The thesis offers a first-hand historically informed research on the trajectory of the making of the post-colonial state in Somalia (1940-60). It does so by investigating the interplay between the emergence and diffusion of national movements following the defeat of the Italians in 1941 and the establishment of a British Military Administration, and the process of decolonisation through a 10-year UN trusteeship to Italy in 1950. It examines the extent to which the features of Somali nationalism were affected/shaped by the institutional framework established by the UN mandate. The central argument of the thesis is that the imposition of the UN trusteeship, rather than enabling democratization, led to a ‘verticalisation’ of Somali nationalism and created a highly restrictive political space. Based on a combination of archival and oral sources, the thesis explores the socioeconomic context and possibilities of the wartime. It argues that Somali nationalism developed an efficient and inclusive message that successfully engaged in dialogue with the masses in the 1940s. However, the protraction of the UN debate and the extension of the military administration caused the radicalisation of conflicts among different groups. The imposition of self-government and democratization through the trusteeship system led to the establishment of a highly centralised and fixed institutional framework. Within this context, not only nationalism came to lose its original horizontal and inclusive political line, but national politics were reduced to zero-sum competition to access power and power structures. Ultimately, this exclusive, autocratic and distorted version of the nation-state negatively affected the process of unification of Somalia and Somaliland. By exploring the political trajectory leading to independence and unification, the thesis enhances a broader understanding of the development of post-colonial politics in Somalia. It contributes to specific discussions that centred on the features of the colonial legacy, on the effects of state and nation building, and on the consolidation of a clan-based discourse in post-colonial politics.

This thesis explores the question of what factors shaped Rwandan ethnicity in the late 1950s and early 1960s; in particular, how and why was ethnicity transformed into ‘political tribalism’ in decolonising Rwanda? The Rwandan genocide in 1994 and the subsequent post-genocide peace-building have drawn our attention to the problems of ethnicity and nationalism. While ethnicity and nationalism in Africa have been a matter of debate amongst the primordialist, instrumentalist and constructivist schools, it has become more or less accepted knowledge that ethnicity in Africa was constructed by dynamic interactions between Europeans and Africans in particular colonial contexts. This constructivist approach may have advanced our understanding of ethnicity in pre-colonial and colonial Rwanda, but our perception of Rwandan ethnicity in the 1950s and 1960s has not benefited from this academic trend. Instead, the literature on this issue, most of which was written several decades ago, tends to take a primordialist approach towards the Rwandan Revolution and the ethnic conflict that emerged at the end of colonial period. By theoretically adhering to a constructivist approach, and relying on John Lonsdale’s ‘political tribalism’ model in particular, the thesis argues that to take a nuanced hybrid-constructivist approach is essential, because primordial ethnic conflict was not the cause of the Revolution and other historical events, but the other way round. Ethnicity in Rwanda was not simply invented by the Europeans during the colonial period, nor was it so primordial that the conflict between the Tutsi and the Hutu was inevitable; in fact, several conflicts (and not always along ethnic boundaries) existed, and even some alternatives were suggested for ethnic cooperation. Ethnicity went through a dynamic transformation into ‘political tribalism’ through interactions between Rwandans and non-Rwandans, as well as through relationships amongst different groups of Rwandans. Various domestic factors – including intra-Tutsi leadership rivalry, the alliance among the political parties and the inter-ethnic power struggle – affected the process of the Revolution, and politicised ethnicity. External factors, such as factions within the Belgian administrations as well as the heated debates in the Cold War-era United Nations, also provided opportunities for Rwandan ethnicity to become politicised. Contingency, the mass movement of people, violence and the processes of revolution and decolonisation had a synergistic impact on the spread of ‘political tribalism’ over Rwanda. Primordial perceptions on ethnicity, as well as interpretations of the past, and visions for the future held by each actor, were factors that shaped ethnicity and forced the ethnic split into the foreground. In this sense, Rwandan ethnicity cannot simply be understood through the dichotomised debate of primordialists and constructivists. Rather, it was a more dynamic process of ethnic transformation with unaccomplished alternatives and inter/intra-group relationships, strongly bound by the historical and political contexts of the time. ‘Political tribalism’ and interpretations of the past have influenced and, even today, continue to influence post-colonial Rwandan politics.

Yes / Even as a child, I loved museums. Science museums, history museums – I could spend hours losing myself in intricately designed and curated exhibits that would transport me to another place or another time. One of my favourite parts of the common museum in the United States were the “World History” or “World Cultures” section, the area in which all of the non-Western, non-European artefacts were kept. Here, sometimes tucked away in a corner, I would find the Chinese Cultural displays, places in which I could actually see items that resonated with my familial culture that often felt so different from my white friends and their families.

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Amongst Western political scientists and policy-makers, a perceived economic and political ‘crisis’ of the African state since the 1980s has produced a terminology of ‘weak states’, ‘quasi-states’ and ‘failed states’. Such terminology, however, represents a narrow and pathological understanding of the African state, one that has reduced its post-independence trajectory to a series of deviations from an ideal-typical – and largely Eurocentric – model of statehood. The normative standards of this ‘strong’ and ‘successful’ ideal of statehood have, predominantly, been defined by a government’s ability to exercise complete domestic authority, and to provide for the full welfare and development of its population. Within this paradigm, armed conflict, and a government’s reliance on foreign aid, are both seen to represent a country’s ‘lack’ of statehood. The application of these universal standards to Africa has tended to ignore the distinct historical context from which independent African states emerged. Using the example of French Cameroon, this thesis firstly establishes such a historical context, one that was significantly shaped by the limiting and shallow development efforts of colonial administrations. Importantly, however, this context was also constituted by new opportunities for international support that emerged during the post-war period, represented by the newly formed U.N., an increasing number of independent (and former colonial) states, as well as former colonial powers. It is a context that necessitates a more specific set of standards to analyse the exercise of statehood in Africa. The thesis consequently identifies one such standard – or function – of statehood: the ability to control access to external resources, through a claim to represent an internationally recognised state. It is a function in which recourse to external aid, and even armed conflict, become understandable as rational strategies that reinforce statehood in an African context, rather than negate it. The original contribution of the thesis, however, proceeds from identifying this function in a group that was excluded from the institutions, and even territory, of the Cameroonian state. That group was the Union des Populations du Cameroun (U.P.C.); a nationalist party that waged a guerrilla insurgency against Cameroon’s colonial and independent governments, and whose leadership predominantly remained in exile. By locating the U.P.C.’s history within this logic of African statehood, the thesis offers an alternative reading of the party’s campaign, and a means of understanding the relationship between its armed and diplomatic struggles. By examining how the U.P.C. competed with Cameroon’s government to successfully perform a fundamental function of African statehood, the thesis enables a more detailed analysis of its underlying dynamics, and interrogates the basis upon which the party – and indeed the African state – have been conventionally judged as ‘failed’. Finally, the thesis contributes to a growing number of studies that have sought to examine empire and decolonisation from a transnational perspective, studying the complex and contingent relationships between local, national, regional and international histories.

This dissertation explores the notion of decolonial reconstruction to promote the decolonising process in South Africa. Decolonial reconstruction entails the creation of a new South African society through a clear paradigmatic shift from a Eurocentric one to a decolonising paradigm. Decolonising is required in South Africa due to its colonial past, as well as the fact that contemporary South African society is neocolonial. In order to change the neocolonial status quo, it is necessary to create a decolonising framework. For the purposes of this dissertation the framework will be applied to South African universities. Universities are the focus because they exist as microcosms of the broader South African society. A tetralogy of books by Kenyan author Ngũgĩ wa Thiong’o provide the blueprint for the four aspects of the decolonising framework. These four aspects are: decolonising the mind; moving the centre; re-membering Africa; and globalectics. Decolonising the mind addresses the fact that in order to begin decolonising one must start with the minds of the coloniser and colonised and begin to shift their minds away from a colonial or neocolonial paradigm. In terms of the second aspect of the decolonising framework, it is necessary to move the centre away from Eurocentrism towards a multiplicity of centres. Another aspect of the decolonising framework is re-membering Africa, this is pertinent as Africa underwent dismemberment through colonialism which brought about epistemicide. As a result, it is necessary to put African cultures and epistemologies back together by re-membering them. The final aspect of the decolonising framework is to enter into global dialectics so that cultures and epistemologies can learn from each other and come to coexist in a pluraversal world. Through applying this framework to South African universities, they can undertake a decolonising process of decolonial reconstruction that will make them into pluriversities which promote harmony and coexistence. / Mini Dissertation (LLM)--University of Pretoria, 2019. / Jurisprudence / LLM / Unrestricted

This thesis is about the power of political elites to establish the framework of political discourse, and to thereby control political power, in Puerto Rico. The Puerto Rican 'status question' - the debate about the island's ultimate juridical and political relationship with the United States and the rest of the world – is considered a manifestation of such power. Formal domestic politics in Puerto Rico is structured around three party political desires for an uncertain and unknowable postcolonial future, and not around any set of distinctive ideological positions for engaging with political issues in the present. An unresolved question of nationalism and state building therefore becomes the structural filter through which all politics must necessarily pass. Inspired by the concept of hegemony, the thesis is firstly interested in how political elites exercise power to establish status as the framework for domestic political discourse. Secondly, and more importantly, it is interested in how this framework is reinforced, modified, resisted and even overcome through elite exercises of power in concrete political settings. The thesis takes a particular focus on the relationship between status positions and everyday political practices in three Puerto Rican municipalities: Guaynabo, Caguas and Lares. The author arrived at this focus through an ethnographic engagement with the field that was made possible by his research positionality as a white British outsider to Puerto Rico. The thesis tells the story of the nuanced ways in which local political elites engage with the status question through practices of politics on the ground. Elite performances of local state power do not straightforwardly reproduce the hegemony of status, but rather, create a more complicated empirical terrain of contradictory, unexpected and subversive effects. In certain places, everyday practices of municipal politics appear to reflect the intractable entanglement of local priorities and centrally prescribed status positions. In others, politics gets done in ways that leave the status question behind, creating effects that include city-state sovereignty, elevated standards of living, non-nationalist forms of politics, and non-state-centric possibilities for decolonisation. Ironically, therefore, a political system that is so profoundly shaped by discourses of nationalism and state building is disrupted in practice by some of the very actors who help to give the system this shape. These findings contribute to critical geographies of the Caribbean and to recent debates on politics, power and decolonisation in Puerto Rico.

This thesis explores the engagement of a group of Mapuche-Pewenche communities with tourism in southern Chile. I argue that Trekaleyin, their tourism initiative, is part of a broader and long history of resistance and struggles for autonomy, territory and decolonisation, in which identity, development, agency and relations with other beings are negotiated, revitalised and re-produced. From my experience working as a development practitioner with these communities in the beginnings of Trekaleyin, I became interested in understanding the ways in which, as a collective experience, it is embedded in and articulated with political concerns and contestation with regards to neoliberalism and multiculturalism. I also became interested in how the communities are incorporating and reactivating diverse and solidarity economies in their work on tourism, while at the same time reworking their relations with and the market economy itself. I suggest that through Trekaleyin, the communities are also re-producing a relational and open sense of place and connectivity, mobilising particular ways of knowing, being and relating to territory and more-than-human beings in a context of global neoliberalism, reshaping scales and their possibilities. With this thesis I aim to explore how, through their engagement in tourism, community members are disrupting, expanding and hybridising discourses and practices around development, the economy, nature and cross-cultural relations, reworking them so as to craft a better position from where they can participate in them, but the consequences of which extend beyond the “local”, affecting us all, both indigenous and non-indigenous. Therefore, from an ethnographic site and poststructural, post-human and decolonising geographic approaches, this thesis brings new perspectives to the study of development, tourism and the environment, particularly among indigenous peoples, in which autonomy, hybridity, diversity and relational ontologies are articulated.

The relationship between humans and houseplants is crucial in wakening empathy for the natural world. One day I started to wonder, why do we put so much effort and money into adapting tropical plants to grow indoors when we have millions of local plant species growing in our environment outdoors.

The salience of English as the main language of instruction at tertiary institutions across South Africa has not been without critique. At the University of Cape Town, henceforth UCT, conversations surrounding language and academic success have become bolstered by the rhetoric of decolonisation, necessitating a review of policy and practice. This in turn has opened up research opportunities pertaining to student and staff experiences of language at the institution. This thesis is a response to the urgent need for ethnographic focus on the language situation at UCT and higher education institutions countrywide, where increasingly light falls on the language question within quests for decolonisation and social justice. Focusing the language question within frameworks of decoloniality, glocalisation, translanguaging and the development of African languages in education, this thesis distills ethnographic data to argue that language borders need to be reevaluated in a quest for conviviality informed by the universality of incompleteness, where fluidity, interconnection, and interdependence are prioritised over the current dominance of English. Grounded in rich ethnographic evidence in the form of student interviews and reflections, meeting at the intersection of social and linguistic anthropology, this thesis grapples with the critical questions: “What is language at UCT? And what does language do?”