D.Litt.et Phil. / Please refer to full text to view abstract

The aim of this study was to compare the size of the teeth of a sample of small-bodied fossil humans from the island of Palau, Micronesia, with modern and fossil human populations from mainland southern Africa. Four modern human population groups and a sample of Holocene human remains were examined for comparison. These included Zulus, Tswanas, Khoisan and Europeans, from the Dart Collection, University of the Witwatersrand. Several measurements of the different tooth classes were obtained from the modern population groups and compared to the Palauan sample using Univariate and Bivariate statistical methods. In addition, frequencies of anomalies were recorded for the entire modern human Dart Collection (n. 3000), and a sample of Holocene human skeletons (n. 69) for comparison with the Palauan material. The Palauans have been found to have absolutely and relatively very large teeth compared to modern and Holocene population groups. Their mesiodistal diameter (MD) and buccolingual diameter (BL) exceed the normal range of modern human populations, whereas the same measurements at the cervical enamel junction are smaller. Total root length and crown height of the Palauans are equal to those of modern humans. Estimating body size from tooth size is thus shown to be unreliable, indicating that tooth size should be viewed in relation to other factors, such as diet, which may lead to phenomena like island dwarfism. Frequencies of third molar agenesis, incisiform canines, caniniform premolars and rotated premolars were very high in the Palauan sample: third molar agenesis, incisiform canines, caniniform premolars and rotated premolars. These anomalies are mostly due to crowding, which results in erupting teeth looking like their neighbours, or failing to develop at all, as in the case of third molars, which free up space for the remaining teeth to develop.

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2002.

Thesis (DPhil (Drama))--Stellenbosch University, 2009. / The purpose of this study is to examine critically the phenomenon of participatory video and to situate within this the participatory video project that was initiated as part of this study in the informal settlement area of Kayamandi, South Africa. The overall objective of the dissertation is to consider the potential of participatory video within current-day South Africa towards enabling marginalised groups to represent themselves and achieve social change. As will be shown, the term ‘participatory video’ has been used broadly and applied to many different types of video products and processes. For the preliminary purposes of this dissertation, participatory video is defined as any video (or film) process dedicated to achieving change through which the subject(s) has been an integral part of the planning and/or production, as well as a primary end-user or target audience. The two key elements that distinguish participatory video are thus (1) understanding video (or film) as a tool for social change; and (2) understanding participation by the subject as integral to the video process. An historical analysis thus considers various filmmaking developments that fed into the emergence of participatory video. These include various film practices that used film as a tool for change -- from soviet agitprop through to the documentary movement of the 1930s, as well as various types of filmmaking in the 1960s that opened up questions of participation. The Fogo process, developed in the late 1960s, marked the start of participatory video and video advocacy and provided guiding principles for the Kayamandi project initiated as part of this dissertation. Practitioners of the Fogo process helped initiate participatory video practice in South Africa when they brought the process to South African anti-apartheid activists in the early 1970s. The Kayamandi Participatory Video Project draws on this background and context in its planned methodology and its implementation. Out of this, various theoretical issues arising from participatory video practice contextualise a reflection and an analysis of the Kayamandi project. Lastly, this study draws conclusions and recommendations on participatory video practice in South Africa.

This dissertation presents an ethnographic account of a socially diverse, public breast cancer clinic in Johannesburg. The findings of this qualitative research radically challenge the unproblematised and overdetermined use of the categories of race and gender in existing literature concerning this disease. The growing breast cancer epidemic in South Africa affects all demographic categories of women including young women. Yet, previous research frames this as a racialised and gendered crisis. Black women have been depicted as ignorant “problem patients” who resist biomedical treatment, and all women are described as having a particular relationship to their breasted bodies and a deep fear of mastectomy. Departing from these stereotypes, this ethnography reveals unanticipated data showing, firstly, that race, class, age and level of education did not determine women’s relationship to breast cancer and biomedicine. Secondly, socially diverse women commonly experienced breast cancer as a life-threatening disease that evoked confrontation with existential concerns regarding suffering, death, family, and faith. Due to these commonalities, an intimate and powerful sociality existed amongst women at this clinic. Thirdly, within this sociality, women accepted mastectomy as a necessity in creating a healthy body. Breastlessness was normalised and women generally were reluctant of breast reconstruction, thus destabilising the conceptual relationship between breasts and gender. This dissertation’s deconstruction of the use of hegemonic social categories is a significant intervention in a context where these categories are often viewed as absolute determinants of social and health phenomena, and therefore prompts more nuanced approaches to understanding experiences of illness in post-apartheid South Africa.

A research report submitted to the Faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Masters of Arts in Anthropology, Johannesburg 2015 / Research in the mining community of Carletonville focused on how individuals negotiate and contest different value orientations in trying to construct a workable moral economy. Based on in-depth qualitative interviews and observations of respondents from lower and higher wage classes, the report deconstructs the elements of differential value sets that are redefining and sometimes destabilizing the moral economy and underlining views of inequality. Wage disputes are seen not only as mine workers' expressions of economic injustice but perhaps more crucially as a form of control and protection of their craft and status. The dominance of global economic governance and decision-making is leading to more acute internal divergences but can also be a starting point for a discussion about the impact of conflicts in social values. / XL2018

In medical anthropology there has been a tendency to dichotomize western biomedical . healtb services, on the one hand, and traditional health care practices on the other. Much attention has been focused on the comparison between these two approaches in the hope that they might be reconciled. The problem with this approach is twofold. In the first place, it has not always acknowledged the local, historic~1, political and economic contexts in which different approaches to health care have evolved and in the second place, health care services which belong to neither the western nor traditional healing spheres and which are driven by commercial interests have been almost completely neglected because they fall outside of the basic dichotomy. Amayeza stores have been a feature of South African towns and cities for many years. They mayor may not be run by Africans, but their clientele is almost exclusively African in this region. They deal in a bewildering variety of products and remedies, from untreated herbal and animal products to pharmaceuticals specially prepared for the African market, to Dutch and Indian Remedies. These stores both reflect transfonnations in indigenous perceptions of health care and, by virtue of the choices they offer, generate change. In this empirical study three stores in the Eastern Cape are selected for detailed study - two in King William's Town, the regional capital, and one in the small town of Peddie. The approach is holistic, emphasizing the social, political and economic context, the business histories and running of each shop, and, in particular, the perceptions and choices of a sample of the customers in each case. The success of the amayeza phenomenon derives from its eclecticism and syncretism. These stores impose neither a western nor a traditional model of health care on their clients, but offer them a range of choices that reflects the complex multicultural history of their own South African society.

A thesis submitted to the Faculty of Humanities in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, March 2017. / This research is an investigation of how kinship is mobilised for commercial purposes by business persons and with what kinds of effects on forms of kinship and obligation. Ntabankulu urban, located in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa has specifically been targeted for this purpose. Through in-depth interviews targeting ‘Black’ South African business owners, the research establishes the identities of the business persons whilst further exploring how they draw from non-capitalist forms of organisation such as kinship in dealing with various challenges associated with the dictates of capitalist enterprise. Important is the point that the black business persons involved in this study have emerged from what can be deemed as ‘liminal’ precarious socio-economic backgrounds and proved to be active agents who could successfully draw from practices based on non-capitalist forms of organisation such as kinship to deal with obligation-related challenges encountered within an inherently capitalist context. This study constitutes a break from conventional economics that has previously viewed customary elements such as kinship as detrimental to business. This break is represented by noting the resilience of non-capitalist forms of organisation, particularly within the business context. Besides that, the relationship between culture and the market has been repositioned to create a close relational situation in contrast to previous claims of the two being incompatible. The study explores the ideas of kinship and related practices, reciprocal cooperation and conflict as well as modernity’s influences within the context of efforts aimed at balancing kinship with business obligations. In addition, the study investigates how the inevitable coexistence of customary and business practices leads to newly invented forms of organisation that have seen ethnic communities notably reinventing themselves into business entities. It follows that South African corporations, just as is the case the world over, are increasingly embracing customary values such as kinship in efforts to explore alternative markets and structures of consumption. The study also assesses the complexities involved in balancing kin and business obligations especially in relation to the multiplicity of kin and business obligations that in instances tend to be contradictory. / XL2018

The study records narratives told by 11 black and coloured ex-pupils, who between 1992 and 1998 gained access to being educated at a private European school in the suburbs of Johannesburg. The contextualised stories of how they developed "texts of identity" for themselves within the multicultural setting of the school were used to explore a process called "rewriting the self". The identity of the school also is contextualised within its own socio-cultural community, as well as that of multiculturalism in schools. The study is placed within a postmodern Community Psychology epistemology, with a social constructionist "lens" attached to it. The excess of a social construction "lens" (such as "anything goes") is countered by defining the key notions of "texts of identity" - a "sense of self", "human diversity" and "multiculturalism" - within the collapsed boundaries of sameness and differences, global and local, as well as personal and collective notions of the self. The notion of transformation is contextualised as part of the process of "rewriting the self". This is illuminated by means of discourses of the past and human agency/empowerment as well as those related to the South African history of colonisation and apartheid. Narrative discourses also are introduced as a related epistemology and used to construct the ex-pupils' narratives within an Action Research mode, formulated in three ever-widening and interlocking phases. In the process of re-telling their stories the ex-pupils gained self-knowledge regarding how their schooling experiences allowed them to "stretch across (their) boundaries" and re-identify themselves anew. The vantage point was achieved by means of the ex-learners deconstructing their stories as part of a series of reflexive conversations. The insights yielded in this manner achieved the objective of the narrative research procedure. Viewed in a wider South African context, the ex-pupils' personalised stories highlight important issues that help or do not help South Africans make sense of their past and re-identify themselves within new boundaries. One issue that still hamstrings South Africans "rewriting the self" is the dominant discourses of the past regarding race and culture. It is suggested that a "common humanity" discourse (as well as that of "hybridity") be developed more fully as the way out. / Psychology / D.Litt. et Phil. (Psychology)

A research report submitted in partial satisfaction of the requirements of the degree Master of Arts in Anthropology, March 2017 / In this research report I construct an intellectual history of anthropology at the University of the Witwatersrand. Adopting a conjunctural approach, the report thinks through four moments in the genealogy of anthropology at Wits, from the establishment of the Bantu Studies Department in the 1920s, the neo-Marxist turn in the 1970s, the cultural turn in the 1990s, to the contemporary Department of Social Anthropology. At each moment, I trace the ways in which African thought and critique has been and is silenced to reproduce colonial unknowing in and the intellectual enclaving of anthropology in South Africa. / XL2018