In her article “Visual pleasure and narrative cinema” (1975) Laura Mulvey explains how film portrays the female characters as passive sexualised objects, on display for the male (erotic) gaze. Although, Mulvey did make amendments to the original article after it was criticised, her original article is still influential and referenced in academic writing on film. This dissertation investigates how the three selected mainstream American films, namely, Alice in Wonderland, Monster and Transamerica, have female protagonists who deviate from Mulvey’s initial standpoint and enact a new dynamic, whereby the female characters possess active bodies. In order to explain this new dynamic, the dissertation provides an overview of relevant theory in order to establish the necessary analytical tools to investigate the representation of the female body. These tools are taken from feminist notions of the body, most importantly Mulvey’s notions, in order to establish what constitutes an active female body that subverts the male gaze. This subversion is most notable when examining the iconography of the active female body. The dissertation also draws from the overview the importance of place and space, the embodiment of the characters’ inner workings in specific locations, and their relationship with the locations in which they are depicted. Since all three films include a physical journey on which the respective protagonists embark the examination of borders and border crossings is included. The dissertation shows that journeys bring with them the opportunity for the body to be active, as each female protagonist is on a journey to self-discovery. The changing settings in which the protagonists find themselves are an embodiment of their inner workings. Topographical borders mark the entering of new locations. However, concomitant symbolic and epistemological borders are also crossed. The female protagonists need to make choices concerning their lives and as a consequence alter the representations to reflect bodies that subvert the male gaze. These female bodies are active. However, they are active in different ways. Alice, from Alice in Wonderland, delves into her psyche to emerge a changed and independent Victorian woman. Bree, from Transamerica, heals the relationships with her family and is able to have her gender reconstructive surgery to become a physical woman. These two female protagonists have positive representations of the active female body. The protagonist from Monster, Aileen, is represented in a constant state of abjection and her active body is portrayed in a negative light. Whether represented in a positive or egative light, these chosen films all portray an active female body that does subvert the male gaze, and hence represent a new dynamic different from the one Mulvey described. / MA (Language Practice), North-West University, Vaal Triangle Campus, 2014

This work consists of a collection of poetry, Lessons in Augury, preceded by a thesis, ‘Beating the Bounds: Exploring Borders and Scale in Contemporary British Environmental Poetry’. This thesis examines the significance of borders that are both culturally and ecologically meaningful, asking how these borders function in contemporary environmental poetry. It argues that such borders provide sites in which environmental poets can explore the interconnection of anthropocentric and ecocentric systems of value and work towards an understanding of human concerns at more-than-human, ecological scales. The first chapter examines the significance of the borders of the ‘dwelling space’ in John Burnside’s poetry. The following chapters move on to investigate the significance of more specific borders: coastlines and mountain ranges in Thomas A. Clark’s recent collections, the river in Alice Oswald’s Dart and the border between day and night in Richard Caddel’s posthumously published Writing in the Dark. The main focus of this thesis is creative practice. It investigates how poets writing out of very different traditions use borders that are culturally and ecologically meaningful as sites where they can develop their environmental poetics. The analysis of these poets’ explorations of borders provides the basis for a comparative study of their creative practices and poetic techniques. In particular, this thesis argues that the act of ‘beating the bounds’ – the physical exploration of border spaces – is fundamental to all of the works discussed. The final chapter, ‘Lines of Flight’, offers a point of connection between the critical and creative aspects of this project. It examines the relationship between critical research and creative practice, and charts some of the links between this thesis and the poetry collection Lessons in Augury.

This thesis is concerned with a function of local political leaders as the actors of regional development in model areas. The primary aim is to select the appropriate model areas in Carlsbad region. The main aim of this thesis is on example of three appropriate selected model areas to analyze role and attitude of local politician in development of model areas. The theoretical part deals with analyze of attitudes in local development and analyze of selected ideas key for needs of thesis. The results of the thesis correspond to the stated aims and assumptions. Local political leaders are important actors of local development, but their role is evident only to a limited extent. The biggest differences in the approach to local development can be found between opposition and coalition politics. Keywords: Borders, local politicians, actors of local development, social capital

Alors que la question du « vivre ensemble » demeure dans le débat public de la société française, cette thèse retrace la formation en région bordelaise des sociabilités corporelles et sportives des immigrés africains subsahariens en période post-coloniale. Ces dernières connaissent une dynamique effective au fil du temps. Si la décennie des années 1960 reste relativement atone en la matière, dès les années 1970, se constituent plusieurs types de sociabilités fondées sur une pluralité de frontières ethno-nationales, nationales, ethniques et générationnelles. Les différents projets migratoires relatifs aux diverses vagues et types d’immigrations, associés à l’influence des liens transnationaux entre les pays d’émigration et la France expliquent prioritairement cette configuration historique. Ce résultat de recherche vient enrichir l’historiographie française de l’objet étudié. Il montre que des logiques communautaires impriment leurs marques aux pratiques corporelles et sportives à l’exception de la descendance qui tend à s’en extraire et atteste que la relation « sport et immigration » n’est en rien linéaire, mais soumise à la complexité des flux migratoires contemporains et à l’implantation durable des populations en présence. / While the question of "living together" is still a central issue in French society, this thesis recounts the creation in the Bordeaux region of social and professional sporting activities among sub-Saharan African immigrants in the post-colonial period. The dynamic of this activity has changed over time. While the 1960s were a relatively quiet period in this respect, several types of sociability based on many ethno-national, national, ethnic and generational interfaces have come to exist since the 1970s. The various projects for immigration associated with several types of immigration waves, together with the influence of transnational links between countries from which the immigrants came and France, primarily explain this historical trend. This research project adds to the French historiography of the subject under study. It shows that the logic of the community has a strong impact on sports and physical practices, with the exception of the descendants of the immigrants who tend to shun this tendency. The findings show that that the relationship between sport andimmigration is by no means linear but is subject to the complexity of contemporary migration flows and to the sustainable settlement of the populations involved.

The following collection of short stories explores the notion of being caught between two worlds, of straddling physical, emotional, linguistic and metaphorical borders. I have chosen these characters in order to give voice to those who are often voiceless. The collection has been divided in two parts in order to challenge ideas of what is "real." I argue that the emotional truth of a story is paramount, and this reality can sometimes be best achieved through unconventional means.

Cette thèse aborde la question de la (re)frontiérisation en Turquie face aux problématique liés à la gouvernance des « indésirables ». Par qui et pour qui est-elle faite, et avec quels effets ? Le positionnement particulier de la Turquie comme étant ni entièrement européenne, ni entièrement non-européenne, a alimenté la problématisation du paysage migratoire en Turquie. Ce positionnement ambivalent est d’une part dû à un regard orientaliste qui encadre la manière dont sont perçus la Turquie et les migrants qui y résident, et d’autre part à cette démarche de séduction et de mise en conformité émenant de l’UE et de sa stratégie d’externalisation. En prenant le cas de la Turquie, nous soutenons que nous devons comprendre la gouvernance de la mobilité comme une affaire de pouvoir diffus, dont sont particulièrement investies les organisations intergouvernementales, mais aussi les organisations que l’on pourrait appeler bordercrats périphériques. Nous proposons les concepts de bordercracies, clans bordercratic transnationaux et objets frontierisés pour comprendre l’autorité épistémique, les connectivités et l’agentivité comprisent dans ce pouvoir diffus. Nous affirmons que les clans bordercratic transnationaux dépendent de rationalités gestionnaire, sécuritaire, humanitaire, et orientaliste, imbriquées dans la gouvernance de mobilité, qui génère une logique de filtrage basé sur la sélection des désirables/indésirables. Nous conclurons que les fonctions performatives des clans bordercratic transnationaux incluent, lorsqu’elles intègrent la Turquie dans le cercle à suivre et excluent, lorqu’elles constituent et maintiennent les « indésirables » loin de l’Occident. / This doctoral thesis seeks to explore how bordering is performed in Turkey with respect to the governance of the ‘undesirables’, by whom, for whom, and with what effects. This enquiry argues that Turkey’s migration and refugee landscape has been problematised through its particular positionality as neither completely European nor completely non-European. This ambivalent positionality is partly due to the permeation of orientalist ways of seeing Turkey and the migrants and refugees who inhabit this landscape, and partly an effect of the courtship/compliance externalisation strategy of the EU. In taking the Turkey case, I argue that mobility governance has to be understood as a matter of diffuse power that is particularly vested in IGOs, but also in organisations that might be called peripheral bordercrats. I advance the notion of bordercracies, transnational bordercratic tribes and bordered objects to make sense of the workings, epistemic authority, connectivities and the agentic forces of this diffused power. I argue that bordercratic tribes rely on intermingling managerial, security, humanitarian and orientalist rationalities of mobility governance, which generate a filtering logic based on selections of desirable/undesirable. I conclude that the performative functions of transnational bordercratic tribes include as they bring Turkey into an in-group and exclude as they constitute and contain ‘undesirables’ away from the West.

La Grèce et la République de Macédoine entretiennent des relations aussi intenses que complexes. C'est dans ce contexte, qui a vu passer la République de Macédoine du statut de république yougoslave à celui d'Etat indépendant que se place l'analyse des relations transfrontalières entretenues à l'échelle locale. Dans un premier temps, ce travail explore les processus transfrontaliers en cours afin de les documenter avant de les analyser au regard des processus sociaux à l’œuvre de part et d’autre de cette frontière. Cette analyse se base sur l'approche par le biais des recompositions en vue d’appréhender de façon combinée l'influence du passé et des enjeux contemporains sur les processus socio-spatiaux en cours dans les espaces étudiés. Se basant sur l’hypothèse selon laquelle les évolutions passées peuvent être mobilisées dans le cadre des diverses relations transfrontalières d’aujourd’hui, l’étude de l’histoire de la région et des multiples processus de fragmentation est nécessaire afin d’en analyser les résurgences. Ce travail s’oriente alors sur l’identification des acteurs de ces relations, des cadres dans lesquels ils agissent et des éléments mobilisés au fil de la relation construite pour en identifier les mécanismes et conséquences dans les sociétés frontalières étudiées, tout en prêtant une attention particulière aux dimensions culturelles et ethniques le long d’une frontière caractérisée par la présence transnationale de plusieurs groupes linguistiques ou ethniques. La construction de ces groupes ethniques et leurs évolutions contemporaines est ainsi examinée sous l’angle de leurs liens possibles avec les modalités de la relation transfrontalière. / Nowadays, Greece and the Republic of Macedonia are connected through intense but complex cross-border relations despite the name issue. The study of the these relations at the local level is taking place in that context that saw the Republic of Macedonia evolving from the status of member state of the Yugoslav federation to an independent state with European fate. The first aim of this research is to explore these cross-border relations in order to testify and document it. Several frames of cross-border relations are targeted through this work. In a context of economic crisis, border appears as a resource for an informal economy exploiting the economic and commercial differences between the countries. On the same way, the European integration process is also promoting cross-border relations through cross-border cooperation. But all actors are not equal regarding these processes in an area of cultural diversity. The approach through recompositions allows us to analyze the influence and interactions of past and contemporary issues in borderlands and their societies. Starting from the hypothesis that pasts historical events in the area are influencing the actual cross-border relations, the study of regional history and fragmentation processes that divided it is necessary to analyze its resurgences. Therefore, the issue is to identify the actors of these relations, the frame in which they locate their actions and the elements they mobilize for it by giving a special attention to cultural and ethnic dimensions. The building of ethnic groups and their contemporary evolutions will be analyzed through their possible connections with the cross-border relations’ modalities.

This research focuses on the art of clowning as a tool and method of psychosocial support in situations of crisis. As this topic is notably under-addressed in scholarly research, this research aims to deepen knowledge on humanitarian clowns in the contemporary humanitarian world. By analyzing the humanitarian clown from the perspective of members of the organization ‘Clowns Without Borders’ (CWB), this research asks: What is the position, practice and function of humanitarian clowns in the humanitarian world? Besides a wider pool of data based on relevant literature, the empirical material for the analysis was collected by conducting a total of five semi-structured in-depth interviews with the representatives of the Clowns Without Borders, as well as artists working within it. In addition, secondary data has primarily been gathered from the CWB USA blog. Analysis of this data demonstrated that clowning in humanitarian settings can serve several functions. The results indicate that the humanitarian clown is a complex being and that clowns perceive their position in humanitarian world as defined by the unique human connection they establish with the people they work for. They among others can have the effect to bring about joy, happiness, self-reflection, physiological and psychosocial relief, hope, trust and community and can be perceived as an undervalued method of promoting psychosocial wellbeing in settings of humanitarian crisis.

Esse estudo visou demonstrar a existência de uma literatura da atualidade que trata do gaúcho e do \"gaucho\" e do universo que o cerca por meio de formas e conteúdos específicos. Assim, são nossos objetivos evidenciar em que medida os contos de Sergio Faraco e Mario Arregui podem ser considerados gauchescos e apontar as semelhanças e as diferenças da literatura, tanto do escritor brasileiro como do uruguaio, no processo de criação de uma identidade regional fronteiriça, o que os classificaria como regionalistas num sentido amplo. / This study sought to demonstrate the existence of a literature in the present time that shows the \"gaúcho\" and \"gaucho\" and their universe through specific forms and contents. This analysis tried to evidence the reason of Faraco\'s short stories and Arregui´s short stories can be considered \"gauchescos\". This study also tried to show the similarities and the differences of literature, as much of the Brazilian writer as of the Uruguayan, in the process of creation of a bordering regional identity.

Ce travail explore la « francophonie translingue », littérature écrite en français par des auteurs dont le français est une langue seconde, apprise tardivement par une démarche individuelle. Au sein de cet ensemble est examinée l’œuvre à la fois représentative et problématique d’Agota Kristof.Qu’implique le choix d’écrire en français, lorsque le français est une langue seconde, apprise par une démarche volontaire à un âge relativement avancé ? S’agit-il d’une simple « conversion » à un centre politique et littéraire prestigieux et à sa tradition littéraire, ou bien d’une pratique littéraire hybride, qui perturbe les liens supposés nécessaires entre langue, littérature et nation ?Une première partie de la recherche est consacrée à l’élaboration d’une poétique francophone translingue, qui rend compte des contraintes communes des écrivains du point de vue de l’institution littéraire, de la diversité et complémentarité de leurs imaginaires des langues et de la traduction, des régularités formelles et thématiques dans leurs œuvres.Dans une deuxième partie est abordée l’œuvre d’Agota Kristof. Son appartenance à la francophonie translingue constitue le point de départ pour interroger les positionnements de l’auteure, les transformations de sa poétique et les stratégies d’écriture qu’elle déploie.Si l’œuvre d’Agota Kristof gagne à être lue au prisme de la francophonie translingue, inversement la francophonie translingue mérite d’être « mise à l’épreuve » d’une écrivaine qui semble excéder son cadre. / This doctoral thesis explores literature written in French by non-native authors who learned the language of their writing relatively late. Among this literature, which I propose referring to as “translingual francophone literature”, I focus on work which is both representative and problematic of Hungarian-Swiss writer Agota Kristof. While the conceptualization of translingual francophone literature sheds new light on Kristof’s oeuvre, the single author analysis also allows the concept to be tested.In the first part of my work, I describe the elements of translingual Francophone poetics. I contend that translingual francophone writers share several formal choices, as well as institutional constraints; I then analyze the representations of languages and translation in their work, which work as rival positions in the translingual discursive space. Lastly I examine their narratives in novel and autobiography, whose frequent topics show their common intentions and the variety of literary solutions.In the second part of the thesis, I consider the work of Agota Kristof. Translingual francophone literature will not be an explanatory principle, but the starting point of the investigation. Through this lens I will examine the author’s isolation strategy in the French literary field and in the translingual discursive space, her trajectory from Hungarian poetry to French novel through self-translation and theater, her representation of languages as separate, non-communicating entities, the importance of the theme of the border in her plays and novels and the construction of an “illiterate writing” through her mature work.