Thesis (Ph. D.)--University of South Africa, 2002.

Thesis (MA)--Stellenbosch University, 2010. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Two separate texts are submitted towards the degree MA in Kreatiewe Afrikaanse Skryfkunde. Firstly, a thesis with the title ‘’n Kritiese ondersoek na die Afrikanerbees as ideologiese kulturele fenomeen binne die konteks van Afrikanernasionalisme’, and secondly a novel titled Die nalatenis. The novel and the thesis are thematically related. The focus of the thesis is the ideological character of the Afrikaner cattle as a cultural phenomenon within the context of Afrikaner nationalism. The novel tells the story of a certain family’s fate and their special connection to the breeding of Afrikaner cattle in the Free State. Firstly I need to make it clear that the theme of this thesis was not lightly chosen, but that I do have a personal interest in the material. My uncle and aunt were well-know Afrikaner cattle breeders, each from families who have been renowned for their association with the stud breeding of these cattle for many generations. Since my aunt was an enthusiastic collector of family history, I have since childhood been familiar with the stories about certain family personalities and their love for their cattle. In my version of the stories, and my research on the subject, I wanted to explore the connection between this cattle breed and the Afrikaner culture. I aim to demythologize the histories to a certain extent and give a critical commentary on certain constructions of these histories. To examine these issues, J.B Thompson’s (1990) critical theory of ideology will be used as main theoretical tool. Thompson identifies certain ideological practices and strategies of symbolic construction through which relations of domination are established and sustained in the social world. These concepts will be used to examine the ideological character of the Afrikaner cattle breed as symbolic form and the strategies that were used to establish it as such. Through an analysis of a number of texts I will identify the different meanings and values that were associated with the Afrikaner cattle within the context of Afrikaner nationalism. I will aim to establish if and how these values served to sustain the relations of domination associated with Afrikaner nationalism. The novel tells the story of Ragel, ’n young photographer, who is her late uncle and aunt’s only heir. She inherits the farm and needs to decide what to do with it. She is also the last keeper of a family secret. She and her boyfriend are relocating to London and he has proposed to her. The news of her uncle’s death also triggers the pain of previous losses – especially her own mother traumatic death. Where she sits locked in her darkroom in this liminal state, the larger family saga is played out: the story of the patriarg Rooi Jakob, who blessed the wrong child; of Anna who had to flee during the war with her children and cattle; of Magriet who rejected her younger son and the resulting rivalry between the two brothers, Louis and Jakob; and of course the small love story of Beth and Louis, whose fateful relationship brought everything to a bitter end. The novel is based on the theory that a family photo album can also be a self-portrait in which one can (re)discover oneself. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Twee afsonderlike werkstukke word hier ingehandig ter verkryging van die graad MA in Kreatiewe Afrikaanse Skryfkunde. Eerstens, ’n tesis met die titel: “’n Kritiese ondersoek na die Afrikanerbees as ideologiese kulturele fenomeen binne die konteks van Afrikanernasionalisme”. Tweedens ’n roman getiteld Die nalatenis. Die roman en tesis hou tematies met mekaar verband. Die fokus van die navorsing is die ideologiese aard van die Afrikanerbees as gekontekstualiseerde fenomeen gedurende, en ná, die opkoms van Afrikanernasionalisme. Die roman handel oor ’n sekere familie se lot en spesiale verbintenis met die teel van Afrikanerbeeste in die Vrystaat. Ek wil dit graag aan die begin van die betoog stel dat die tematiek van die tesis nie lukraak gekies is as studie-onderwerp nie, maar dat ek ’n persoonlike belang het in die stof waarmee ek hier omgaan. My oom en tannie was bekende Afrikanerbeestelers, elk uit families wat vir geslagte reeds geassosieer is met die stoet teling van dié beesras. Aangesien my tannie ’n entoesiastiese versamelaar van die familiegeskiedenis was, is ek van kleins af bekend met vertellings oor sekere familiepersoonlikhede en hul liefde vir hul beeste. In my weergawe van die verhale, en navorsing oor die onderwerp, wou ek die besondere verhouding tussen dié beesras en die Afrikanerkultuur ondersoek. In hierdie tesis poog ek om die geskiedenis tot ’n mate te ontmitologiseer en kritiese kommentaar te lewer op sekere konstruksies daarvan. Vir dié ondersoek sal J.B Thompson (1990) se kritiese teorie oor ideologie as belangrikste teoretiese gereedskap gebruik word. Thompson identifiseer sekere ideologiese praktyke en strategieë van simboliese konstruksie waardeur magsverhoudinge in stand gehou word in die sosiale wêreld. Aan die hand hiervan sal daar ondersoek ingestel word na die ideologiese aard van die Afrikanerbees as simboliese vorm en die strategieë wat gebruik is om dit te vestig. Deur die analise van enkele tekste sal daar gekyk word na die verskillende betekeniswaardes wat binne die konteks van Afrikanernasionalisme aan die Afrikanerbees toegeken is. Daar sal vasgestel word of en hoe hierdie betekenisse kon dien om die magsverhoudinge wat Afrikanernasionalisme gekenmerk het, te konstrueer en te ondersteun. Die roman vertel die verhaal van Ragel, ’n effens labiele jong fotograaf, wat die enigste erfgenaam is van haar pas oorlede oom en tante. Sy erf die plaas en beeskuddes, en moet besluit wat sy daarmee sal doen. Sy is ook die laaste bewaarder van ’n familiegeheim. Sy en haar kêrel staan op die punt om na Londen te verhuis en hy het haar gevra om te trou. Die nuus van haar oom se dood, die laaste van haar familie, roep vir Ragel alle vorige verliese op – veral ook die traumatiese dood van haar ma. Waar Ragel toegesluit in haar donkerkamer in hierdie liminale toestand verkeer, speel ook die groter familieverhaal homself af: die verhaal van familievader Rooi Jakob wat die verkeerde kind geseën het; van Anna wat in die oorlog moes vlug met haar kinders en beeste; van Magriet wat haar jonger seun verwerp het en die gevolglike wedywering tussen die twee broers, Louis en Jakob; en dan natuurlik ook die klein liefdesgeskiedenis van Beth en Louis, ’n lotsverbintenis wat alles tot ’n bitter einde gevoer het. Die verhaal is gevorm op die teorie dat ’n familie-fotoalbum ook ’n soort selfportret kan wees waarin ’n mens jouself kan (her)ontdek.

This thesis examines the construction and utilization of gender in religious nationalist projects. Communalist groups sacralize gendered understandings of time, space, and community, rooted in the bifurcation of the public (masculine) realm and the private (feminine) sphere. Nationalist understandings of citizenship maintain the public and private division, but acknowledge the potential to politicize both. In this conception of citizenship, the private (feminine) is deployed to achieve social and religious change. This thesis analyzes two contemporary South Asian transnationalist groups, the Muslim Tablighi Jama`at and the Hindu Vishwa Hindu Parishad, and investigates women's participation in the nation as cultural repositories and as pedagogues. In these roles, women are able to recover and disseminate the "true" values and identity of the degenerate community, thereby revitalizing the nation. However, while women are empowered in these roles, they are simultaneously limited by patriarchal expectations of ideal womanly behaviour.

It has become commonplace in academic studies, particularly those with a critical bent, to view nations as being historical constructs, as being without essence, though not without effects of exclusion and inclusion, of the constitution of the „authentic‟ national subject and the „other of the nation.‟ The critical impetus at work here is to show how a nation is constructed in order to bring into view the knowledge and power relations this construction entails, to show whose interests the construction serves, and whose it does not. This study examines the discursive production, the performative enactment and the spatial emplacement of post-apartheid „South Africanness‟ through a case study of Oppikoppi music festival. Oppikoppi is an annual event that emerged in 1994, on the threshold of the „new South Africa.‟ The festival is attended predominantly by young white Afrikaans-speaking South Africans and is held on a farm in the northernmost province of Limpopo, South Africa, an area notoriously conservative in its racial politics. Yet, curiously, Oppikoppi has been repeatedly referred to, and refers to itself with an almost obsessive regularity and repetitiveness, as a „truly South African‟ event. Indeed, the festival has been promoted, since 1998, as „The Home of South African Music,‟ and in 2009 the site of the festival was unofficially declared a „national monument.‟ Through the employment of concepts drawn from the writings of French philosopher and historian, Michel Foucault – particularly his earlier archaeological works – and from Sigmund Freud – particularly his metapsychological works – this study has posed two broad sets of questions. Firstly, from a Foucauldian perspective, what have been the conditions for the production of „South Africanness‟ at this festival? What have been the requirements, the discursive „rules of the game‟ for whiteness and Afrikanerness to become „South African‟? To what extent does this constitution of the festival as a „South African‟ event preserve older lines of division, difference and oppression? To what extent does this bring about meaningful social change? Secondly, from a psychoanalytic perspective, what are the fantasies constellated in the discourse of the festival as a „South African‟ event? Who, in these fantasies, is constituted as the „other of the post-apartheid nation‟? How has fantasy provided a kind of „hallucinatory gratification,‟ a phantasmatic compensation for, and a means of conserving, the losses of privilege in the new nation? And how has fantasy oriented the festival towards post-apartheid sociality, soliciting identifications with the post-apartheid nation? The overarching argument proposed is that anti-apartheid post-apartheid nation building has cultivated a melancholic loss of apartheid for whites in general and Afrikaners in particular, a loss that cannot be grieved – indeed, a loss that should not be grieved – and, as such, a grief that takes on an unconscious afterlife. Apartheid and the life it enabled – not only racialised privilege, but also a structure of identification and idealisation, of being and having – becomes a loss that is buried in, and by, the injunctions issued to post-apartheid memory and conduct. Without the discursive resources with which to symbolise this loss, disguised repetitions of the past, a neurotic refinding of the lost objects of apartheid, and melancholia are the likely outcomes, each of which engender a set of exclusions and enjoyments that run along old and new lines.

No description available.

The struggle reaches back to the days of the first white settlement in our country. In this chapter we will look at some of these traditions of our struggle. We will learn more about the people who were in South Africa when the settlers came, and how they fought bravely to live in peace on their land. We will also read about the many changes that happened, particularly after diamonds and gold were discovered and how people continued to struggle against the new conditions that made their lives even harder. / “We call the farmers of the reserves and trust lands. Let us speak of the wide land, and the narrow strips on which we toil. Let us speak of brothers without land, and of children without schooling. Let us speak of taxes and of cattle, and of famine. LET US SPEAK OF FREEDOM.”

M.A. (History) / The main purpose of this study is to expose a hidden dimension in the annals of African resistance politics. This dimension has never received adequate attention thus the repercussions of its influence has not been adequately accounted for. This dimension is centred on the causes and consequences of conflict between the ANC Africanist Youth League and the Communist Party. The Africanist Youth League was convinced that its conflict with the Communist Party was in defence of African nationalism and self-determination. The Communist Party's infiltration of the ANC and its concerted efforts to derail it and the Youth League from African Nationalism, comes under critical scrutiny in this study. Thus, the popular view of the Youth League's conflict with the ANC is proved to have been the sub-plot of the main ideological rivalry between the Communist Party and the ANC Youth League.

No description available.

No abstract available. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1985.

Throughout South Africa’s post-Apartheid history, the ANC-led government has undertaken a distinct nation-building program in pursuit of “a truly united, democratic and prosperous South Africa” (ANC, 2007). This is reflected in a two-pronged approach, coupling political and socioeconomic transformation with the social-psychological aspect of forging a broad and inclusive national consciousness. The ANC’s “rainbow nation” approach embraces cultural diversity through what I shall call the practice of “interculturalism”. Interculturalism is a way of recognizing commonalities, reducing tensions and promoting the formation of social partnerships among different cultural groups. The ANC has also promoted a civic culture based on the principles of liberal democracy, non-racism, equality and the protection of individual rights. Interculturalism and civic nationalism are critically important factors to South African nation-building since together they foster a shared public culture and support meaningful participation in the creation of a truly just and democratic South Africa. Unfortunately, in many ways South African society remains deeply divided by race, ethnicity and economic inequality. This thesis analyses various theoretical approaches to national identity and nationbuilding with the aim of identifying several concepts which arguably throw light on the problems of South African nation-building and national identity formation. It is argued that interculturalism and civic nationalism are context appropriate approaches which have been adopted by the ANC to further an inclusive sense of shared public culture and promote participation in the creation of a shared public future. These approaches have led to the limited emergence of a broad South African national identity. However, South Africa’s commitment to socio-economic transformation has been less successful in generating widespread support for a broad national identity. While some of those previously disadvantaged under Apartheid have benefited from poverty alleviation schemes, service delivery initiatives and black economic empowerment programs, many continue to suffer from homelessness, unemployment and worsening economic conditions. Increasing economic marginalization has caused growing discontent among South Africa’s poor and constitutes the biggest threat to the formation of a cohesive national identity in South African society. Ultimately, it is argued that while interculturalism and civic nationalism have played an important role in fostering the growth of a broad national identity, true South African social cohesion will fail to emerge without a massive and sustained commitment to wide-ranging socio-economic transformation.