Thesis (Ph.D. (TshiVenda)) -- University of Limpopo, 2020 / This research study investigated the Vhuthu African philosophy in four selected Tshivenḓa novels, namely; A si Ene (Madima, 1954), Bulayo ḽo Ṱalifhaho (Magau, 1980), Thonga i Pfi Ndo Vhaḓa (Demana, 2015) and Ḽi a Kovhela (Mugwena, 2014) respectively. The Vhuthu philosophical principles formed the main part of the literature review in this study, which afforded the researcher the opportunity to read through, gain an understanding and develop a detailed analysis of the concept of Vhuthu as depicted in the aforementioned novels. Undergirded by the Afrocentricity Theory, this study foregrounds the depiction of African Vhuthu philosophy in the mentioned Tshivenḓa novels. The Afrocentric theoretical perspective centralises the agency of Africans and is geared towards drawing Africans from the margins to the centre in various spheres of society. This study illustrates how Vhuthu, as an essential tenet of African life and philosophy, is embraced by the Vhavenḓa. The study employed the qualitative approach, and used Textual Analysis in the analysis of data obtained from the four selected Tshivenḓa novels. In its investigation of the depiction of Vhuthu in the four selected Tshivenḓa novels, this study was framed within four main objectives of the study, namely: (i) to identify aspects that depict Vhuthu from the selected Tshivenḓa novels, (ii) to investigate the benefits of Vhuthu from the selected novels, (ii) to investigate the shortcomings of Vhuthu from the selected novels and, (iii) to establish the relevance of Vhuthu in present-day society. In the analysis of the selected novels, it was found that there were instances where the characters acted in accordance to the Vhuthu philosophical principles while in other instances, the characters somewhat contravened the Vhuthu philosophy. Overall, the study suggests that the Vhuthu philosophy must be included in the school curricula because, as the study argues, most people who act against the philosophy’s principles are largely the youth.

Thesis (Ph. D. (Psychology)) -- University of Limpopo, 2021 / Eurocentric literature has contributed towards the understanding of homosexuality for centuries. However, there is very little literature on perceptions of homosexuality from an African perspective. Based on this historical gap, the aim of the current study was to explore Northern Sotho traditional healers’ perceptions of homosexuality in the Capricorn District in Limpopo Province, South Africa. This was with the intention of documenting themes pertinent to Northern Sotho culture regarding homosexuality. Ten (10) participants (7 females and 3 males) were interviewed in the current study and they were selected using snowball sampling. Data was collected using individual face-to-face interviews guided by semi-structured questions and analysed using Thematic content analysis (TCA). The study was underpinned by Afrocentricity. The main themes and sub-themes which emerged from the data analysis were: homosexuality threatens family structure and values; homosexuality is regarded as a taboo and a disgrace; homosexuality and ancestral calling; historical evidence of homosexuality; homosexuality is confusing; homosexuality and western culture; homosexuality and cleansing (mourning process); homosexuality, traditional healing and ancestral calling; homosexuality and initiation schools as well as proposed interventions to curb homosexuality. The results of the study suggest that understanding homosexuality is not consistent with Northern Sotho culture. The study contributes to knowledge and information within Northern Sotho culture and offers suggestions for indigenous knowledge systems (IKS), academic training, policy development and legislation in terms of homosexuality and the indigenous culture. The study also offers guidelines, which health care workers and any other relevant personnel who work closely with homosexuals, should be cognisant of. Furthermore, valuable lessons were also reasoned from the current study in terms of homosexuality and Northern Sotho culture in the area where the research took place. Keywords: Afrocentricity, Culture, Homosexuality, Northern Sotho, Traditional Healer.

No description available.

À rebours des théories de la mondialisation comme dispositif déterritorialisé, la communauté rastafari de Ouagadougou revendique une identité afrocentrée qu’elle adapte à sa situation africaine. Réclamant haut et fort son identité burkinabè à travers notamment le rappel mémoriel d’une figure politique locale, littéralement iconique, celle de Thomas Sankara, en même temps que son identité africaine mythique construite à partir de la cosmologie rastafari, cette communauté incarne pourtant l’hybridité et la fluidité propres aux définitions de la mondialisation. Construite en opposition à Babylone, le monde des Blancs, l’identité rastafari, née en Jamaïque, émerge aujourd’hui en Afrique. Cette identité, à la fois afrocentrée et transnationale, instaure un rapport complexe aux Occidentaux, qui représentent la Babylone (les « Forces du Mal » dans la Bible) des rasta, étant donné l’importance que revêtent les rencontres avec ceux-ci dans le mode de vie des rasta à Ouagadougou, rencontres prises dans ce que les rasta appellent le « système nassara » (« système blanc »). C’est alors la notion d’ambivalence qui apparaît comme une ressource intéressante pour analyser les négociations entreprises par les rasta burkinabè dans la formation de leur identité, identité souvent accusée soit d’absolutisme racial, soit, au contraire, d’ « occidentalisation ». / Contrary to the conception of globalization as a non territorial based device, the rastafari community of Ouagadougou calls for an afrocentric identity adapted to its african situation.The community claims loud and clear its burkinabe identity, result of the combination of the memorial recall of a local political figure, the iconic Thomas Sankara, together with the mythical identity of the community born out of the rastafari cosmology. Yet, the community embodies the hybridity and fluidity peculiar to the definitions of globalization. Built in opposition to Babylon, the world of the Whites, the rastafari identity, born in Jamaica, emerges today in Africa.This identity, both afrocentric and transnational, creates a complex relationship with Westerners - who represents the rasta's Babylon (the “forces of evil” in the Bible) – particularly considering the importance that covers the encounters with Westerners in the way of life of the rasta in Ougadougou, encounters that belong to what the rasta call the “nassara system” (the “white system”).It's why the concept of ambivalence appears to be an interesting asset to analyze the negotiations undertaken by the burkinabe rasta in the forming of their identity, that same identity which is often accused either of racial absolutism, or by contrast, of “westernization”.

Submitted by Maria de Lourdes Mariano (lmariano@ufscar.br) on 2017-01-13T15:06:30Z No. of bitstreams: 1 MACHADO_Elaine_2016.pdf: 11426332 bytes, checksum: bf19f404b1d624c3ef4d6b4a41db7533 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria de Lourdes Mariano (lmariano@ufscar.br) on 2017-01-13T15:06:40Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 MACHADO_Elaine_2016.pdf: 11426332 bytes, checksum: bf19f404b1d624c3ef4d6b4a41db7533 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Maria de Lourdes Mariano (lmariano@ufscar.br) on 2017-01-13T15:06:48Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 1 MACHADO_Elaine_2016.pdf: 11426332 bytes, checksum: bf19f404b1d624c3ef4d6b4a41db7533 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2017-01-13T15:06:57Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 1 MACHADO_Elaine_2016.pdf: 11426332 bytes, checksum: bf19f404b1d624c3ef4d6b4a41db7533 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2016-02-22 / Não recebi financiamento / This dissertation presents the route of a reasearch performed in two elementary municipal schools in a town near Sorocaba (SP). Here we use the african traditional culture Dagara and the ubuntu philosophy to recreate ancestor experiences of care and enable the enlargement of the notion of humanity developed in the ocidental contemporary education. We understand that taking care is to establish relationships and, as from the civilizing values of african societies, we aim to take care communaly, with nature and spirituality. By the cartography method, we could experience the community caring which aims to interrupt medicalization and pathologization of life, as educators somehow affected compose each child's community. Once in community, we can see the invisible dimmension of care, we admit another way to live time and aim to desconstruct any excludent devices. The care for nature happened in the school's gardening project, where the teenagers could, through their enchantment, experience communion with nature. Knowing experience with nature, drawing attention to details and imagine themselves in a pleasant situation with nature led to enchantment. Care for spirituality was due to the experience of transcendence for appreciation of ancestors. We have reconnected the teenagers to their histories, costumes and knowledge, so the workin the field was valorized and respected in the school's gardening project, as an ancestry element. At a meeting with school inspectors the transcencence experience has contributed to compose their practices' ancestry. While experiencing care in an afro-focused perspective, I have been moving on my blackening process. I have diven in the african culture, in the black culture, to make ancestry my existance's meaning. I have participated in lectures, shows and several cultural workshops so blackness could inhabit my my mode of existence and understanding the world; it has been our way to reverse the whitening phenomenon because of which black people still feel the consequences. In this dissertation we describe how care happens in the traditional african cultures perspective and leaving spoors so it can be que ele possa tried in other contexts, allthough we need to tell that these have been inspiring experiences, but they have not changed those schools, neither education in that town, country, or ocident. Exist in these experiences the bias of provisoriety, the circumstancethat only political fight can confirm and establish. A fight for a humanized education, non-hegemonic and that considers the human dimensions excluded until then, but that african traditional cultures have much to teach. / Esta dissertação apresenta o percurso de uma pesquisa realizada em duas escolas de ensino fundamental da rede municipal de uma cidade próxima a Sorocaba (SP). Nesta pesquisa tomamos as culturas tradicionais africanas vividas pelo povo Dagara e na filosofia ubuntu para recriar experiências ancestrais de cuidado e possibilitar a ampliação da noção de humanidade desenvolvida na educação ocidental contemporânea. Entendemos que cuidar é estabelecer relações e, a partir dos valores civilizatórios das sociedades africanas, buscamos cuidar em comunidade, com a natureza e pela espiritualidade. Pelo método da cartografia, pudemos experimentar o cuidado em comunidade, que procurou interromper processos de medicalização e patologização da vida, na medida em que educadores afetados de alguma forma passaram a compor a comunidade de cada criança. Uma vez em comunidade, reconhecemos a dimensão invisível no cuidado, admitimos outra forma de viver o tempo e procuramos desconstruir artifícios de exclusão. O cuidado com a natureza aconteceu no projeto de horta escolar, onde os adolescentes puderam, pelo encantamento, experimentar a comunhão com a natureza. Conhecer a experiência com a natureza, chamar a atenção para os detalhes e imaginar-se numa situação prazerosa com a natureza propiciaram o encantamento. O cuidado pela espiritualidade se deu pela experiência de transcendência para valorização dos ancestrais. Fomos reconectando os adolescentes com suas histórias, costumes e saberes para que o trabalho no campo fosse valorizado e respeitado no projeto da horta escolar como elemento de ancestralidade. Na reunião com os inspetores, a experiência de transcendência contribuiu para constituir a ancestralidade de suas práticas. Enquanto experimentava o cuidado numa perspectiva afrocentrada, também caminhava em meu processo de enegrecimento. Mergulhei na cultura de matriz africana, na cultura negra, para fazer da ancestralidade, sentido para minha existência. Participei de palestras, espetáculos e oficinas culturais diversas para que a negritude fosse habitando meu modo de existir e de compreender o mundo, buscando reverter o fenômeno de branqueamento pelo qual todo negro e negra ainda sente as consequências. Nesta dissertação estamos narrando como o cuidado, na perspectiva das culturas tradicionais africanas, aconteceu e deixando pistas para que ele possa ser experimentado em outros contextos. Contudo, é preciso dizer que estas experiências foram inspiradoras, mas ainda não transformaram aquelas escolas, nem tampouco a educação daquela cidade ou ainda a educação brasileira ocidental. Existe nestas experiências o viés da provisoriedade, da circunstância que somente a luta política pode confirmar e estabelecer. Luta por uma educação humanizada, contra-hegemônica e que considera dimensões do ser humano excluídas até então, mas que as culturas tradicionais africanas têm muito a ensinar.

PhD (English Literature) / Department of English / This study explored the depictions and perspectives of health, illness and death in selected postcolonial texts written after the year 2000. Although tantamount attention has been directed to notions of health, illness and death in literary texts (medical narratives) largely from scientific and clinical perspectives, the study primarily focuses on memoir accounts of experiences and perspectives of health, illness and death. In response to the dearth of critical work, which primarily refers to body and its wellbeing socially integrating clinical diagnosis and the socio-natural human factors. The study interrogates how memoirs depict the health, illness and death subjective experiences and perceptions of people in typical African communities. My argument is that literature and memoirs in particular, are a site where conceptions of perspectives and experiences of people (Africans) are (de)constructed. The experiences of health, illness and death are not an exception. In reading the selected texts, I focused on how a merger of factors such as culture, gender, beliefs (African and Religious), age, society, and social status are drawn from the personal narratives in the selected memoirs (re) conceptualise the notions of health, illness and death in a typical African community. The discourses in memoirs challenge the norms and the construction of human and social expectations in dominant ideological discourses such as culture, beliefs, gender, race, class, democracy, post colonialism, Afrocentrism among others. The study enters into a critical conversation with the postcolonial personal (memoir) representation of health, illness and death as a human social context. Using discourse analysis and literature review, I have placed Postcolonial, Afrocentric and bio-political perspectives of several writers in conversation with the health, illness and death defined practices voiced in the selected texts. The discursive debates in the study allow us to consider personal or individual experiences and perspectives as chambers, sites and conceptions of knowledge production in a typical African community and this either silence or make visible the minority and marginal African social ideals and interpretations of health, illness and death as well as body agency. The study established that, the hybridity of perspectives and experiences in personal narratives (memoirs), the subject, and discourses are in the ‘third’ space from where the writers challenge the norms which dictate over the nature of how the body (subject) and the other social factors decipher health, illness and death. Thus, my thesis concludes that the perspectives and experiences examined in the selected texts, the socio-cultural factors of human existence premise the interpretations of the clinical understanding of the body as the point of departure, but socio-cultural interpretations of the body pre-occupy perspectives and experiences of health, illness and death. The clinical aspects and interpretations of the human body are then perceived through the social production of information. The selected texts are Our Kind of People: A Continent's Challenge, A Country's Hope (2005) by Uzondimna Iweala, Eloquent Body (2012) by Dawn Garisch, The Last Right (2013) by Marianne Thamm, Postmortem (2014) by Maria Phalime , Holding My Breath (2016) by Ace Moloi. / NRF

This research examined the relationship between spirituality and emotional intelligence among Black women in higher education. The hypotheses state that spirituality has a positive effect on emotional intelligence.Twenty-nine questions were administered to 110 participants of various demographics. The survey was used to gather data and examined three areas: level of spirituality, level of emotional intelligence, and academic satisfaction. A specific conclusion drawn from the findings suggest that Black women who identify as spiritual and frequently participate in spiritual activities will also have high emotional intelligence.

Thesis (M.A. (English Studies)) -- University of Limpopo, 2014 / This study discusses African identity as portrayed in Zakes Mda’s The Madonna of Excelsior (2002) and Bessie Head’s Maru (1971). It explores identity and its subcomponents within the South African context as asserted in these novels. Mda employs a retrospective communal voice that blends historical accounts with fiction in order to subvert and satirise apartheid nationalism. Head, on the other hand, constructs a positive image of feminine identity in the world characterised by tribalism, patriarchal system and stereotypical subjugation of women. She dismantles established racial and ethnic prejudice against minority groups and the underprivileged. The study applies a trilogy of theoretical framework to analyse and interpret selected data: Discourse Analysis, Text Analysis and Afrocentricity. It further examines a fluidity of identities in both social and political spheres and demonstrates how suppression of these identities affects individuals and nation states. It reveals that, as a microcosm of Africa, South Africa reflects atrocious injustices of the past, carried out in the form of colonisation and apartheid, bringing about a different kind of identity of the African people. These two novels take us back to the past so that we can understand the present and subsequently build Africa’s identity of the future. KEY CONCEPTS Afrocentricity; Identity; Discrimination; Miscegenation; Otherness; Hybridity; Animalistic Dehumanisation.

South African photographer Nontsikelelo “Lolo” Veleko and South African painter Tracy Payne explore different ways of communicating African realities. The visual imagery of these two artists focuses a lot on movement, challenging the rigidity of boundaries set by Western social constructs. In their work, Veleko and Payne critique the limitations of terms such as “authenticity.” It is extremely difficult to portray shifting notions of contemporary African identity in light of the stain of colonial philosophies which have, in times past, exoticised and appropriated the African body and ascribed conventions of “authenticity” to African representations. Undermining the burden of Western boundaries1, Veleko and Payne redefine what it means to operate in Africa today. Veleko seeks additional cultural realities to complicate her identity as a woman living in Africa while Payne uses concepts of movement to question the validity of structures which advocate an either/ or binary such as “East” and “West” and “masculinity” and “femininity”. By subtly merging aspects of these binaries in their representations, Veleko and Payne bring transnational possibilities to light by undermining the restrictions inscribed in the social and political history of (South) Africa with regard to collective and individual identities. Constructs of gender have contributed to a heightened sense of “African” “masculinity,” forming a stereotype of the African body which is difficult to break free from. Considering the notion of transnationalism and the issue of moving beyond boundaries, borrowing aspects of different cultures in attempt to better define a sense of self, Veleko and Payne engage in the sampling of different lifestyles and perspectives to better define their individualities. This thesis seeks to provide an analysis of the visual language used by Veleko and Payne to promote fluid “African” identities.

The current study is an African-centred critique of the idea of ‘good governance’; which since the 1990s, has been a prescription of the international development institutions for all development challenges facing developing countries. Despite almost two decades of implementation of good governance reforms in Nigeria, poverty, corruption and underdevelopment persist. The analysis showed that the limited involvement of local people in the design of donor-sponsored good governance reforms mainly produced a universal, donor-conceptualized good governance agenda, which did not fully capture local issues. Given this, the main objective of the current study was to develop a cultural, context-specific governance model that shares local citizens’ understanding of governance, as well as, addresses challenges of governance at local levels in Nigeria. However, given the diversity of cultures in Nigeria and the uniqueness of each of them, this study only focused on Southwest Nigeria. Afrocentricity is the theoretical framework for this study. Mainstream development theories have mainly guided the development efforts of African countries but these theories are based on the experience of the European countries and primarily seek their interests. Given the failure of Eurocentric development theories in Nigeria, this study deemed it fit to adopt a theoretical framework that is based on African experience and that seeks African interests. Afrocentricity is the only theory in which the centrality of African interests, principles, and perceptions predominate (Pellebon 2007: 174). In terms of methodology, this study adopted the case study design. The study also used both the qualitative and quantitative methods of data collection. But the study was largely qualitative because it relied on participants’ interpretations. The inclusion of quantitative data was for purposes of expanding and complementing the interpretive information. The study is significant because the findings provide agency to indigenous people in Nigeria by the voicing their perception of governance. The study also identified context-specific issues affecting governance in Nigeria, which were not captured in the donor’s universal good governance agenda. The study proposed how the principles that have enabled the effectiveness of traditional governance systems could be incorporated into formal governance to achieve better government performance. Most importantly, this study offers context-specific and people-centred recommendations to address Nigeria’s governance and development challenges. This study’s Afrocentric approach to the understanding of good governance is an epistemological rupture against the Eurocentric idea of good governance. / Development Studies / PhD (Philosophy)