Patrick Chamoiseau is arguably the most prominent cultural personality from the French island of Martinique. His reputation is due to the worldwide success of his novels, especially Texaco, winner of the Prix Goncourt-award in 1992, but also to the fact that he is the leading theorist of the Créolité, an ideological movement whose aim is to preserve the character of Creole identity and culture against the threat of assimilation. Chamoiseau’s importance in an ideological context tends to overshadow his literary qualities, his novels being often seen as illustrations of his political ideas.Although Chamoiseau’s ideological views aren’t totally absent from his literary work, his novels strike the reader as extremely complex constructions, containing far more than a subversive aspect. An aspect that has been neglected by the critics is for example the supernatural. Probably because of the geographic vicinity to South America, Chamoiseau’s use of the supernatural has been, rather hastily, considered as typical of magical realism or marvellous realism. This dissertation aims at showing that the fantastic, as defined by Tzvetan Todorov (1970), is better suited to describe this aspect of Chamoiseau’s novels, especially Biblique des derniers gestes (2002).Our main objective is, however, not to decide whether the novel belongs to the fantastic as a genre, but to examine the reasons why it is used. A close analysis shows that it is often in relation to the past of Martinique that the supernatural appears. Thanks to the theory of the fantastic, we find three possible explanations of this fact. Firstly, the supernatural is juxtaposed to the real in order to reveal its limits and its “constructedness”. Martinican past thus appears as a French construction. Secondly, the fantastic can be used to reveal the absence of genuine Martinican history. Finally, the fantastic can be a reminder of a terrible event from the past. In conclusion it can be said that Chamoiseau uses the fantastic in order to write the history of an event that he sees as the origin of Martinique: slavery. By doing this he contributes to the fantastic as well, by showing that it is not necessarily gratuitous and by providing a good example of original and innovative use.

The study of intra-state conflict has increased exponentially during the post-Cold War period. This has given rise to a variety of competing approaches, which have (i) adopted differing methodological and social theoretical orientations, and (ii) produced contradictory accounts of the causes and nature of violent conflict. This project intervenes in the debates which have resulted from this situation, and develops a critical realist approach to conflict studies. In doing so it rethinks the discipline from the philosophical ground up, by extending the ontological and epistemological insights which are provided by critical realism into more concrete reflections about methodological and social theoretical issues. In addition to engaging in reflection about philosophical, methodological, and social theoretical issues, however, the project also incorporates the insights of two largely neglected literatures into conflict studies. These are, first, the insights of the gender-studies literature, and second, the insights of decolonial/postcolonial forms of thought. It claims that the discipline is strengthened by incorporating the insights of these literatures, and that the critical realist framework provides us with the philosophical basis which is required in order to do so.

This thesis investigates the activities of two secondary schools in relation to their duty to promote community cohesion (intercultural understanding and cohesion within communities) and their engagement in global educational partnerships and international activities. In particular this study seeks to ascertain if there is a relationship between community cohesion and global educational partnerships –whether the activities and outcomes from one could inform the other in relation to intercultural understanding. There is little research on the relationship between these two initiatives. The research explores the understanding and experiences of staff involved in these initiatives in the two schools and that of pupils in Key Stages 3, 4 and 5 (11-18 years). Data is generated through semi-structured interviews and document analysis, providing a rich description of participants’ understanding and whole-school activities. What has emerged from the findings is a complex and subtle picture of two schools and their interpretations of their duty to promote community cohesion, engage in international activities, and the relationship between the two. Effective practice is identified such as developing inclusive perspectives through pupil peer-led teaching. However, barriers to effective practice have also been identified and include how cultural diversity is understood and presented through binary perceptions of ‘Other’. Such perspectives, alongside complex paternal power relations evident in educational partnerships with schools in the global South, are identified as problematic in the promotion of intercultural understanding and cohesion. The dominant political discourse, guidance for schools and the role of the schools’ inspection framework (Ofsted) are also influencing factors. Postcolonial Theory is used to interrogate policy and practice and presents alternative perspectives, and these, it is contended, can offer new ways forward in creating a ‘third’ space for intercultural understanding through global educational partnerships and community cohesion.

The title of this essay is ”A place forgotten by the world – the image of the Other and the Elsewhere in Forty Days Without Shadow by Oliver Truc”. Olivier Truc is a French-born journalist living in Stockholm, where he works as a correspondent for Le Monde and Le Point. He has also produced TV documentaries and non-fiction books. Forty Days Without Shadow is his first fictional work, a crime novel published in 2012. The story is settled in the Norwegian and Swedish parts of Lapland, and Sami people are in focus. In this essay, a postcolonial reading is used to interpret the novel, based mainly on the fact that the Sami are or were victims of Scandinavian colonization. The aim of the essay is therefore to examine whether the novel comprises colonialist or anti-colonialist attitudes, or perhaps both, and whether it contains exoticism and othering of the Sami. In particular it is examined how Lapland as a geographical place is described, and how Sami people are depicted compared to people of other origins in the novel. Another fact that is discussed, is how stereotypical characterisation is a common trait of crime novels, an aggravating circumstance for the analysis. The conclusion is that the novel has a strong anti-colonialist perspective, seen mainly in the treating of themes like the colonization of Lapland and its effects on some of the characters. At the same time, the physics of the Sami are described in recurring terms such as “high cheekbones”, whereas the faces of the normative Norwegian and Swedish characters are not described in the same way. In certain places in the novel there is a colonialist focalization which contributes to exoticism and othering of Sami people.

Amitav Ghosh's novel The Calcutta Chromosome is a science-fiction which deals with subalter voice. In this paper I have discussed that how Ghosh has written an alternative hisory for the suabltern and how he establishes a connection between subaltern and the science-fictional term, the posthuman. I also argue that through such representation Ghosh proposes a open ended way to think about the subaltern future as well.

Thesis (PhD)--Stellenbosch University, 2014. / ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This thesis focuses on the 'restorying‘ of British settler colonialism in a range of texts that negotiate the intricacies of post-settler afterlives in the postcolonial contexts of South Africa, Canada, Australia and Aotearoa New Zealand. In this, I do not undertake a sustained, programmatic comparative reading in order to deliver a set of answers based on insights achieved into the current state of post-settler colonial identities. Rather, I approach the study as an open-ended exploration by reading a combination of texts of various kinds – novels, poetry, drama, films and installation art – from and about these different geographical and historical contexts, structured as a sequence of four chapters, each with a distinct theoretical ensemble specific to the (pre)occupations of the settler colonial past and the linked senses of (dis)location in the present that emerge from the primary texts combined in each case. Since this project is informed by my location as a South African researcher, the cluster of primary texts in every chapter always includes one or more South African texts as pivotal to the juxtapositional dynamics such a reading attempts. By placing this study of the textual afterlives of settler colonialism undertaken from a South African perspective within the ambit of neo-Victorian studies, it is my intention to contribute to the growing body of critical and theoretical work emerging from this interdisciplinary field and to introduce to it a set of primary texts that will extend the parameters of its productive intersections with colonial and postcolonial studies. / AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Hierdie tesis bestudeer die 'restorying' van Britse setlaar-kolonialisme in ‘n groep tekste wat die verwikkeldheid van post-setlaar 'afterlives' in the post-koloniale kontekste van Suid Afrika, Kanada, Australië en Aotearoa Nieu-Seeland vervat. Hiermee onderneem ek nie ‘n volgehoue, programmatiese vergelykende interpretasie met die oog daarop om die huidige stand van post-setlaar koloniale identiteite tot ‘n stel antwoorde te reduseer nie. Ek benader die studie eerder as ‘n verkenning van moontlikhede gegenereer deur die lees van ‘n kombinasie van verskillende tekste – romans, gedigte, drama, films en installasie kuns – wat hulle oorsprong in hierdie verkillende geografiese en historiese kontekste het, asook daaroor handel. Gevolglik bestaan die studie uit vier hoofstukke wat elkeen die (pre)okkupasies van die setlaar-koloniale verlede en die gepaardgaande gevoel van (dis)lokasie in die hede, soos tevoorskyn gebring deur die kombinasie van primere tekste, aan die hand van ‘n toepaslike teoretiese ensemble bespreek. Aangesien die projek uit my posisie as Suid Afrikaanse navorser spruit, en ‘n jukstaposisionele dinamiek grondliggend aan my leesbenadering is, betrek ek telkens een of meer Suid Afrikaanse tekste by die groep primere tekste wat die basis van elke hoofstuk vorm. Deur hierdie studie van die tekstuele 'afterlives' van setlaar-kolonialisme, wat vanuit ‘n Suid Afrikaanse perspektief onderneem word, binne die raamwerk van neo-Viktoriaanse studies te plaas, beoog ek om by te dra tot die korpus van kritiese en teoretiese werk van hierdie interdisiplinere veld. Deur die toevoeging van die betrokke groep primere tekste word die area waar hierdie veld met koloniale en post-koloniale studies oorvleuel verbreed.

Viviane Sassen is a Dutch fashion photographer, whose personal work feature people from African descent. Through the employment of the equatorial light, her models’ personal identities and faces are left in the shadow, their dark skin rendered “just” black, depicting the sitters invisible and without personal recognition. In this thesis I offer an alternative to reading her work whose praise always stay on the surface; I examine her work in relation to the historical and geographical location, offer an analysis to the ontology of the shadow in photography, and examine the treatment of the surface of Sassen’s models.

This thesis explores the textualizing of the South Atlantic island of St Helena (a British Overseas Territory) through an analysis of the relationship between colonizing practices and the changing representations of the island and its inhabitants in a range of colonial 'texts', including historiography, travel writing, government papers, creative writing, and the fine arts. Part I situates this thesis within a critical engagement with post-colonial theory and colonial discourse analysis primarily, as well as with the recent 'linguistic turn' in anthropology and history. In place of post-colonialism's rather monolithic approach to colonial experiences, I argue for a localised approach to colonisation, which takes greater account of colonial praxis and of the continuous re-negotiation and re-constitution of particular colonial situations. Part II focuses on a number of literary issues by reviewing St Helena's historiography and literature, and by investigating the range of narrative tropes employed (largely by travellers) in the textualizing of St Helena, in particular with respect to recurrent imaginings of the island in terms of an earthly Eden. Part III examines the nature of colonial 'possession' by tracing the island's gradual appropriation by the Portuguese, Dutch and English in the sixteenth and early seventeenth century and the settlement policies pursued by the English East India Company in the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century. Part IV provides an account of the changing perceptions, by visitors and colonial officials alike, of the character of the island's inhabitants (from the late eighteenth to the early twentieth century) and assesses the influence that these perceptions have had on the administration of the island and the political status of its inhabitants (in the mid- to late twentieth century). Part V, the conclusion, reviews the principal arguments of my thesis by addressing the political implications of post-colonial theory and of my own research, while also indicating avenues for further research. A localised and detailed exploration of colonial discourse over a period of nearly five hundred years, and a close analysis of a consequently wide range of colonial 'texts', has confirmed that although colonising practices and representations are far from monolithic, in the case of St Helena their continuities are of as much significance as their discontinuities.

published_or_final_version / Literary and Cultural Studies / Master / Master of Arts

This essay focuses on the concepts of relationship to local culture, identity and third space writing found in migrant literature and explores their relevance to James Joyce’s Dubliners in order to support a migrant reading of the collection. James Joyce has already been read as a migrant writer; however, Dubliners has not been considered as being an important contribution to this mode of writing. In this essay, the postcolonial theories of identity, third space writing and relationship to local culture are used in an in-depth reading of seven of the stories in the collection which I argue are written in the migrant mode of writing. With an introduction given on migrant writing and the concepts used, the platform is thus laid out for a thorough reading of the stories. What these stories depict is that of Ireland’s perpetual state of underdevelopment, due to its colonial past under British rule. In reading the stories in theoretical terms of migrant writing, one uncovers the way they construct Ireland as a colonized space, reiterating Joyce’s version of home and its decaying, cultural potential. What one finds is not only the ironic voice of Joyce’s narrative describing the repetitive outplaying of British stereotypes of Irishness but also of a quieter tone tinged with hope and longing for a true, cultural change. This essay shifts the interpretative focus to specific issues that would otherwise not be visible if one were to read it as merely being modernist. It establishes the migrant quality of the collection and solidifies the standing of Joyce as a migrant writer.