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This study investigates the constructions of nationhood in two Bulawayo newspapers, the Chronicle and Newsday. Against the backdrop of the emergence of a secessionist movement, Mthwakazi Liberation Front (MLF), this research examines the discourses of nationhood in the secessionist debates raging in these two newspapers. This study is premised on a view that nationhood constructions cannot be understood outside the broader context in which these newspapers are embedded. Accordingly, it traces the roots and resurgence of Matabeleland separatist politics, exploring the political-historical forces that have shaped a distinctive Ndebele identity that poses a threat to the one, indivisible Zimbabwean national identity. Further, the study situates Matabeleland separatist politics within the broader African secessionist discourse challenging the post-colonial nation-building project on the continent. Informed by Hall’s (1992, 1996) constructivist approach to identity, it considers national identities as fragmented, multiple and constantly evolving. Thus, this study is framed within Hall’s (1997) constructivist approach to representation, as it examines the constructions of nationhood in and through language. The study uses qualitative research methods, as it examines the meanings of nationhood in key media texts. Informed by Foucault’s discourse theory, this research employs critical discourse analysis (CDA) to analyse 12 articles from the two newspapers. The findings confirm that the representations of nationhood in the two newspapers are influenced by their position within the socio-political context. The state-owned Chronicle legitimates the unitary state discourse advocated by ZANU PF. On the other hand, Newsday’s representations are informed by the discourses of the opposition political parties and civil society that challenge the dominant nation-building project. Thus, within this paper, secession and devolution emerge as alternative imaginaries that contest the authoritarian discourse of nationhood

The study can be typified as "a probing case study in comparing the policies of the most prominent political groupings (AKTUR, DTA, NNF and SWAPO-N) regarding a new society for South West Africa/Namibia". The paper consists of four chapters, namely a Theoretical Perspective, in order to orientate the readers regarding the specific problematics dealt with in the paper; a Relevant Historical Perspective, since the present political dispensation in South West Africa/Namibia is characterised by "dissension” that must be seen against the background of eight variables which worked in cumulatively on the territory over a period of a century; the Comparative Analysis of Specific Aspects of Policy, in which the degree of similarity and difference among specific policy trends of the four most prominent political groupings is examined; and an Evaluation, which is a synthetical summary of the preceding analysis especially in Chapter 111. / Political Sciences / M.A. (Internasionale Politiek)

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Sean O’Casey’s Dublin Trilogy travels through the Irish revolutionary period and explores how this environment created a revolutionary Dublin where armed militants struggled to overthrow the authority and privileges of their British oppressors. Seeking to remove the colonial authority that had oppressed the Dublin population for so long, these revolutionaries fought, killed, and died in their quest for an independent Ireland. In this struggle, groups of armed men can be seen employing tactics that would only lead to the continued oppression of other sections of the Irish population. By connecting the Dublin Trilogy to his autobiographies, in which he highlights the importance of family as a supportive unit for the Dublin poor, I propose that O’Casey, in the Dublin Trilogy, warns that these ideological reproductions would eventually lead to the continued subjugation of Irish women and other members of the Irish population outside of the masculinist, militant identity supporting the Irish independence struggle. / Includes bibliography. / Thesis (M.A.)--Florida Atlantic University, 2017. / FAU Electronic Theses and Dissertations Collection

Text in English / This qualitative study presents an onomastic perspective on the changing linguistic landscape of Zimbabwe which resulted from the post-2000 land reforms (also known as the Third Chimurenga). When veterans of Zimbabwe’s War of Liberation assumed occupancy of former white-owned farms, they immediately pronounced their take-over of the land through changes in place names. The resultant toponymic landscape is anchored in the discourses of the First and Second Chimurenga. Through recasting the Chimurenga (war of liberation) narrative, the proponents of the post-2000 land reforms endeavoured to create a historical continuum from the colonisation of Zimbabwe in 1890 to the post-2000 reforms, which were perceived as an attempt to redress the historical anomaly of land inequality. The aim of this study is to examine toponymic changes on the geo-linguistic landscape, and establish the extent of the changes and the post-colonial identity portrayed by these place names. Within the case study design, research methods included in-depth interviews, document study and observations as means of data generation. Through the application of critical and sociolinguistic theories in the form of post-colonial theory, complemented by geo-semiotics, political semiotics and language ecology, this study uncovers the richness of toponymy in exposing a cryptic social narrative reflective of, among others, contestations of power. The findings indicate that post-2000 toponymy is a complex mixture of pre-colonial, colonial and post-colonial place names. These names recast the various narratives in respect of the history of Zimbabwe through the erasure of colonial toponyms and resuscitation older Chimurenga names. The resultant picture portrayed by post-2000 toponymy communicates a complex message of contested land ownership in Zimbabwe. There is a pronounced legacy of colonial toponymy that testifies to the British Imperial occupation of the land and the ideologies behind colonisation. This presence of colonial toponymy many years after independence is an ironic confirmation of the indelible legacy of British colonialism in Zimbabwe. The findings show a clear recasting of the discourses of violence and racial hostility, but also reveal an interesting trend of toponymic syncretism where colonial names are retained and used together with new names. / Linguistics and Modern Languages / D. Litt. et Phil. (Linguistics)

The focus in this dissertation is on the rise of secessionism and its curtailment in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC). Theories pertaining to centre-periphery relations, as well as right-sizing the state, are used for this purpose. Factors such as the DRC’s vast territory and colonial policies affected the centre-periphery relations after independence. The weak ties between the centre and the peripheries were important factors in the attempts at secession that followed independence. In addition, the political and administrative centre (Kinshasa) was too weak to keep the restive peripheries in check. International military intervention, thus, played an important role in defeating attempts at secession. The strategies of President Mobutu in strengthening the centre, as well as the lack of secessionism in the DRC after the collapse of the centre towards the end of Mobutu’s presidency, receive attention. / Political Sciences / M.A. (Politics)

Grounded in the geographies of Chiapas, Mexico, the dissertation maps a cartography of Zapatista indigenous resistance practices and charts the production of decolonial political subjectivities in an era of neoliberal governance and low intensity conflict. It analyzes the relationship between local cultural political expressions of indigenous autonomy, global capitalist interests and neoliberal rationalities of government after more than decade of Zapatista struggle. Since 1996, Zapatista indigenous Mayan communities have engaged in the creation of alternative education, health, agricultural production, justice, and governing bodies as part of the daily practices of autonomy. The dissertation demonstrates that the practices of Zapatista indigenous autonomy reflect current shifts in neoliberal state governing logics, yet it is in this very terrain where key ruptures and destabilizing practices emerge. The dissertation focuses on the recolonization aspects of neoliberal rationalities of government in their particular Latin American post Cold War, post populist manifestations. I argue that in Mexico's indigenous regions, the shift towards the privatization of state social services, the decentralization of state governing techniques and the transformation of state social programs towards an emphasis on greater self-management occurs in a complex relationship to mechanisms of low intensity conflict. Their multiple articulations effect the reproduction of social and biological life in sites, which are themselves terrains of bio-political contention: racialized women's bodies and feminized domestic reproductive and care taking roles; the relationship between governing bodies and that governed; land reform as linked to governability and democracy; and the production of the indigenous subject in a multicultural era. In each of these arenas, the dissertation charts a decolonial cartography drawn by the following cultural political practices: the construction of genealogies of social memories of struggle, a governing relationship established through mandar obedeciendo, land redistribution through zapatista agrarian reform, pedagogical collective selfreflection in women’s collective work, and the formation of political identities of transformation. Finally, the dissertation discusses the possibilities and challenges for engaging in feminist decolonizing dialogic research, specifically by analyzing how Zapatista members critiqued the politics of fieldwork and adopted the genres of the testimony and the popular education inspired workshop as potential decolonizing methodologies. / text