Abstract This dissertation is a study of social reproduction in different classes of migrant households in Emnambithi, a town in northern KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. It traces the history of households in this community under the impact of racialised dispossession and migration, and illustrates how households were stratified into distinct classes. The three classes identified are a semi-professional, educated class, a migratory working class, and the marginalised, a segment of the “bantustan” population who never had the possibility of working in the capitalist economy during apartheid. The research then focuses on the gendered nature of social reproduction in households in the post-apartheid era, when this community continues to be shaped by migration. The research illustrates that class-based advantage and disadvantage are reproduced in post-apartheid South Africa. The dissertation analyses the different ways in which household members – predominantly migrant and resident women – deal with daily provisioning and consumption, education and care of the dependants of migrants in the absence of some members of the household. The study argues that social reproduction varies significantly in different classes of households. The class-based and gendered nature of social reproduction has implications for an understanding of developmental needs in post-apartheid South Africa, and this research opens up ways in which job creation and social policies could lead to class-based redress and gender equity.

The goal of this essay is to pursue a reading of ethnicity and sexuality in Shyam Selvadurai’s novel Funny Boy to show the importance of the interrelations between the two and how equally crucial both of these are in order to understand the protagonist Arjie’s journey and search for identity. To investigate the interrelation between ethnicity and sexuality, the analysis makes use of a method of simultaneous consideration that is similar to Mae Gwendolyn Henderson’s focus on “simultaneity of discourse” used by black women writers. The turning points in the protagonist’s life and search for an identity are crucial and influenced by issues of separation, and the theme of exile is prominent in the novel. Selvadurai uses the theme in several aspects on a number of levels, concerning both ethnicity and sexuality. However, the narrative also allows the protagonist to find an alternative route in exploring his identity as a “funny one”. These turning points are illustrated by a moving beyond the traditional gender roles and the idea of masculinity in areas of gendered and racialised spaces. Selvadurai shows a people that are ethnically and/or sexually divided while at the same time being linked through words and languages that can give and/or take away possibilities. Hence, a second aim of this essay is to show that the protagonist overcomes the limitations that society has set by choosing the path that is right for him, a path that allows him to be “funny”.

<p>The goal of this essay is to pursue a reading of ethnicity and sexuality in Shyam Selvadurai’s novel Funny Boy to show the importance of the interrelations between the two and how equally crucial both of these are in order to understand the protagonist Arjie’s journey and search for identity. To investigate the interrelation between ethnicity and sexuality, the analysis makes use of a method of simultaneous consideration that is similar to Mae Gwendolyn Henderson’s focus on “simultaneity of discourse” used by black women writers.</p><p>The turning points in the protagonist’s life and search for an identity are crucial and influenced by issues of separation, and the theme of exile is prominent in the novel. Selvadurai uses the theme in several aspects on a number of levels, concerning both ethnicity and sexuality. However, the narrative also allows the protagonist to find an alternative route in exploring his identity as a “funny one”.</p><p>These turning points are illustrated by a moving beyond the traditional gender roles and the idea of masculinity in areas of gendered and racialised spaces. Selvadurai shows a people that are ethnically and/or sexually divided while at the same time being linked through words and languages that can give and/or take away possibilities.</p><p>Hence, a second aim of this essay is to show that the protagonist overcomes the limitations that society has set by choosing the path that is right for him, a path that allows him to be “funny”.</p>

This thesis explores how Islamophobia is institutionalised in British universities. Focussing on Muslim students, this question is largely explored through empirical research using two case study universities. Each university was examined through key university functions; namely, 'ethnic' monitoring data under the Race Amendment (2000), union politics and welfare/observance provisions. The research involved semi-structured interviews with Muslim students who were in some way 'active' on campus, as well as university/union staff between 2004 and 2006. It also included some document analysis. It is argued that Islamophobia is institutionalised through its govermentalising function and is reflected in three key modes of 'managing' Muslim students; 'absence' (invisibility), 'presence' (hyper-visibility) and 'inclusion' (liberal multiculturalism). 'Absence' refers to the absence of Muslim students as a recognised collectivity within the formal structures of the university. Thus, it is argued, Muslim student concerns about racism fail to be formally registered and remain trivialised at anecdotal levels. 'Presence' refers to the hyper-visibility of Muslim students as a troublesome 'fundamentalist'/'extremist' cohort. This is exemplified through numerous historical and contemporary sector and state interventions, but also in student union politics. 'Inclusion' refers to liberal multicultural practices that regulate Muslim students. This is observed in equality practices (e.g. university provisions) in the university and the way they function to minoritise rather than equalise the status of Muslim students. What these modes of governance emphasise is the way Muslim students are the subject of and subjected to processes of racialised management, that is, regulation, discipline and normalisation. Each of these modes are explored through interviewee accounts/documents, and (in)formed by a recursive engagement with theories of racialised governmentality. It is argued that together, these modes of racialised governmentality signify the transgressive status of Muslims. They are also seen to reflect the broader political (in)visibility of Muslims in Britain and their awkward place within British multiculturalism. Influenced by 'de-colonial' thinking and activist-based research, the thesis has sought to develop a critique of dominant and racialised discourses about Muslim students in universities. This has involved the selective use of discursive techniques and a reflexive awareness of my own positioning with research. It has also involved cognizance of the way Muslim students and Muslim communities generally, have been perceived as 'suspect' and subject to increased securitisation. In the main however, the thesis has troubled the equality practices of universities and highlighted the way they are part of, not separate from, the problem of Islamophobia.

In this thesis I explore sunscreen use-practices, imaginaries, and material flows. I aim to understand how young people in the globally-immersed UK use sunscreens and how they makesense of them. Specifically, I follow Donna Haraway’s practice of implosion, employing theconcepts of care and toxicity to explore how sunscreens are employed to protect particularbodily ideals, aspects of embodied subjectivities and material-discursive boundaries. In following these various forms of protection, I ask what normative discourses, ecologies andbodies are, in turn, made vulnerable. The main corpus of my study comes from interviewconversations with eight people. Their stories highlight how sunscreens mediate understandings of skin, places, bodies, and social relations. I analyse sunscreen advertising from 1979to 2019 to investigate harmonies and conflicts between the cultural imaginaries curated bysunscreen companies and the stories which emerged from these interview conversations. Ialso put these materials into conversation with sunscreen discourses from the biological sciences, asking how these cultural works infuse sunscreen practices and material-semiotics.This thesis is an exploratory journey which encounters tanning, ageing, beauty, ‘race’,smells, places, intimacies, sun-burns, skin cancers, bodily boundaries, ‘Endocrine Disruptors’, toxic ecologies, and emplaced knowledges. It traverses disciplinary boundaries, following attitudes from the feminist and environmental post-humanities in bringing togetherapproaches, methods and theorising from many varied fields of scholarship usually locatedin the humanities, social sciences, and ‘natural’ sciences. As such, this thesis is a wide-ranging, thick description of how sunscreens are used in desires for protection and what is contingently and consequently made vulnerable.