This thesis investigates the counter-hegemonic formation of Danish-based transnational feminist curatorial collective Kuratorisk Aktion in a single-case study. It serves as a unique example, presenting how the collective engages to overcome the existing gap between curatorial aims and the implementation through curating. Their work and approach is shaped highly by their political mindset, aiming to resist tendencies of depoliticisation, right-wing populism or neoliberalism with the means of curating. Chantal Mouffe’s theory of radical democracy and her deliberations and notions concerning agonisms, citizenship, feminism, counter-hegemonic interventions and activism through art are used in order to contextualise and discuss the possibilities and limitations of the political work by Kuratorisk Aktion. An interview with the collective conducted by scholar Angela Dimitrakaki in 2010 as well as their realised curatorial projects enhanced the argumentation. The analysis exemplified, that over the years Kuratorisk Aktion has developed their personal and exceptional curatorial paradigm, which is able to counteract hegemonic structures. This reveals their radical democratic potential and aspiration through curating and the curatorial.

Postcolonial theory teaches us that the Empire was as much a textual as a physical undertaking: the Empire was (and is) experienced through its texts. Anthony Trollope was an enthusiastic traveller and helped to "write the Empire" in both his travel narratives and in his novels. This study examines his travel narrative South Africa, and explores how the colony is depicted in this work and in Trollope's "colonial" novels: Harry Heathcote of Gangoil, John Caldigate, An Old Man's Love and The Fixed Period. Trollope's colonies are places of moral danger where the value systems instilled by English society provide the only means for overcoming the corrupting influences of the colonial space. He writes the colonies as images of Britain, but these images are never true reflections of the homeland: there is always an element of distortion present, which serves to subvert the "Englishness" of his colonial landscapes. / English Studies / MA (ENGLISH)

This dissertation examines the way in which South African colonial texts may be read for the historical signs they inadvertently reveal. The history of land acquisition in South Africa may be read through the representation of burial and illegitimate pregnancy in South African farm novels. Both burial and illegitimate pregnancy are read as signifiers of illegitimacy in the texts, surfacing, by indirection, the question of the illegitimacy of land acquisition in South Africa. The South African farm novel offers a representational form which seeks (or fails) to mediate the question of land ownership and the relationship between colon and indigene. In the four texts under discussion, Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm, Florence Ethel Mills Young's The Bywonner[sic], Pauline Smith's The Beadle and Daphne Rooke's Mittee, the representation of burial and illegitimate pregnancy is problematic and marked by narrative displacements and discursive breakdowns. KEY TERMS burial, colonial discourse, farm novel, illegitimacy, illegitimate pregnancy, land, postcolonial theory, representation / English / M.A. (English)

In this qualitative ethnological study I explore the local development work undertaken by the municipal Botkyrka, located south of Stockholm. The material is primarily based on the municipals development programs and interviews with officials from the municipal working with local development. Their work is primarily based on achieving sustainable development in various problem areas such as education, unemployment, urban environment, climate change. My aim was to investigate how a municipality, with a declared focus on the benefits of diversity, that at the same time struggles with unequality (in regard to ethnic segregation and disparities in income, education, employment, housing and health), through its local development work presented its different districts. Guided by discourse analysis and postcolonial theory I focused on how the citizens in the districts where portrayed and how the physical and natural environment in these where described. The result shows that the municipal through its local development work is differentiating the districts and their citizens by adopting neoliberal labour market and housing policies, reproducing urban planning ideals and ideas regarding national beloning. / <p>POPULÄRVETENSKAPLIG SAMMANFATTNING</p><p>När man tänker på Botkyrka kommun, söder om Stockholm, är det nog främst till norra Botkyrka associationerna går. Miljonprogramsområdena och röda linjens tunnelbanestationer Alby, Fittja, Norsborg och Hallunda. Eller kanske har man hört sloganen ”Långt ifrån lagom” och vet att kommunen är en av Sveriges mest blandade vad gäller befolkningens ursprung. Men Botkyrka består också av en södra halva och här ligger områdena Tumba, Tullinge, Vårsta och Grödinge. Inte lika kända och inte heller på samma självklara sätt kopplade till Botkyrka som de ovan nämnda områdena i norr.</p><p>I min studie har jag undersökt hur Botkyrka kommun arbetar med områdesbaserad utveckling i sina kommundelar. Utgångspunkten för min analys är själva basen i detta arbete: kommundelarnas långsiktiga utvecklingsprogram. När jag samlade materialet till denna studie fanns tre sådana program framtagna, ett för Alby, ett för Tullinge och ett för Fittja. I dessa program formuleras de viktigaste nyckelområden som varje kommundel behöver arbeta kring för att uppnå en hållbar och långsiktig utveckling. Det intressanta med dessa program och det arbete som dessa föranleder är det skillnadsskapande som görs mellan norra och södra Botkyrka. I Fittja och Alby kretsar arbetet kring medborgarnas utbildning och sysselsättning samt områdenas stadsmiljöer. I Tullinge är målen: att utveckla och säkra områdets kvaliteter, att utveckla dialogen med medborgarna och att möjliggöra att leva klimatsmart.</p><p>Genom att titta på hur områdena och de människor som befolkar dem beskrivs i utvecklingsprogrammen och hur de kommunala tjänstemän som arbetar med detta förhåller sig till dessa frågor har jag utifrån en diskursanalytisk och postkolonial ansats kommit fram till att det områdesbaserad utvecklingsarbetet i Botkyrka kommun är del i en politisk och samhällelig åskådning som särskiljer platser och människor. Det områdesbaserade utvecklingsarbetet medverkar därmed till att reproducera bilden av den problematiska invandrarförorten och det idylliska villasamhället. Framställningarna som görs i mitt material visar hur kommunen positionerar sina kommundelar i relation till varandra. Tullinge utgör det oproblematiska, normativa och osynliga medan Alby och Fittja representeras av problembilder, det annorlunda och hjälpbehövande. Kommunen marknadsför sig som en progressiv aktör som arbetar för mångfald och mänskliga rättigheter, emot rasism och diskriminering samtidigt som man genom det områdesbaserad arbetet är delaktig i stigmatiseringen av platserna och människorna i norra Botkyrka. </p>

More than 200 years have passed since Haiti cut loose from the French colonial empire. A lot has happened since, both to Haiti as a state and to the society as a whole. This study investigates the critiqued relevance of postcolonialism in the 21th century, taking stance in the question of language of instruction in the Haitian school system. Through a qualitative interview based method of data gathering and a comparison with a postcolonialistic theoretical framework, this study first examines the reasons why the recommended use of Haitian creole as language of instruction, rather than French, has been sparsely implemented with the supposed effect of keeping the majority of Haitians in poverty. Secondly it discusses the conclusions drawn on the issue and what they say about the role of colonial societal structures globally. After establishing proof for the prevalence of colonial societal structures as reasons for the dominance of the French language in Haiti, this report suggests further studies on the subject of the relevance of postcolonialism as a model of explanation for contemporary societal phenomena.

The purpose of this paper was to examine how ”the other” is portrayed in Joseph Conrad’s novel Heart of darkness from a postcolonial perspective. Thru this analysis determine if and in what way the novel may be beneficial to education surrounding postcolonial perspectives in the subject Swedish at upper secondary school. Thru close reading of the text focusing on the novels portrayal of “the other”, the analysis concludes that the novel gives a stereotypical and dichotomous picture rooted in the novels contemporary science and culture of the western world. The way “the other” is portrayed in Joseph Conrad´s Heart of darkness does not consist with the fundamental values of the Swedish upper secondary school. The analysis has concluded that the novels potential as an educational tool in the education surrounding postcolonial perspectives is limited due to it´s lack of non-European perspectives.

Syftet med denna uppsats är att undersöka förekomsten av icke-västerländska författarskap i läroböcker för svenska på gymnasiet. Undersökningens grund är en pedagogisk textanalys, vilket är en form av innehållsanalys. Fyra läroböcker avsedda för svenskämnet på gymnasiet har analyserats genom en pedagogisk textanalys med såväl kvantitativa som kvalitativa inslag. Uppsatsens teoretiska utgångspunkt har främst varit Edward Saids postkoloniala teori och Mekkonen Tesfahuneys tankar om ett eurocentriskt utbildningssystem. Vikten av ett etnografiskt förhållningssätt i skolan är också en del av teorin. Resultatet visar att icke-västerländska författarskap ges skiftande utrymme i de olika läroböckerna. I den lärobok med störst andel icke-västerländska författare utgör dessa 22 procent av den totala andelen författarskap, medan motsvarande andel för läroboken med minst representation är 2,5 procent. De didaktiska utgångspunkterna för hur de icke-västerländska författarskapen enligt läroböckerna ska behandlas i undervisningen skiljer sig också åt. Eftersom det finns stora skillnader både vad gäller innehåll och didaktiska utgångspunkter i olika läroböcker riskerar undervisningen i skolan att inte bli likvärdig, beroende på i hur hög utsträckning lärarna använder sig av läroböckerna i undervisningen. / The purpose of this paper is to examine the prevalence of non-Western authorships in textbooks for Swedish at upper secondary school. The study is an educational text analysis, which is a form of content analysis. Four textbooks intended for the Swedish subject in upper secondary school have been analyzed by an educational text analysis of both quantitative and qualitative elements. Thesis theoretical base has been primarily Edward Said´s postcolonial theory and Mekkonen Tesfahuneys thoughts about a Eurocentric education system. The importance of an ethnographic approach in schools is also part of the theory. The result shows that non-Western authorships are given diverse space in the different textbooks. In the textbook with the highest proportion of non-Western writers, these are 22 percent of the total proportion authorship, while the corresponding proportion of the textbook with the least representation is 2,5 percent. The didactic starting points for how non-Western writers should be treated in teaching according to the textbooks also differ. Because of the big differences in terms of both content and didactic starting points in the various textbooks, the education in schools risk to not be equal, depending on the extent to which teachers using the textbooks in teaching.

The Swedish school has grown multicultural due to the recent years' migration and globalization of society. This place higher demands on the school's responsibility to educate students who are accepting and understanding towards each other, no matter their cultural and ethnic backgrounds. With application of postcolonial theory and its features; alterity, identity and racial prejudice to C.N Adichie's novel Americanah, it is argued that the inclusion of postcolonial literature in the EFL classroom may help students in developing an understanding for democratic values, and in exploring their roles in a diverse environment.

Internationalisation is high on the agenda of Higher Education in the UK, with the promotion of the students’ intercultural capabilities seen as key for their future careers and lives as global citizens. Within this agenda international study visits are considered beneficial for student teachers, giving those with limited exposure to cultural diversity an opportunity to learn first-hand about education in other countries. Taking a postmodern approach and using Facet Methodology, the research investigated the extent to which the pattern of study visits in a School of Education in a University in the South West of England was conducive to promoting the intercultural capabilities of the participants. Drawing on perspectives from Bourdieu and postcolonial theory, analysis of the University policies on Internationalisation and Teaching and Learning revealed a variety of positions towards international study visits and interviews with Associate Deans of a Faculty explored how far these were being manifested for the different professional disciplines of Education, Health and Social Care. The perspectives, views and attitudes of the student and tutor participants on a range of study visits were then captured through focus groups, interviews and writing frames. The study found that neither the students nor the tutors showed an awareness of the nature and importance of intercultural capabilities and therefore the approaches to study visits were patchy in developing them. It suggests that though such visits can be beneficial in promoting such capabilities in the participants, they will only do so consistently if there is in place a transformational pedagogy, informed by postcolonial theory, and implemented by knowledgeable tutors. This approach would include a planned programme of pre-trip, in-trip and post-trip activities encouraging reflection upon experiences, whether positive or disturbing, based upon an explicit contract with students to engage in intercultural learning as a central aspect of the visit.

This study investigates to what extent the curatorial project of Documenta 11 offered an operative cultural concept beyond multiculturality by favouring a transcultural approach to difference in the global sphere. It questions whether the central strategy employed – of postcoloniality as tactical manoeuvre to expand both the public and aesthetic spheres in order to create the conditions for an ethical engagement with difference – could facilitate a workable exemplar for showing art from different production sites, yet resist levelling of differences for an ever-expanding global art market. Proceeding from the postcolonial institutional critique envisioned by the artistic director, Okwui Enwezor, this study engages critically with the notion of opening-out Documenta in terms of inclusivity and equality of representation. It is argued that while the proposed postcolonial reinvigoration of overlapping public spheres held the promise of heterogeneous participation and minimised the formation of hegemonies, the expansion-project of Documenta 11 could on another level be interpreted to function as a globalising instrument usurping previously unexplored territories and discover marketable ‘others’ for a neocolonial cultural marketplace. Documenta 11 set out to subvert the expansionism of a global art market by constructing the global as postcolonial space in which proximity became the ethical space of engagement. It is the contention of this study that by emphasising the production of locality, the five Platforms localised the global discourse and expressly addressed how inclusivity and pluralism could be approached against the disparities created by globalisation processes. Historically, for artists from the South denial of proximity and coevalness based on colonial conceptions of space and time had meant exclusion from the canon and, where modernist notions persist, being labelled as deficient. In order to breach gaps, de-hegemonise cultural coding and aid transcultural translation, Documenta 11 located its project in its entirety in Homi K. Bhabha’s in-between space, in the gap, as it were. This orientation towards the gap is examined in terms of homelessness, displacement and nomadic subjectivity that impact the archiving logic of Documenta to become anarchival: memory production turned into counter-memory and the work of remembrance was shaped as counter-memorials. Criticised for a skewed commitment to social engagement, rather than aesthetics, the exhibition of Documenta 11 was nonetheless informed by a threshold aesthetic. Different kinds of oppositionality employed by artists, and adversarial approaches reinvigorated by Situationist and Third Cinema strategies put forward by the curators, are evaluated in this regard. An agonistic positioning is explored as, firstly, a counter-localisation to multiculturalism in a transcultural exhibition and, secondly, to resist assimilation and co-optation. It is argued that the embrace of the threshold, of thirdness and littoral curating by Documenta 11 could be considered an exemplar of a global trickster positioning aiming for an expansion of critical visual strategies. The contention of this study is that, having set out to grapple with the construction of multiple public spheres and the space of the transnational exhibition as a creole location, this Documenta at the very least opened up discursive spaces that could expand artistic discourses. At best, Documenta 11 uncovered routes by which difference in the transcultural field could be (re)negotiated. / Thesis (PhD)--University of Pretoria, 2008. / Visual Arts / unrestricted