The built environment is a product of man’s rationales and understandings of space. It is on the basis of these understandings that man builds, to facilitate his ways of life. These “understandings”, are the discourses that each individual is born into and the “ways of life” are the cultural practices resulting from these discourses. Architecture being a product of cultural discourse is intended to facilitate cultural practices. Post 1994 South Africa, has inherited a Johannesburg inner-city built environment, which is predominantly a product of apartheid and colonial discourse. During this era, black people were marginalised and excluded from the inner city, both physically and through architectural representation. The inner city was built in accordance with western (white) discourse to facilitate western cultural practices. Today the inner city is predominantly inhabited by black people, who were excluded and marginalised in its conception. Post colonial theorists assert that, while black people have embraced “modernity” and “western urbanity”, it has not resulted in a complete acceptance or appropriation of western cultural practices and discourses. Due a process termed “post colonial hybridity” these people merge the two seemingly irreconcilable cultural discourses and practices to form new cultural hybrids. The consequence of hybridity in the inner-city is; while the appropriated western cultural practices and discourses are inherently reflected and catered for, the retained aspects of black cultural practice and discourse remain marginalised. The built environment, which is meant to facilitate and reflect, negates and marginalises aspects of black discourses and cultural practices. “To be truly expressive, a building should grow out of its natural, social, and civilization context. It should reflect not only the personal values, needs and interests of its dwellers but also its relation to its natural and architectural site. Thus the formal organization of a building cannot be imposed on a people from the outside; it should originate from the context of human life in the given region. In this origination the process of spatial articulation results from a thought- full grasp of the dynamic interaction between the material elements of the architectural work and the human vision which guides this activity.” (Mitias 1994:103) In order to make a contribution to the creation of a more inclusive built environment this paper proposes the development of a hybrid building prototype that would facilitate and reflect the hybrid cultural practices and discourses of the city’s black inhabitants. The building prototype named the “Inner City Ritual Centre” aims to facilitate some of the marginalised practices of black people living in the city and to reflect some of the excluded spatial understandings of black people. The paper proposes a method of practice that utilises postcolonial hybridity, to include excluded and marginalised practices and discourses into the architectural representation of the city. This paper uncovers and highlights a few of these discourses and practices and demonstrates how the use of postcolonial hybridity in architecture would result in a more inclusive built environment.

As corporations transcend international borders new questions arise concerning the formation of identities. This study looks at adidas advertising campaigns "Bonded by Blood" and "Of This Earth" and how they represent and commodify Māori culture. "The Making" of "Bonded by Blood" is the video component for that campaign. The "Of This Earth" file is the TV commercial from 2007. Furthermore, this study looked at whether or not these advertisements are in fact reaffirming already established stereotypes about indigeneity and "Otherness." This thesis is informed by Stuart Hall's article "The Spectacle of the Other" as well as works by other scholars who discuss ideologies of Otherness, globalization, glocalization, mobility, and corporate sports sponsorship. The posters of each campaign as well as the video components were analyzed through textual analysis. The results show that patterns of cultural appropriation and reaffirmation of stereotypes do occur in the posters and videos of those campaigns. The two video components are included as supplementary files for this thesis. / 10000-01-01

This thesis places Black Consciousness in comparative perspective with progressive politics in South Africa in the late 1960s and the 1970s. It argues that the dominant scholarly focus on Black Consciousness, which is passed over as a ‘stage' in the Black struggle against white supremacy, insufficiently historicises the deeper roots, and the wider resonances and ideological contestations of the Black Consciousness movement. As they refined their political discourse, Black Consciousness activists negotiated their way through the progressive ideologies that flourished as part of the wider political and social ferment of the 1960s. Although Black Consciousness won over an influential minority of radical Christians, a more contested struggle took place with nascent feminism on university campuses and within the Movement; as well as with a New Left-inspired historical and political critique that gained influence among white activists. The thesis draws closer attention to the ways in which Black Consciousness challenged white activists in the late 1960s, who were primarily able, albeit it with pain and difficulty, to sympathetically interpret and finally endorse Black Consciousness. The thesis challenges the idea that Black Consciousness achieved a complete ‘break' with white liberals, and argues that black and white activists maintained a dialogue after the black students' breakaway from the National Union of South African Students in 1968. The thesis looks in turn at: the role played by the ecumenical movement in South Africa in the 1960s and 1970s; student and religious radicalism in the 1960s; second wave feminism and its challenge to Black Consciousness; the development of Black Theology, and the relationship between Black Consciousness activists and the ecumenical Christian Institute; it closes with a study of the interplay between intellectuals Steve Biko and Richard Turner in Durban, and the significance of white students' and Black Consciousness activists' interaction in that city in the 1970s.

M.Sc.(Med.), Faculty of Health Sciences, University of the Witwatersrand, 2009. / Leptin is a substance that is released from adipose tissue and although it is primarily employed to modify body size, it also targets a number of other tissues, including the myocardium. Although plasma leptin concentrations may predict cardiovascular risk beyond conventional measurements, it is uncertain whether this may be explained by an independent effect on left ventricular mass (LVM) and geometry. Previous clinical studies evaluating the independent relationship between plasma leptin concentrations and LVM have been conducted in either small study samples (n=31-55), in severely obese participants only, in select subgroups (with insulin resistance) or in population samples with a relatively low mean body mass index (BMI). In the present dissertation I therefore assessed whether plasma leptin concentrations are associated with LVM and LV mean wall thickness independent of adiposity indices in 378 adults of African descent randomly recruited from a population sample with ~63% of people whom were either overweight or obese. LVM was determined using two-dimensional directed M-mode echocardiography and indexed to height2.7 (LVMI). ~28% of the sample had LV hypertrophy. Marked differences in plasma leptin concentrations were noted between men and women. Thus, multivariate regression analysis was employed to identify independent relations between plasma leptin concentrations and either LVMI or LV mean wall thickness in sex-specific groups. Before adjustments for potential confounders, plasma leptin concentrations were associated with LVMI in both women (r=0.25, p<0.0001) and in men (r=0.20, p=0.017) as well as with LV mean wall thickness in both women (r=0.22, p<0.001) and in men (r=0.27, p=0.002). Moreover, participants with LV hypertrophy defined as an LVM index of >51 g/m2 had markedly greater plasma leptin concentrations than those participants without LV hypertrophy. However, plasma leptin concentrations were also associated with age, conventional systolic blood pressure and with adiposity indices (p<0.0001), factors that had robust relationships with LVMI and LV mean wall thickness. In multivariate regression models with plasma leptin concentrations, adiposity indices, age, systolic blood pressure and a number of alternative potential confounders in the same regression model, although adiposity indices were strong independent predictors of both LVMI and LV mean wall thickness in both women and men (p<0.002-p<0.0001), plasma leptin concentrations were not independently related to either LVMI (p=0.32-0.96), or LV mean wall thickness (p=0.33-0.81). In conclusion, plasma leptin concentrations, although associated with, are not independent predictors of LVMI beyond adiposity indices and other related factors in a population sample with a high prevalence of excess adiposity. Therefore, plasma leptin concentrations are unlikely to predict cardiovascular risk beyond conventional risk measurements because of an impact on LVM.

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Thesis (M.Ed.)--York University, 2006. Graduate Programme in Education. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 128-133). Also available on the Internet. MODE OF ACCESS via web browser by entering the following URL: http://gateway.proquest.com/openurl?url_ver=Z39.88-2004&res_dat=xri:pqdiss&rft_val_fmt=info:ofi/fmt:kev:mtx:dissertation&rft_dat=xri:pqdiss:MR29564

Thesis (doctoral)--University of London, 1994.

Thesis (Psy. D.)--Rutgers University, 2009. / "Graduate Program in Clinical Psychology." Includes bibliographical references (p. 160-163).

Thesis (Ph.D.)--University of Wisconsin--Madison, 2002. / Includes bibliographical references (p. 344-367). Also available on the Internet.

Thesis (M.A.)--University of Missouri-Columbia, 2003. / Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (leaves 84-91). Also available on the Internet.