No description available.

The entire thesis text is included in the research.pdf file; the official abstract appears in the short.pdf file; a non-technical public abstract appears in the public.pdf file. Title from PDF of title page (University of Missouri--Columbia, viewed on March 23, 2010). Thesis advisor: Dr. Stephen Quackenbush. Includes bibliographical references.

No description available.

This thesis is not a life history of Archie Mafeje. Instead, it is an attempt to grapple with his ideas. This thesis is said to be a ‘biography’ insofar as it is dedicated to a study of one individual and his contribution to knowledge. In trying to understand Mafeje’s ideas and the intellectual and political environment that shaped them, the thesis relies on Lewis R. Gordon’s concept of ‘epistemic possibility’. The thesis comprises four main parts. Part I locates Mafeje and his work within the broader African intellectual and political environment. Part II evaluates his critique of the social sciences. Part III focuses on his work on land and agrarian issues in sub-Saharan Africa. Part IV deals with his work on revolutionary theory and politics. Broadly speaking, this thesis is the first comprehensive engagement with the entire body of Mafeje’s scholarship. Specifically, the unique perspective of this thesis, and therefore its primary contribution to the existing body of knowledge, is that it seeks to overturn the idea that Mafeje was a critic of the discipline of anthropology only. The view that Mafeje was a mere critic of anthropology is in this thesis referred to as the standard view or the conventional view. The thesis argues that Mafeje is best understood as criticising all of the bourgeois social sciences for being Eurocentric and imperialist. This is offered as the alternative view. The thesis argues that the standard view makes a reformist of Mafeje, while the alternative view seeks to present him as the revolutionary scholar that he was. This interpretation lays the foundation for a profounder analysis of Mafeje’s work. In arguing that all the social sciences are Eurocentric and imperialist, he sought to liquidate them and therefore called for ‘non-disciplinarity’. It should be noted that in this regard, the primary focus of this thesis consists in following the unit of his thought and not whether he succeeded or failed in this difficult task. / Sociology / D. Litt. et Phil. (Sociology)

This study of Zakes Mda's life and sixteen of his plays and seven novels, written from 1966 to the present day, set in South Africa, Lesotho and the United States of America, shows how his life and works interweave, and how his defamiliarisation mode, his magic realism and his juxtaposed timeframes stimulate reader response and self-realisation, bringing about change. Experiences of marginalisation due to early childhood sexual abuse, exile, and being banished from church, and his involvement in political movements outside the mainstream, have caused him to be an astute observer of life. He is sceptical of authority and power, and is as critical of those who seek power, becoming intoxicated thereby, as of those who give away their power and so perpetuate unacceptable institutions and their own victimisation. At all times though, his writing style is creative and entertaining, rooted in the African oral tradition from which he springs, but also portraying international influences to which he has been exposed over the years. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Abstract not available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2000.

This study of Zakes Mda's life and sixteen of his plays and seven novels, written from 1966 to the present day, set in South Africa, Lesotho and the United States of America, shows how his life and works interweave, and how his defamiliarisation mode, his magic realism and his juxtaposed timeframes stimulate reader response and self-realisation, bringing about change. Experiences of marginalisation due to early childhood sexual abuse, exile, and being banished from church, and his involvement in political movements outside the mainstream, have caused him to be an astute observer of life. He is sceptical of authority and power, and is as critical of those who seek power, becoming intoxicated thereby, as of those who give away their power and so perpetuate unacceptable institutions and their own victimisation. At all times though, his writing style is creative and entertaining, rooted in the African oral tradition from which he springs, but also portraying international influences to which he has been exposed over the years. / English Studies / M.A. (English)

Looking at current African music studies, one notices an interesting shift from the `norm' to a fresh engagement and analysis. Fresh perspectives are increasingly being presented to position African music dialogue in the arena of the so-called `established music fields'. While these developments are noticeable, the unmentioned, unsung and uncelebrated indigenous African music practitioners, composers, performers, poets, praise singers and so forth must not be forgotten. This work does not claim novelty in terms of the latter gap, but takes the debate further to highlight, though in a small way, such a need. Mme Rangwato Magoro, from Malatane village in the greater Ga-Seloane community, is included as the main research collaborator in this brief piece of work. The work may come as a shock to any established researcher in music and music science. The author could not help but attempt to allow the voice of Mme Magoro to determine the format and content of this piece of work. In addition, the Maila-go-fenywa performance group is linked with the compositional and performance work and the praise poems of Mme Magoro. In conclusion, discussions and debates on musical arts education are addressed in terms of implementation, with examples drawn from the work of Maila-go-fenywa. / Art History, Visual Arts & Musicology / M.A. (Musicology)

Looking at current African music studies, one notices an interesting shift from the `norm' to a fresh engagement and analysis. Fresh perspectives are increasingly being presented to position African music dialogue in the arena of the so-called `established music fields'. While these developments are noticeable, the unmentioned, unsung and uncelebrated indigenous African music practitioners, composers, performers, poets, praise singers and so forth must not be forgotten. This work does not claim novelty in terms of the latter gap, but takes the debate further to highlight, though in a small way, such a need. Mme Rangwato Magoro, from Malatane village in the greater Ga-Seloane community, is included as the main research collaborator in this brief piece of work. The work may come as a shock to any established researcher in music and music science. The author could not help but attempt to allow the voice of Mme Magoro to determine the format and content of this piece of work. In addition, the Maila-go-fenywa performance group is linked with the compositional and performance work and the praise poems of Mme Magoro. In conclusion, discussions and debates on musical arts education are addressed in terms of implementation, with examples drawn from the work of Maila-go-fenywa. / Art History, Visual Arts and Musicology / M.A. (Musicology)

PhD (African Studies) / Centre for African Studies / The aim of this study is to examine existing secondary material to determine whether there is agreement concerning the acclaimed migration of the Africans across the Limpopo River into South Africa. This is done by determining, in an interwoven analytical manner, whether there is possible existing credible evidence that could be applied to examine the claim espoused by Sir George Mc Call Theal. The cause of the disparity amongst the whites and blacks in the country seems to have an historical origin that dates back to the epochs of colonialism and imperialism, which spanned centuries. These movements resulted in the apparently unfair foreign land ownership, which was carried out at the expense of the African blacks, such as the Bakone, Vhangoṋa and Banguni, to date. For one to determine the validity of foreign land acquisition in a foreign country like South Africa; research is required in order to find the genesis, credibility and justification of the total soil ownership by foreigners; which as stated, was conducted at the expense of the majority of Africans who possess no land, living in abject poverty, suffering from unemployment and treated with inequality. The brutal colonial efforts and the untested African migration remains an elusive problem that should be tested scientifically to confirm or negate, when precisely the Africans came; who saw them come, and what made them leave their original countries, if any. This in a perpetual cardinal point of the ‘north’ being occupied moving in ‘waves’ with no witnesses. This study seeks to examine why the naturalised foreign Europeans are better off in the country, in everything.