This thesis attempts to develop a concept of 'ecological misapprehension' by means of an object-oriented ecocritical analysis of several works by J. M. Coetzee. Noting Coetzee's profound, often overlooked interest in nonhuman, nonanimal ecological existents (on the one hand), and his neomodernist propensity to interrogate the viability of signification (on the other), I argue that his works repeatedly gesture towards an ontological reality of ecological objects that is necessarily extratextual. I further argue that if human ‘readers’—both of and within Coetzee’s fiction—are inextricably entangled within modes of discourse by which meaning is made of those objects, the encounter between human subject and ecological object always takes place across a discursive threshold best understood in terms of the ‘irreducible gap’ that object-oriented ontology identifies between an object’s being and its perception. This gap problematises our apprehension of the ecological object as such, thus rendering ecological misapprehension inevitable—and, by extension, demanding that we remain attuned to the character, density, or degree of our propensity to misapprehend. Variants of this dynamic—and its troubling ramifications—are illuminated by means of close readings of a range of Coetzee’s texts, with particular attention paid to Disgrace, Life & Times of Michael K, and the short story ‘Nietverloren’, and are subsequently compared with examples of misapprehension in the world beyond the page. By developing this concept and identifying examples of it both within and without Coetzee’s works, the thesis aims to illuminate a fundamental obstacle to productive modes of environmental thinking in the Anthropocene, to suggest the activist potential of metafiction and the postmodernist reading practices it encourages, and to reaffirm the potential social utility of literary scholarship when it is conducted with an awareness of its own tendency to misapprehend.

The primary question of this study is: How does the disruption of African art discourse influence a group of university students’ perceptions of African aesthetics? This inquiry developed from previous studies on the exclusion of modern and contemporary African art in Western art museums. Through the theoretical lens of Postcolonial Theory and Critical Multiculturalism, this research conceptualizes the dominance of traditional African art in art museums, art history, and art education as a Western hegemonic discourse that normalizes perceptions of Africa and African aesthetics as the fixed primitive Other. Thus, this research applied Action Research (AR) methodology coupled with Transformative Learning Theory (TL) to disrupt the discourse of African art; with the purpose of affecting positive changes in perceptions of African aesthetics. The participants for this study were 10 students in a course (Art 1301 Honors Art Appreciation) I instructed at the University of North Texas in the fall (September–December) 2013 semester. Data was collected, analyzed, and interpreted from participants’ assignments and my research journal. This study comprised a dual enquiry on: 1. Discourse and Meaning-making; and 2. Disruption and Transformation. First, the study analyzed students’ perceptions of African aesthetics from their learning experience of traditional African art in an art museum. The findings affirmed traditional African art at the museum as a discourse of Africa as the Other of the West. Secondly, the study analyzed how students’ perceptions were influenced from their experience (in my classroom) of learning histories of modern and contemporary African art that disrupt the authenticity of traditional African art. The findings revealed that 80% of participants developed positive transformations. This research demonstrates how art education grounded in critical theory and transformative learning subverted African art as the discourse of the Other, developed students’ understandings of the multiple realities of Africa and African aesthetics, and encouraged positive transformations in students’ perceptions of African aesthetics.

The colonial legacy of development aid has been widely discussed in academia. This study uses postcolonial theory to shed light upon how one Finnish NGO’s visual imageries affect the representation of the African continent. The thesis adds underexplored perspectives by highlighting the perceptions of five Finnish African diaspora members in Finland, giving a voice to the subaltern. Using qualitative semi-structured interviews combined with the photo-elicitation technique the study emphasizes through thematic analysis that the NGO’s visual imageries affect the everyday lives of the Finnish African diaspora by reproducing imageries that reflect colonial undertones. Results also indicated that the photos reproduce the single story of Africa in the Finnish society, affecting how the Finnish majority perceives the diaspora members. The diaspora members felt disappointed by the misrepresentation of the African continent, but they also provided solutions to overcome these very existing hierarchies.

Given the state and social homophobias one can encounter in Cameroon, it can be rightly assumed that MSM (men who have sex with men) constitute an extraordinarily vulnerable group. Such vulnerability, besides its legal nature, encompasses a number of sexual risk behaviours and psychological distress precisely derived from criminal prosecution and social discrimination. For that reason, and following the humanitarian imperative, humanitarian actors might want to launch an operation targeting such populations. Nevertheless, various ethical challenges linked to conflicting humanitarian principles, the post-colonial socio-political positions, and the diversity of queer identities might arise. This thesis will explore such ethical challenges, in an attempt to sensitise foreign humanitarians about the most sensible, yet effective, ways to support MSM in 21st- century Cameroon. The methodology used will include primary data collection through interviews and open- ended questionnaires, secondary data collection through articles and books, and the analysis and discussion of both. The theoretical framework utilised will be a combination of the Post-colonial and Queer theories, complemented with concepts borrowed from the advocacy and humanitarian ethics field.

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This thesis explores the inherent complexities and contradictions embedded in the radical turn in South African historiography with regards to the decolonisation of the discipline of history in South African universities under apartheid from 1960 to 1991. By choosing to deconstruct radical history in a white liberal university, the study seeks to further demonstrate the limits of intellectual decolonisation and its underlying assumptions in the academic field during apartheid. It interrogates radical history as a form of academic resistance and leads a reflection on the political role of the intellectual in the context of the anti-apartheid struggle, asking more broadly: to what extent can radical academic history be considered “de/colonised knowledge”? Building on the links between ideology and curriculum, this study aimed to measure the coloniality of history using history examination questions as tools to investigate the methodological, theoretical and ideological assumptions of historians. Theoretically, the study relied on the role of the historian as a recontextualising agent of disciplinary knowledge taught and examined within a historically white higher education institution to study its concomitant underlying historiographical silences at the time. Methodologically, it deployed quantitative and qualitative research methods, using interviews and semi-structured questionnaires with a targeted cohort of authentic interlocutors to triangulate the discursive analysis of institutionalised “de/colonised” historical knowledge. This interdisciplinary study was thus inscribed in a critical deconstructionist approach to knowledge which contributed to a finer conceptual and empirical understanding of the coloniality of history as a discipline and its reproduction in the South African higher education context. The study hopes (1) to contribute to understanding the nuanced intersections between the history of intellectual colonisation and decolonisation and how these tensions impacted on history education in the apartheid university, (2) to provide an original interdisciplinary mixed method of analysis of institutionalised “de/colonised knowledge”, and (3) to contribute new critical insights into blind spots in South African radical historiography in higher education during the period 1960 to 1991, which could shed light on the various understandings of the imperative for decolonisation today in the discipline.

This thesis investigates the concept of honour and why this is a relevant concept in the teaching of literature in the school subject of Swedish. In order to investigate this I have analyzed two Young Adult books; Heder (2002) and Fallen flicka (2009) by the author Christina Wahldén. These books show how young women of today are systematically subordinated and how their lives are controlled by male relatives. This culturally specific oppression of young women is constituted by ancient concepts of honour, which in turn are interlinked with women’s sexuality and the male control of it. The oppression has its roots in patriarchal and traditional thinking which is specifically characteristic for an honour culture. Both the male as well as the female characters are modeled by the author in order to make a didactic point. She wants to put the oppressive males on display in order to make us (the readers) aware of the horrific situation that many young women of today suffer from. In order to problematize this I apply postcolonial theory. This theoretical approach allows me to question the way in which the characters are constructed in the books. The standpoint which Christina Wahldén takes in writing her books is disputed, and in this thesis I discuss different viewpoints on this matter. On the one hand there are those intellectuals who agree with the above stated. On the other hand there are others who disagree and instead of a clear-cut cultural pattern, view the concept of honour and how it is used in societal debate with great suspicion. For them the finger pointing only cements prejudices and construct clear-cut difference-markers between Us: the good and modern, and Them: the evil and barbaric. Postcolonial theory lends its support to this latter way of thinking. In this thesis I therefore discuss postcolonial theory at lengths. In this discussion I rely on three theorists’ viewpoints in particular: Edward Said, Gayatri Spivak and Homi Bhabha. My own understanding of postcolonial theory is founded on the central thoughts which these theorists advocate. Besides lending its theoretical viewpoints to my readings of Christina Wahldén’s books, Postcolonial theory also influences my didactic discussions. In these discussions I try to explore why, and in what way, Postcolonial theory is applicable to the school subject of Swedish. My own view is that it can be used as a pedagogic tool to enable critical readings. I find this theoretical approach valuable in order for the school subject of Swedish to become a democratic one which engages the students to practice critical thinking and together read, write and discuss texts dealing with the conflicts that surrounds them in today’s multicultural society. In this thesis I argue strongly for this kind of awareness, an awareness which results in an understanding for the purpose of teaching Literature as a way of dealing with topics of significance for the students as members of a democratic society.

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The purpose of this research is to examine how visual communication can be interpreted in different ways and even in opposition to the creator’s intention, and to understand how different visual signs in images convey meaning to explain audience’s oppositional reading. Through a qualitative methodological approach, a semiotic comparative analysis of two covers of the fashion magazine Vogue featuring Kamala Harris will be carried out, a digital cover and a print cover. Theoretically, the analysis is grounded in postcolonialism, representation, and Stuart Hall’s encoding and decoding model of communication. The results suggest that there are signs in the photograph on Vogue’s print cover that can be interpreted from a postcolonial perspective, and both oppositional and preferred readings are discussed.

This study examines the role and implications of mimicry (Bhabha, 1994) and colonial trans-lation (Young, 2003) in Swedish adoption narratives. Through a deconstructive narrative analysis of three Swedish adoption texts: Längtansbarnen: Adoptivförädrar berättar [The Longed for/Longing Children: Adoptive parents tell their story] (Weigl, 1997), Adoption: Banden som gör oss till familj [Adoption: the ties that make us a family] (Juusela, 2010), and Gul Utanpå [Yellow on the Outside] (Lundberg, 2013); the study explores how mimicry manifests itself in adoption narratives, the process of the translation of the adoptee into a mimic Swede, and how the transnational/-racial adoptee as a mimic poses a threat, as mimicry turns to menace.The study finds that mimicry emerges as a process, where the adoptee is first desired as abody of difference that can become an almost the same Swede, a mimic Swede, while keeping an almost difference. A dual translation process takes place where the adoptee’s body is translated from a body of a difference that is total into a mimic Swede, while a version of Swedishness is translated onto the body. As a mimic, the adoptee communicates their (almost) sameness through an excessive, but limited version of Swedishness, while disavowing their difference.However, their difference is still visible, and continuously communicated through (mis)recognition by others. The adoptee’s mimicry is prone to turn into menace, where they pose a threat to the identity of the white Swede and meanings of white Swedishness.Key Words: Transnational/-racial Adoption; Mimicry; Colonial Translation; DeconstructiveNarrative Analysis; Sweden