This thesis consists of two parts – a creative work, Memory and Memorialisation, and an exegesis, Writing Women’s Lives: Women’s Autobiographies,that documents the writing process and the theoretical perspectives informing it at various stages. It is the result of a twelve year investigation into the writing process; the nature of memory, death and desire in objects and places; and their role in personal representation. The exegesis highlights the difficulties encountered in simultaneously writing and critiquing one’s own autobiographical works. As autobiography is also written ‘in relation to’ significant others, the emotional, ethical and legal issues inherent in the writing and publication of autobiographical works are explored. The creative work is not a unitary text and comprises a collection of fragmented yet connected autobiographical stories that experiment with form using archival collections – a blending of memory with family and local history – the results of excavating the past to make meaning in the present. Images are used singly and in collages to signify the temporality and intertextuality of these auto/biographical acts. Restriction: View part thesis only. Contact UWS Library for terms of full-access. / Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2008. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

This research has focused on the concept of intergenerational trauma, elaborating on the post-Apartheid condition. Drawing on trauma theory, such as that provided by clinical and psychoanalytic approaches on the one hand, and on narrative and identity theory on the other, the project examines the long-term implications of Apartheid, particularly for the identities of post-Apartheid generations. The families who participated in this study all experienced a particular traumatic event, personally experiencing the political violence of Apartheid. However, the study focused on how this event has been integrated into and represented in family histories, how what is ‘said’ and what remains ‘unsaid’ within families functions and constitutes their identities in their ongoing lived experiences. Women’s narratives, often considered secondary to the grand narratives of struggle and conflict, are drawn out to show the ways, as primary caregivers, they form the pivot for the (intergenerational) transmission of secondary traumatisation or for negotiating new versions of family history that make it possible for both them and their children to create meaningful lives in the shadow of their tragedies. Utilising a narrative method which explores the interactional dynamics, structure and content of participants’ stories, the narratives of these women and their children are analysed first for the ways in which what was said (and even what remained ‘unsaid’) was complicated by the ‘interactional dynamics’ of research and, in particular, research across a language divide. The second layer of analysis attends to the narrative structure or form in which the stories are told. The final phase of analysis focuses on the thematic content of the narratives. In telling classic ‘trauma’ stories, of the political deaths of family members and partners under Apartheid, these women spoke of events which marked ‘turning points’ in their lives and which continue to leave their mark in their embodied experience. They also told of navigating a context of continued and pervasive violence, speaking of the violences of today, particularly domestic and sexual violence and HIV/AIDS, and they link these to their own embodied experiences after the political trauma event. Through intergenerational talk on relationships and sexuality, mothers attempt to navigate and negotiate new versions of family history for their children, as they try to create lives for their children that are dissimilar to their own, particularly with regard to violence. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2009.

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This study investigated the subjectively constructed narratives of individual change for lead persons in a Therapeutic Enactment (Westwood, Keats & Wilensky, in press). Narrative investigation of Therapeutic Enactment to date has not been conducted and, as such, the study is important to the field of counselling psychology and the further development of Therapeutic Enactment. In terms of both theory and practice the study expands our understanding of the complexities of the change process in Therapeutic Enactment. It also provides the unique personal contexts related to change and it provides concrete examples of what actually changes in the lives of lead persons in Therapeutic Enactment. In this study, the co-researchers consisted of 4 female lead persons and 2 male lead persons, who had taken part in their own Therapeutic Enactment at a residential retreat on the outskirts of Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada. The co-researchers were interviewed in-depth using person-centred narrative interviewing techniques, combined with semi-structured interview questions. Five narratives were written in the first person focusing on the subjective experience of individual change in Therapeutic Enactment. Each narrative was returned to the respective co-researcher for editing and validation at which point co-researchers removed portions of the narratives they did not want included in the study and then added or amended content that they did want to be included in the study. The principal researcher made the requested changes and then returned final copies of the narratives to each of the co-researchers. The final narratives are presented herein. The co-constructed narratives indicate that lead persons in Therapeutic Enactment experienced change on six general levels including body sensations, emotions, behaviours, thoughts, relationships and spiritual connection. This study provides an in-depth examination of the subjective narratives of individual change in Therapeutic Enactment.

This thesis interrogates the Matabeleland disturbances of 1980-1987 by analysing the conflict narratives promulgated by the ZANU-PF and how these narratives directly impacted the socio-political construction of violence that was enacted during that period. Of critical relevance is the interplay between the revolutionary narratives manufactured and imposed by the ZANU-PF regime and the myriad of contrasting, yet subjugated counter-narratives that were formulated as alternative resistances by the recipient communities. Through in-depth interview and document analysis methodologies, this research deconstructs the generative nature of scripted violence through the exploration of five salient themes employed by the ZANU-PF to produce its political meta-narrative: Ethnicity, Nationalism, Loyalty, Legitimacy and Unity. This study explores the power and function of narrative discourse in the formulation of ethnic identities, nation-state ordering, historical exclusion, political discipline, and social uniformity. The premise of this dissertation suggests that durable peace in Zimbabwe will only be realised to the degree that the silenced victims of the Matabeleland massacres are afforded a public voice and a sustained recognition in the historic, collective memory of that nation. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2009.

This present study examines the structural impact of language contact on discourse information marking in narrative. It focuses on the surface patterns and underlying linguistic principles used to describe the foregrounding events in traditional and modem short stories, written in Indonesian (the official language of Indonesia) and Sundanese (the native language of West Java province). These two languages have been in an intensive contact since 1945.The data indicate that aspect sets apart background from foreground, whereas tense distinguishes ordinary from significant within the background and foreground levels. Cross-linguistically, the ordinary background information appears in existential, stative, and progressive constructions, marked by the underlying past-tense and imperfective aspect; the significant background and significant foreground types occur in a direct speech and/or direct quote, with the underlying Historical Present. Besides signaling a switch from the past-tense to the HP, the direct speech or direct quote also marks a shift in deixis, distal to proximal. The ordinary foreground information, containing events that advance the story, appears in the underlying past-tense and perfective aspect.The surface markings of the ordinary foreground events, however, are different. In the traditional and modern Indonesian data, these events are dominantly depicted in the active-voice structure. The traditional and modern Sundanese texts, on the other hand, show two different dominant surface marking patterns: the KA (particle) and the active-voice constructions respectively. This appears as a shift in the surface marking strategy attributed to the Indonesian structural influence. The KA- to active voice surface-marking strategy shift indicates the change from the KA + Topic – Comment pattern to the Subject – Predicate structure, suggesting the adoption of the SVX word-order pattern. This affects not only the pragmatic relations of the constituents in an utterance, but also the marking of given-new information distinction.The study demonstrates that the KA to active-voice marking shift in the modern Sundanese data is mitigated by the long-term language contact with Indonesian. Follow-up investigations with varied narrative themes and oral speech data are warranted. Since the shift also appears to indicate the authors' unbalanced bilingual skills, it raises an issue pertinent to the current teaching of Sundanese in the West-Javanese provincial curriculum. / Department of English

Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2002. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study explores patterns of separation and/or connection in the narratives of the respondent, a female farm worker living and working in the Western Cape, South Africa. The major objective of this qualitative case study is to examine the possible construction, co-existence and interaction of separation-connection themes in the reality of the respondent. Founded within the social constructivist tradition, an approach that assumes reality to be constructed through language and within relationships, a window on the respondent's narrative construction of her reality, relationships and separation-connection processes was obtained. To compliment the explorative nature and social constructionist approach of the study, Grounded Theory and Narrative Analysis were administrated. Through the analysis the two central themes, separation and connection, manifested on two different levels - firstly on a content level (what the participant has to say regarding the themes) and secondly on a process level (what is happening between participant and researcher). Findings provided a preliminary understanding of the techniques the respondent implores to construe a sense of separation and connection. Results confirmed the co-existence of separation-connection themes and indicated a possible interaction between the two constructs. Findings also provided a glimpse on the experiences and impact of the separation-connection process in the idiom of the respondent. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Die studie belig patrone van binding en/of skeiding in die narratiewe van die respondent, In vroulike plaaswerker in die Wes-Kaap, Suid-Afrika. Dié kwalitatiewe gevallestudie is gerig op In ondersoek van die potensiële konstruksie, naasbestaan en interaksie van binding- en/of skeidingstemas soos wat die respondent dit beleef en verwoord. Deur die fundering van die navorsing in die sosiaal-konstruktivistiese tradisie, In benadering wat glo dat die realiteit in verhoudings via taal gekonstrueer word, is toegang tot die respondent se narratiewe konstruksie van haar realiteit, verhoudings en binding- en/of skeidingstemas verkry. In ooreenstemming met sosiaal-konstruktivistiese aannames, het die data-analise Narratiewe Analise en Grounded Theory metodiek behels. Met behulp van die ontleding het die twee sentrale konsepte, binding en skeiding, op twee vlakke gemanifesteer - eerstens op In inhoudsvlak (dit wat die respondent daaroor vertel) en tweedens op In prosesvlak (dit wat tussen die respondent en die onderhoudvoerder gebeur). Die resultate bied In voorlopige verstaan van die wyses waarop die respondent binding en/of skeiding konstrueer. Bevindings bevestig die naasbestaan van binding- en skeidingstemas en dui op In moontlike interaksie tussen dié twee konstrukte. Die studie verskaf ook In blik op die respondent se ervaring van die konstrukte in haar eie idioom.

Thesis (Ph.D.) - Swinburne University of Technology - 2001. / Submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy, School of Business, Swinburne University of Technology - 2001. Typescript. Includes bibliographical references (p. 360-372).

Thesis (Ph. D.)--State University of New York at Binghamton, Decker School of Nursing, 2008. / Includes bibliographical references.