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Emerging landscapes : memory, trauma and its afterimage in post-apartheid Namibia and South AfricaBrandt, Nicola January 2014 (has links)
Visual records of place remain to a large degree inadequate when attempting to make visible the ephemeral states of consciousness that underlie the damage wrought by brutal regimes, let alone make visible the extraordinary histories and power structures encoded in images and views. This practice-led dissertation examines an emerging critical landscape genre in post-apartheid South Africa and Namibia, and its relationship to specific themes such as identity, belonging, trauma and memory. The landscape genre was traditionally considered inadequate to use in expressions of resistance under apartheid, particularly in the socially conscious and reformist discourse of South African documentary photography. I argue that, as a result of historical and cultural shifts after the demise of apartheid in 1994, a shift in aesthetic and subject matter has occurred, one that has led to a more rigorous and interventionist engagement with the landscape genre. I demonstrate how, after 1994, photographers of the long-established documentary tradition, which was meant to record 'what is there' in a sharp, clear, legible and impartial manner, would continue to draw on devices of the documentary aesthetic, but in a more idiosyncratic way. I show how these post-apartheid, documentary landscapes both disrupt and complicate the conventional expectations involved in converting visual fields into knowledge. I further investigate, through my own experimental documentary work, the ideologically fraught aspects of landscape representation with their links to Calvinist and German Romantic aesthetics. I appropriate and disrupt certain tropes still prevalent in popular landscape depictions. I do this in an effort to reveal the complex and troubled relationship that these traditions share with issues of willed historical amnesia and recognition in contemporary Namibia. Through my practice and the examination of other photographers' and artists' work, this project aims to further a self-reflective and critical approach to the genre of landscape and issues of identity in post-apartheid South Africa and Namibia.
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Challenges to effective treaty-making in contemporary transnational commercial law : lessons from the Cape Town ConventionDidenko, Anton January 2017 (has links)
This thesis is the first detailed and comprehensive research of the history of the 2001 Convention on International Interests in Mobile Equipment (the 'Convention' or 'CTC') and its protocols. It is submitted that the quality of response to the various challenges of the treaty-making process can serve as a measure of a convention's success, and that the unique characteristics of the CTC make it a prime target for such research. The author identifies and analyses the most problematic issues in the process of development of the Convention and its protocols, including the latest draft protocol on mining, agricultural and construction equipment. This research focuses on the documentary history of the CTC and its Aircraft Protocol (as the only protocol currently in force), relying primarily on the materials published by UNIDROIT and other international organisations, and shows that not all of the challenges found an adequate response in the Convention. Nonetheless, the shortcomings pale in comparison with the Convention's achievements: the CTC has created a highly effective machinery for regulating international interests in mobile assets. The author does not perform empirical ex post analysis of implementation of the Cape Town Convention, but this thesis will form a solid background for such research in the future. This study, apart from its scholarly importance, has clear practical value: its conclusions (including a number of treaty-making lessons originating from this research) can assist governmental officials, representatives of international organisations and legal advisors (both external and internal) participating in the treaty-making process and, it is hoped, will strengthen he attractiveness of conventions as an instrument of harmonising commercial law in the future.
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Conditional Truths: Remapping Paths To Documentary 'Independence'Lang, Ian William, n/a January 2003 (has links)
(Synopsis to introductory statement): An introductory statement to five documentary films made by Ian Lang in Australia between 1981 and 1997 exemplifying a 'democratising' model of sustainable and ethical documentary film production. This document critically reflects on the production process of these films to accompany their submission for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy by Publication at Griffith University. It finds that a contemporary tendency towards 'post-industrial' conditions allows an observational film-maker to negotiate a critical inter-dependence rather than a romantically conceived 'independence' traditional to the genre. [Full thesis consists of introductory statement plus six DVD videodiscs.]
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