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This study examines the relationship between father and son in the novel Indische duinen (1994, 2002) by Adriaan van Dis within the context of post-war and postcolonial Dutch society. It relates the process by which an adult son, 36 years after the death of his father, comes to terms with the memory of a man whom he has always seen as unreasonably strict, violent and even cruel. During this process the son discovers the effects of colonialism, war, the Japanese occupation of the Dutch East Indies (subsequently Indonesia) and the process of rapid decolonisation and repatriation to the Netherlands upon his father. For the father the latter experiences amount to what Kaja Silverman (1992: 55) refers to as "historical trauma". The experiences that shaped his father and influenced his behaviour towards his son are linked to what Paul Ricoeur (1992: 121) would refer to as the father's "narrative identity" and his sense of masculinity (Cormell, 1995: 77 - 81) which have both been marginalised within the "dominant fiction" (Silverman, 1992: 54) of the postcolonial society in which he has been forced to live. As the son discovers the father through a process of retelling both his father's story and the story of their relationship he is able to gain sense of understanding and closure. Regarding issues of race and gender in Dutch colonialism and the trauma of postcolonial alienation this study draws upon the insights of E.M. Beekman (1988 and 1998), Frances Gouda (1998), Elsbeth Locher-SchoIten (1995), Rob Nieuwenhuys (1982), Edy Seriese (1995), Ann Laura Stoler (1992, 1995 and 1997) and Peter van Zonneveld (1995, 2002 and 2003). / Thesis (M.A.) - University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2004.

The swedish law against female genital mutilation (FGM) prohibits procedures that removes parts of the female genitalia and thereby makes permanent changes in the body. The problem with the wording of the law is that it may also apply to the western phenomenon cosmetic genital surgery. This paper therefore examines if cosmetic genital surgery should be covered by the swedish law against FGM, by making a critical comparing analysis. The paper begins with comparing FGM with cosmetic genital surgery to prove that there are more similarities than differences between the procedures. By using the theoretical perspectives universalism and postcolonialism, the paper then examines why, particularly in the West, there is a different approach to FGM than to cosmetic genital surgery, regardless of the similarities of the procedures. Further the paper also examines consent and why consent to FGM is seen as illegitimate while consent to cosmetic genital surgery is seen as legitimate. On basis of the critical comparing analysis the paper then argues: that the procedures cosmetic genital surgery and FGM are very much alike; that cosmetic genital surgery is accepted over FGM because it is more familiar in the West and; that consent should be as illegitimate when given to cosmetic genital surgery as when given to FGM. Thus the conclusion of the paper is that cosmetic genital surgery should be covered by the swedish law against FGM.

This research focused on the metaphor of space as used by Afrikaans female poets in South Africa in the period 1994-2005, both space as an environment and as an abstract space in which the poets find themselves. In this period, South Africa got a new democratic dispensation and women were de-marginalised. As a background to the study, a brief overview was given of the work of various Afrikaans poetesses, but the main focus was on the work of two contemporary poetesses, namely Use van Staden and Wilma Stockenstrom, to observe whether the new role of women in society is reflected in the work of these two poetesses. In the study, the theory of Pierre Bourdieu, a French culture-sociologist, was used, namely that no text is ever "free", but that there is a close relation between text and context. Because only the work of female writers was studied in this research, and because the poetesses give a voice to the spatiality of women, theories of feminism as well as postcolonialism were also involved in the study. The spatial metaphors in the texts of the poetesses were also analysed, because they use metaphors to portray their spatiality. These spatial metaphors also lead to the exploitation of other relevant themes. In the investigation of the representation of spatial metaphors used by Afrikaans poetesses, and in particular Use van Staden and Wilma Stockenstrom, it was found that the spaces in which women find themselves play a prominent role in their lives. It was also observed that there is disharmony between poetesses and the spaces in which they find themselves. This research found that women have been de-marginalised and that the patriarchal system has been crossed, and that this phenomenon is being portrayed by the work of female poets who give a voice to the women of this country and portray the many facets of female experience. / Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

This research focused on the metaphor of space as used by Afrikaans female poets in South Africa in the period 1994-2005, both space as an environment and as an abstract space in which the poets find themselves. In this period, South Africa got a new democratic dispensation and women were de-marginalised. As a background to the study, a brief overview was given of the work of various Afrikaans poetesses, but the main focus was on the work of two contemporary poetesses, namely Use van Staden and Wilma Stockenstrom, to observe whether the new role of women in society is reflected in the work of these two poetesses. In the study, the theory of Pierre Bourdieu, a French culture-sociologist, was used, namely that no text is ever "free", but that there is a close relation between text and context. Because only the work of female writers was studied in this research, and because the poetesses give a voice to the spatiality of women, theories of feminism as well as postcolonialism were also involved in the study. The spatial metaphors in the texts of the poetesses were also analysed, because they use metaphors to portray their spatiality. These spatial metaphors also lead to the exploitation of other relevant themes. In the investigation of the representation of spatial metaphors used by Afrikaans poetesses, and in particular Use van Staden and Wilma Stockenstrom, it was found that the spaces in which women find themselves play a prominent role in their lives. It was also observed that there is disharmony between poetesses and the spaces in which they find themselves. This research found that women have been de-marginalised and that the patriarchal system has been crossed, and that this phenomenon is being portrayed by the work of female poets who give a voice to the women of this country and portray the many facets of female experience. / Thesis (M.A. (Afrikaans and Dutch))--North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2009.

The aim of this essay is to examine the ambivalence that I consider work of solidarity carried out from majority position to be associated with, and whether it makes sense to understand the relationship between majorities and minorities involved in this work by using the concepts of race and whiteness. Through Ruth Frankenbergs work on white women and race I consider whiteness to be a racialized position, and through Sara Ahmeds phenomenology of whiteness, which describes racialization as made through the orientation of bodies, I investigate how this racialized position is shaped and maintained by the solidarity work. The study is based on qualitative interviews with four White women engaged in two organizations that works on integration of female immigrants through creating jobs in a cooperative and through educating in national and familial democracy. The work of solidarity told of by the interviewees seems to produce racialized notions about immigrated people of color, which acts as a counterpart to the whiteness that the interviewees themselves possess. At the same time, the work also challenge this binary division, especially by incorporating the non-white women in what in this essay is called "the white world". / Uppsatsens syfte är att undersöka de ambivalenser som jag utgår ifrån att det solidariska arbete som bedrivs från en normativ majoritetsposition är präglat av och huruvida det är meningsfullt att förstå relationen mellan majoriteter och minoriteter involverade i detta arbete med hjälp av begreppen ras och vithet. Genom Ruth Frankenbergs studie av vita kvinnor och ras förstår jag vithet som en rasifierad position, och genom Sara Ahmeds "vithetens fenomenologi", som beskriver rasifiering som kroppars orientering mot varandra, undersöker jag hur denna rasifierade position skapas och upprätthålls genom solidaritetsarbete. Studien baseras på kvalitativa intervjuer med fyra vita kvinnor engagerade i två olika organisationer som arbetar med integration av den strukturella kategorin "immigranter som är kvinnor", dels genom att driva ett kooperativ där personer ur denna kategori kan söka arbete och dels genom att utbilda samma kategori människor i nationell och famijär demokrati. Det solidariska arbete som intervjupersonerna berättar om tycks skapa rasifierade föreställningar om icke-vita immigranter, vilka fungerar som motbild till den vithet som intervjupersonerna själva besitter. Samtidigt utmanar arbetet också den binära uppdelningen mellan vit och icke-vit, inte minst genom att inkorporera de icke-vita kvinnorna som deltar i organisationerna i vad som i uppsatsen kallas för "den vita världen".

Many indigenous communities perceive an intimate connection between land and religion, and land has, and continues to remain, at the heart of indigenous-state relations. This dissertation examines how philosophies of land and religion in correlation with histories of dispossession and differentiation contribute to socio-political structures that threaten the religious freedom of Aboriginal peoples and the very existence of indigenous religious traditions, cultures, and sacred sites in Canada today. Through a political-philosophical approach to ethical concerns of justice as fairness, national minorities’ rights, and religious freedom, I examine court decisions, legislation, and official protocols that shape contemporary indigenous-state relations. I identify philosophical and structural issues preventing Canada from protecting the fundamental rights guaranteed to indigenous peoples and all Canadians. More specifically, I examine the historical manifestations of concepts of land and religion in philosophies of colonization, emphasizing their effects in contemporary indigenous-state relations. I analyze the impacts of secularization, socio-economic expansion, and the dispossession of Aboriginal traditional lands on the protection of indigenous cultural rights and off-reserve sacred sites. Based on this analysis, I discuss communicative democratic theory and the potential benefits and limitations of the “Duty to Consult and Accommodate”—the most recent framework for indigenous-state relations—for the protection of indigenous religious traditions and the importance of the inclusion of indigenous peoples in administrative and decision-making processes. Finally, I explore indigenous representation, religious revitalization and the politics of authenticity, authority, diversity and cultural change.

The goal of this study is to critically examine health information sources in order to determine whether Aboriginal women are represented in these resources, and if so, how they are being presented. This research is intended to illuminate the practices around the construction of information, and to demonstrate that the manners in which information is conveyed can be problematic. To accomplish these goals, critical discourse analysis was utilized to explore both consumer health publications available to pregnant women in Edmonton, Alberta, as well as academic publications available to students and healthcare providers through the University of Alberta Libraries. Through this critical analysis of these resources, it is clear that information is being constructed in a manner that supports neocolonial practices and reinforces negative stereotypes of Aboriginal women. The analysis of these sources also demonstrates ways in which information can be constructed more appropriately, to avoid racializing tendencies.

Research Doctorate - Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) / This thesis presents a postcolonial critique of development and academic discourses in the context of the South Pacific. Focusing on Fiji’s aid industry, I challenge the apparent inevitabilities underpinning an increasingly narrow and parochial donor ‘good governance’ agenda in the region. I also confront geography’s sojourns in, and on, the ‘Third World’ laying bare a number of epistemological and methodological inconsistencies. Having exposed various definitional rigidities produced by these discourses, I emphasise the decentred and nuanced meanings and ways of envisioning ‘development’ enabled by postcolonial sensibilities. The thesis has three primary aims. First, to highlight the constraining and enabling aspects of discourses. I emphasise the productive features of development discourse; its framing attributes, fragility and transformative potential, drawing on the activities and intentions of NGOs and donor organisations operating in Fiji. Second, I draw attention to the way ‘identities’ form and shape aid relations in the country. Again, utilising examples from Fiji’s aid industry, I foreground the centrality of ‘traditions’, religion, gender and ethnicity in ‘development’ and critique their virtual silence in donor policies and programmes in the region. Finally, I ‘unpack’ the way academia intervenes in development settings. Here I suggest that any reflection on the relevance of research will inevitably involve taking methodology seriously and posing fundamental questions about why we are there in the first place. Advocating more than a methodological revisionism, I argue that ‘doing development differently’ will involve reorienting development relations and embarking on a far-reaching mission to subvert development’s self-evidence while proposing and supporting collaborative efforts that explore negotiated and newly emerging cultural forms.

There have been only sporadic attempts to highlight Chinese women’s role and influence in art, even though their contribution has been major. This thesis seeks to understand the significance of women’s participation in modern Chinese art history through the narratives and works of Pan Yuliang, Nie Ou and Yin Xiuzhen, who were professionally active at different political stages of twentieth-century China. Using an interdisciplinary framework, drawing on concepts from theories such as modernism, feminism and postcolonialism, this thesis analyzes a culturally specific field in art history and the interrelationship between various factors that have contributed to it. As artists of a peripheral culture, various factors in the artistic production of Chinese women have been overlooked and often misinterpreted. This thesis argues that the three artists in this study have produced different, individualized responses to the Euro-American model of modernism. To highlight the cultural specificity of China, the introductory chapter will include a short comparative analysis between Chinese modernism and the modernisms of other Asian countries. The adoption of Western art forms by early overseas-trained Chinese artists such as Pan indicates as many intricacies and ambivalences as in the complex relationship of China with Western imperialism. Chapter Two situates the Westernized works of Pan in the context of Chinese modernism, pre-feminism and the semi-colonized state of early twentieth-century China. In relation to the theories of orientalism and provincialism, implications of the ambiguities of Pan’s representations are extended to debates that explore the subjectivity and identity of non-European artists in their quest for modernism. Nie Ou was born into the era when the Chinese Communists had just taken over in 1949. Under the autocratic rule of the Communists, Nie was exiled to the northern countryside during her early adulthood as part of the “re-educating the elite” program. Chapter Three demonstrates how Nie successfully emerged from the repercussions of the Cultural Revolution. During this period of intensified Chinese nationalism, Nie found ways to merge the influences of the restrictive style of Socialist Realism and the poetic Chinese literati painting tradition to create an individualized style of representation. China underwent rapid modernization in the 1980s and 1990s. Chapter Four examines the works of contemporary artist Yin Xiuzhen who, with her avant-garde installations, has pushed the boundaries of what constitutes conventional Chinese art. This chapter analyzes Yin’s works in the context of late twentieth-century China, where the nation was no longer a Socialist monolith but a complex amalgam in which old and new, Socialist and capitalist, modern and postmodern co-existed. Yin’s works will be studied in relation to theories of postmodernism, postfeminism and globalism. Chapter Five consolidates the earlier chapters by reflecting on how various conditions throughout the twentieth century have changed and shaped the role of women in Chinese art history. The concluding chapter will consider the influence Chinese women artists may have on the art discourse in China today, and perhaps across other cultures. This chapter will explore the constraints upon them and the potential of their future role, not only in China but also in the broader sense of what it means to be an artist internationally.