As South Africa’s struggle against apartheid entered its final, turbulent decade, African students and youth rose to the forefront of the liberation movement, engaging in non-violent protest and militant confrontation with the apartheid state. In the existing historiography, the “comrades” – as young activists were known – are predominantly depicted as male, with little attention paid to the experiences of politicised girls and young women. This thesis is the first extensive study of South Africa’s female comrades, focused on activists from the township of Soweto. In analysing the experiences of young female activists, it introduces their voices into male-dominated historical narratives, and complicates and challenges existing histories of gender, generation, identity, and political violence in late-apartheid South Africa. Drawing on oral history interviews with former comrades, the thesis provides new insight into why girls joined the struggle, what roles they played, how they were treated by their male comrades, and their experiences of political detention. It argues that the struggle, despite being a male-dominated arena, could provide girls with a sense of agency and empowerment at a time when girls’ lives were otherwise marked by their confinement to the private sphere, social subordination, and susceptibility to sexual violence. Thus, just as the struggle offered young men a means of asserting their masculinity, so too did it offer young women a means of challenging emphasised femininities and constructing oppositional gender identities that defied social expectations and limitations of traditional girlhood. Additionally, this thesis improves current understandings of girls’ experiences of conflict on a global scale by challenging widely held assumptions of girls’ predisposition to peaceful behaviour and lack of political agency. In so doing it places Soweto’s female comrades within broader narratives of liberation movements across Africa, Latin America, and elsewhere. This thesis thus makes an important and original contribution not just to South African history, but also to histories of nationalism and liberation movements, feminist conflict studies, and girlhood studies.

A research report submitted to the faculty of Humanities, University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, in fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of Master of Arts, Wits University, Johannesburg, 2017 / In blackface colonial history, “amusing” white blackface performances that depicted black people as the “natural born fool” were popular with white audiences during a time when whites perceived their racial superiority to be threatened. In Post-1994 South Africa, white supremacy is no longer an uncontested “fact”. As a result, white identities that are premised on “old” legislated notions of racial superiority are made insecure by perceived threats posed against whiteness. The previously disenfranchised and excluded black is now the central focus of South African power and politics and the loss of white centrality creates the “victim” perception that all post-apartheid societal pressures and changes are put on, and against whites. Their power has been “confiscated” and thereby no longer unique to white identity. Blackface is utilised by Leon Schuster in the post-apartheid film, Mama Jack (2005) to reproduce old ideologies of whiteness that remind viewers of its presence, privilege and power. As in the colonial past, it is through the principle white character Jack Theron and his mobilisation of blackface that white supremacy remains intact throughout the film. / XL2018

A viewpoint of the intersectional and complex nature of identity is seen to be integral to the understanding of the identities of black female students. ‘Identity constructions of black South African female students’ is an exploratory study with a view to understand the identities of black South African women in institutions of higher learning and education. The study investigated the experiences of 16 female South African black students; with a focus on their race category, gender as well as class subject positions. The study is placed within the context of the Historically White University (HWU) and was specifically conducted in a HWU situated in Johannesburg. The students’ articulations of their university experiences were explored qualitatively, within three focus group discussions through an open-ended interview guideline. Results show that their education is accounted for as a significant influence in their subjectivity given the social mobility it grants as the women’s experience of self shifts as does their position in society. Furthermore it was found that with the cultural capital attained through education, notions of class, racial and gender identities are affected and a multiplicity of identities exists as a result.

Student Number : 0005386G - MSc research report - School of Architecture and Planning - Faculty of Engineering and the Built Environment / The research recognises the IDP as an important post-apartheid planning tool that can potentially lead to integration within the City of Johannesburg. However, for the IDP to attain its mandated goals, an enabling institutional culture of the City and its units need to prevail. The gap/challenge is that the institutional culture of the City and its departments/units are shaped by Joburg 2030, a purely economic strategy that does not embrace the principles needed for attainment of IDP goals. The principles needed for successful formulation and implementation of the IDP are found in equity planning theories and New Institutionalism. These are the principles that do not form part of the Joburg 2030 vision. The solution is for the Joburg 2030 to include the planning principles as already highlighted. This solution will affect departmental practices for the better.

Abstract The period of South Africa’s political transition in the late 1980s and 1990s also saw a number of interesting developments in the field of cultural production, especially within the province of literature. A number of literary scholars, critics of all realms, writers, some enthusiasts and adventurers all showed interest in the direction of literature after the repressive years of apartheid. The dominant academic question at the time centred on the possible transition in the thematic and formalistic dimension of the literature of the new South Africa. Scholars and cultural commentators that include Es’kia Mphahlele, Njabulo Ndebele, Albie Sachs, Guy Butler, Elleke Boehmer, Michael Chapman, Mbulelo Mzamane, Andries Walter Oliphant, amongst others, all contributed immensely in the debates that attempted to define the possible direction of the literature after apartheid. This research is concerned with the developments in the Post-Apartheid South African Novels of English expression. Its focus is on how temporal mobility has impacted on cultural production especially as witnessed in the many transformations in the field of literature, particularly the novel as a genre. Using the tropes of memory, violence, and otherness, it examines the novels of writers as varying as André Brink, J.M. Coetzee, Zakes Mda, Zoë Wicomb, and Jo-Anne Richards. At the level of form, the fantastical and the confessional modes of narration are discussed as significant manifestations of the post-apartheid narratives using the novels of André Brink and Jo-Anne Richards respectively. It suggests that, among other things, the post-apartheid novels of English expression are marked by some interesting thematic blocs that include the fascination with land, the artistic display of remorse through the confessional mode, the rekindling of memory and its representation in narrative, the peculiar interest in violence and alterity, the continuing reportage of the urban space and the implications of urbanity on the ordinary citizenry, the recourse to gangsterism, miscegenation and the dilemma of a humankind confined to the psychological spaces of the interstices. Efforts were made in this research to avoid the ‘intellectual apartheid’ often associated with the hermeneutic engagements of the literati previously devoted to South Africa’s literary scholarship. It is for this reason that a more elaborate introductory chapter highlights aspects of the contributions of novelists and scholars that include Nadine Gordimer, Mongane Wally Serote, Lewis Nkosi, Njabulo Ndebele, and the ‘emergent’ ones such as Phaswane Mpe, K. Sello Duiker, Pamela Jooste, among others. An important dimension to this study is that it situates the Post-Apartheid narratives not only within relevant historical contexts, but also develops its argument by drawing immensely from the intellectual culture dominant in South Africa before, during, and after the notorious era of racial separatism. It concludes on the suggestive note that South African writers and literary scholars should attempt to demonstrate a more rigorous interest in locating the creative points of convergence between the aesthetic and social ideals.

The primary aim of this research was to explore the experiences of formerly white conscripted combat veterans during the ‘border war’ and furthermore, to uncover discourses of whiteness and masculinity embedded in their recounted experiences. This research made use of a qualitative research design. This study drew on the experiences of white male South Africans who were exposed to some form of active combat during the ‘border war’. The sample consisted of 8 white South Africans who were born roughly between the 1960s and 1970s. Data was collected through semi-structured interviews and analysed using discourse analysis. For the purpose of this research, a hybridised version of discourse analysis was used. This contained elements of critical as well as the discursive approaches to discourse analysis. This study concluded that both whiteness and masculinity are unstable constructs with no absolute definition. This study also found that many of the participants seemed conflicted and unsure of where to position themselves in relation to the ‘border war’, apartheid and contemporary South Africa as white men. For many it would seem it is easier to simply ignore those years of their lives. In terms of the intersectionality of whiteness and masculinity this research confirms the fact that both whiteness and masculinity, as socially and culturally constructed categories, work together and interact on multiple levels to either empower or marginalize individuals. However, in some instances it was also found that these discourses also function independently of each other. Ultimately it can be said that white masculinity exists in a space that is both troubled and unsettled. This study has illustrated that white men in South Africa have gone from a position of omnipotent power during apartheid to one of contested instability in present South African society. It is evident from this research that whiteness and masculinity are both complex and diffuse constructs that still warrant a great deal of exploration. That said, the future prospects for these individuals are both challenging and possible.

No description available.

This research project falls under the broader Apartheid Archives Project. The aim of the project was to collect the narratives of black and white South Africans, of their earliest quotidian or everyday racist experiences. This project focused particularly on the nature of the experiences of racism of (particularly ‘ordinary’) white South Africans under the old apartheid order and their continuing effects on individual and group functioning in contemporary South Africa, especially on the ways in which white South Africans are positioned by racialised discourses and the reproduction of power relations through these positions. The project utilised narratives that were written by white South Africans and were available on the Apartheid Archive Project’s database. In total, the narratives of twelve white, middle-aged, middle class South Africans were analysed using Parker (1992) and Willig’s (2008) guidelines for analysis of the discourses which converge with Foucault’s ideas. This research report gives prominence to the discourses of race present in the narratives of white South Africans which were examined and it also focuses on how racialised discourses offer the narrators different subject positions to occupy in present day South Africa. Three discursive themes were identified, namely rationalising discursive strategies, race and racism discourses and discourses of redemption. Rationalising discursive strategies were found to utilise discourses of innocence, discourses of denial and discourses that avoid complicity. These discourses enabled the narrators to be positioned as victims. Race and racism discourses included othering discourses, discourses of whiteness and discourses of interracial relationships. Through an appeal to these kinds of discourses narrators were able to occupy opposing positions, such as perpetrator, hero, privileged and non-racial. Finally, discourses of redemption were also found to be prominent in the narratives. These comprised of religious discourses and notions of white liberalism. The utilisation of such discourses enabled constructions of the narrators as moral, virtuous and honest.

Abstract (Jill Nudelman) This dissertation presents a novel that charts the progress of the white protagonist, Rose, whose mysterious origins have rendered her disconnected and alienated. In addition, moulded by her sheltered and privileged lifestyle she experiences guilt faced with the suffering and poverty that she encounters in post-apartheid South Africa, but lacks the strength to act. The novel opens with Rose, now 30, bereft and alone. When she discovers a box of mysterious objects which hint at her origins, she is lead to Oberon, a fictional village in the southern uKhahlamba-Drakensberg. Here, Rose’s search becomes more than a search for her biological parents as she experiences events that lead her to an identity beyond whiteness and help her to find rootedness in African soil. A reflexive essay follows. The essay is a personal reflection of the writing process, and includes the inspiration and development of the story line, problems encountered around the narrative voice and the contribution of the Masters programme workshops to the project. It also explores and expounds on the theoretical underpinnings of the novel, such as white identity in post-apartheid South Africa, the use of Western mythologies in an African context, and a discussion of San culture, including concerns around its inclusion in the text. The use of the heavily-loaded signifier, “White Goddess” as in the title, is also touched upon.

ABSTRACT This thesis examines the representation of trauma and memory in six post-Apartheid plays. The topic is explored through a treatment of the tropes of racial segregation, different forms of dispossession as well as violence. The thesis draws its inspiration from the critical and self-reflexive engagements with which South African playwrights depict the Truth and Reconciliation Commission. The dramatists are concerned with the contested nature of the TRC as an experiential and historical archive. Others explore the idea of disputed and seemingly elusive notions of truth (from the embodied to the forensic). Through the unpacking of the TRC, as reflected in three of the plays, the thesis argues that apart from the idea of an absolute or forensic truth, the TRC is also characterised by the repression of truth. Furthermore, there is a consideration of debates around amnesty, justice, and reparations. Underpinning the politics and representations of trauma and memory, the thesis also interrogates the concomitant explorations and implications of identity and citizenship in the dramas. In the experience of violence, subjugation and exile, the characters in the dramas wrestle with the physical and psychological implications of their lived experiences. This creates anxieties around notions of self and community whether at home or in exile and such representations foreground the centrality of memory in identity construction. All these complex personal and social challenges are further exacerbated by the presence of endemic violence against women and children as well as that of rampart crime. The thesis, therefore, explores the negotiation of memory and identity in relation to how trauma could be mitigated or healing could be attained. The thesis substantially blurs the orthodox lines of differentiation between race and class, but emphasises the centrality of the individual or self in recent post-Apartheid engagements.