of the construction and maintenance of a specific type of “authentic” American identity through the lens of folk music. Drawing from interpretive perspectives within the sociology of culture and social psychology, social constructionism and symbolic interactionism in particular, I combine ethnographic research with 61 interviews at two different “folk musicians’ festivals” (festivals where attendees, not hired professionals, produce the music). My principal focus at these festivals concerns the various practices and stories surrounding the creation and performance of original folk music. I use the empirical platform of musicians’ festivals, where folk songwriters are plenty, combined with the theoretical synthesis of music and narrative, to examine how such practices and stories shape, and are shaped by, culture, emotion, and identity. Specifically, I am interested in the cultural “work” accomplished by the interrelationships among music and narrative at festivals, around songwriting, and in songs, particularly as such “work” relates to the (re)production and reception of folk and festival culture, participants’ emotional experiences, the construction and maintenance of participants’ personal and collective identities, and the purposeful evocation of social change. In attending to the importance of process and meaning-making, I examine the process through which one accomplishes authenticity as a folk and festival member, the creative process of songwriting, and the process through which listeners experience and interpret “good songs.” I offer the concepts (and processes) of songwriting as inquiry and songwriting in action to account for how these interrelationships “work” for songwriters and listeners, but also for sociologists, particularly in terms of including the (mostly neglected) lived and embodied dimensions of emotional experience. Throughout, I explore how stories and practices in and around the process of musical production and performance are largely influenced by broader cultural narratives that circulate in and around folk music culture, particularly as they relate to the notion of “authentic identity” through emotionality, creativity, and social justice.

Graduate

This thesis is an exploration of the images which define revolution's meaning. It suggests a possible shifting of emphasis from the scientific imaginary which centres on identifying the correct way to totalising revolution, towards a post-structuralist-anarchistic imaginary which privileges prefigurative radicalisations of social relations in the here and now. It looks specifically at how the field of post-structuralism intertwines with historically anarchist concepts to generate an horizon of social change animated by experimental and open-ended transformations. While the thesis offers positive characterisations of the types of contemporary movements, tactics and principles which embody the change from closed to open utopianism, it is chiefly a commentary on the role of theory in depicting the complexity of relations on the ground and the danger of proposing one totalising pathway from one state of society to another. It asks the reader to consider, given the achievements of movements and given the insights of post-structuralism, whether it is still worthwhile to proclaim certainty when sketching the possibilities for transcendence toward emancipation, an aim, which in itself, is always under construction. I engage this by firstly establishing a practical foundation for the critique of endpoints in theory by exploring the horizontal and prefigurative nature of a few autonomous movements today. Secondly I propose the contemporary theory of post-structuralist anarchism as concomitant with conclusions about transformation made in the first chapter. Finally I recommend a few initial concepts to start debate about the way forward from old objectivist models of transformation. The uncertainties of daily life, crumbling of economic powers and rapid pace of change in the twenty-first century have opened up fantastic spaces for innovative thought. Reconsidering old consensus around what constitutes a desirable image of revolution is of considerable importance given today's burgeoning bottom-up political energy and the global debate surrounding the possibilities for bottom-up revolutionisation of society. I submit that theories which portray stories of permanent, pure and natural end-points to revolution are deficient justifications for radical action.

Digital storytelling uses technology in order to capture people’s stories digitally, weaving together images, music and narration to create a vivid, multi-media story in the form of a short movie. Story creators are taken through a workshop in order to equip them with the technical and other skills needed to create the stories themselves. In the case studied, a group of gender and HIV activists participated in intensive four-day workshops sponsored by a South African non-governmental organisation. Seven interviews were conducted with workshop participants to capture their experiences of the workshops. Following a grounded theory approach, the interview transcriptions were analysed using an open coding process, which lead to the emergence of a clear central story line. The conceptual framework or theory emerging from this qualitative case study is that in digital stories as tools for social change and activism, technology’s role can be understood through conceptualising it as a medium and a mediator, with its properties as a medium enabling it to play a mediating role in a number of different types of relationships. A potential gap in the literature was identified in the process of writing this dissertation, which is that most examinations of the use of technology in social change and activism concentrate on the Internet and email. Hence there is a need for further research into how a range of technologies are currently and can potentially be used in the services of social change. It is hoped that this dissertation will contribute to addressing that gap. / Dissertation (MPhil)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Informatics / unrestricted

By 1994 education in South Africa had collapsed (TRC, 1998; CCOLT, 1996). In response, South Africa's first non-racial government initiated a wide ranging School Reform (SR) program. However, almost a decade after the reforms commenced there have been very few substantial changes in the majority of South African schools: The Education Rights Project (2003a) and the South African Human Rights Commission argue that SR is failing the majority of South Africans. This thesis explores an alternative, School-Community Development (SCD), that integrates school reforms with programs that draw members of the school's neighbouring community (the "school-community") into the process of changing schools. I argue that SR is an inadequate response to the problems that confront schools. Using the case study method I show that SR is enhanced when integrated with locally developed social, cultural, economic, and school development programs. The thesis makes two contributions to the literature. First, the thesis challenges the "simplistic solutions to educational problems" (Anyon, 1997, p. 12) that constitute SR. Second, the thesis presents a materially grounded critique of SR in South Africa that evokes the "multiple voices" (Sayed, 2002, p. 32) from the four case study schools. Accordingly, our understanding of "making change work at the micro level", a neglected area of South African educational research (Sayed and Jansen, 2001, p. 7), is enhanced. / Education, Faculty of / Educational Studies (EDST), Department of / Graduate

Philosophiae Doctor - PhD / This research investigates the engagements between community activists and urban authorities in the provision of sustainable sanitation services in the informal settlements of Khayelitsha Cape Town. Since 2008, there have been contestations on the exclusion of informal settlements in the planning and delivery of sanitation services by the City of Cape Town. The planning and decision-making of sanitation services in the informal settlement is complex due to numerous stakeholders involved and thus not clear on how sustainable sanitation can be achieved. The challenge has been on understanding the level where decision-making in the provision of sanitation services is more effective for sustainable sanitation.

This study addresses the extent to which feminist jurisprudence literature has developed the potential to initiate a legal paradigm shift leading to legal and consequent social change that would alleviate gender inequality. Drawing upon Kuhn's (1970) and Stacey and Thorne's (1985) arguments, I theorized that for a paradigm shift centered upon women and women's experiences to occur, feminist jurisprudence, particularly second- and third-phase feminist jurisprudence, needs to be incorporated into, and accepted by the mainstream. Through quantitative analysis I evaluated, first, the publication and citation patterns and the diffusion of feminist jurisprudence litearature as evidenced in articles published between the years 1983 and 1994 in legal journals assigned impact factors by the Social Science Citation Index. Second, using content analysis, I classified feminist jurisprudence articles published in the subfields of family and penal law --theorized to differ in degree of androcentrism-- according to the three phases of feminist jurisprudence theory. My quantitative analysis showed that the number of feminist jurisprudence articles published in mainstream legal journals is increasing over time. Further, feminist jurisprudence articles published in legal journals with higher impact factors tend to receive larger numbers of citations than articles published in journals with lower impact factors. Finally, although the overall impact factor of journals publishing feminist jurisprudence articles is declining, feminist jurisprudence literature is present among a wide spectrum of legal specializations. My qualitative analysis showed that there was an equivalent number of family and penal law articles which exhibited second- and third-phase characteristics. However, family law articles tended to cover a wider range of topics than penal law articles. Furthermore, family law scholars were more likely than penal law scholars to address issues of differences among women and feminists, thus, exhibiting third-phase characteristics. In constrast, penal law scholars tended to focus upon differences between feminists and non-feminists and the practical difficulties resulting from the structure, organization and practitioners of the criminal justice. Overall, my analysis showed that feminist jurisprudence appears to have developed the potential to initiate a paradigm shift within the legal discipline. However, in addition to feminist theorizing, feminist activism is important for the realization of legal and social changes that will alleviate gender inequality. / Ph. D.

This research project aims to contribute to the field of communication and social change through the analysis of different humoristic subversive mechanisms used by feminist comedians in Spanish society and their potential as a transformative tool in the country’s socio-political context.The personal stories of three feminist comedians interviewed for this research are analysed through the feminist standpoint theory, valuing the epistemic knowledge of women’s experiences and the potential of their communication through comedy as a contestation tool. Understanding knowledge as socially situated, through the experiences of the interviewed women, this research provides an analysis of the evolution of subversive mechanisms through comedy to contest the existing sociopolitical barriers.Comedy provides a safe space for the communication of subversive feminist messages that generate alternative points of view contesting existing hegemonic structures of knowledge and contribute to break gender stereotypes regaining subjectivity for women. Sharing marginal personal stories could promote connections among women through the identification of the oppressions suffered, creating a sorority movement that contributes to the evolution of feminism.