Although the term empowerment is frequently and broadly used across disciplines, the meaning of the term is often ambiguous. The purpose of this qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore the lived experience of individual members of Renters' Rights Group (RRG), a community development group focused on promoting safe and affordable housing, thereby creating a better understanding of the phenomenon of empowerment. The seven study participants, four males and three females, five of whom were Aboriginal, had been active members of RRG for two years or more. The theoretical framework for this study was Parse's Theory of Human Becoming. Four core concepts were identified as contributing to participants' sense of empowerment: connecting, struggling, contributing, and changing. The findings from this study can be used by nurses and other professionals who work with marginalized individuals or groups. Incorporation of Parse's Human Becoming Theory into practice, education, and research, may facilitate the reflection of caring upon which nursing is founded.

Although the term empowerment is frequently and broadly used across disciplines, the meaning of the term is often ambiguous. The purpose of this qualitative hermeneutic phenomenological study was to explore the lived experience of individual members of Renters' Rights Group (RRG), a community development group focused on promoting safe and affordable housing, thereby creating a better understanding of the phenomenon of empowerment. The seven study participants, four males and three females, five of whom were Aboriginal, had been active members of RRG for two years or more. The theoretical framework for this study was Parse's Theory of Human Becoming. Four core concepts were identified as contributing to participants' sense of empowerment: connecting, struggling, contributing, and changing. The findings from this study can be used by nurses and other professionals who work with marginalized individuals or groups. Incorporation of Parse's Human Becoming Theory into practice, education, and research, may facilitate the reflection of caring upon which nursing is founded.

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In hierdie verhandeling ondersoek ek die wyse waarop die installasiewerke van Rosemarie Marriott se uitstalling relaas... (2010-2011), soos uitgestal in die hoofgalery op die Potchefstroomkampus van die Noordwes-Universiteit, deur aanskouers as 'n narratief gelees en geïnterpreteer kan word. In my lees en interpretasie van Marriott se werke sluit ek aan by Bal se argument dat kunswerke as tekste gelees kan word wanneer die kunswerke as narratiewe beskou word. Die teoretiese grondslag vir so 'n ondersoek is geleë in Bakhtin se argumente met betrekking tot die interaksie tussen die outeur, protagonis en die leser ten einde vas te stel hoe Marriott se uitstalling [relaas...] op ʼn Bakhtiniaanse wyse alle lesers in 'n polifoniese dialoog probeer betrek. Binne die bestek van die studie vorm Bakhtin se teoretisering van die karnavaleske die utopiese tydruimtelike konteks waarin die gelykstelling van perspektiewe kan plaasvind. Daarmee saam verduidelik die Bakhtiniaanse begrip van dialogisme [onder andere] dat narratiewe uit dialoë tussen medegeregtigde gespreksgenote opgebou moet word. Dialogisme word voorts benut as die beskrywende konstruk en die ideale ontwerp waarvolgens die outeur die narratief moet organiseer. Ek voer aan dat Marriott in haar ontwerp van relaas... op ʼn soortgelyke wyse as die Bakhtiniaanse karnaval, die wêreld omgekeer voorstel deur die groteske sameflansing van onsamehangende konsepte en materiaal soos sprokies, kinderspeelgoed en taksidermie. Soos ʼn sprokieschronotoop het relaas... antropomorfiese dierekarakters wat interaktief aan die narratief deelneem, klere aantrek, en selfs kan “praat”. Ten slotte argumenteer ek dat Marriott van ʼn komplekse maskerspel gebruik maak waarin sy, soos in die Bakhtiniaanse maskerade, groteske maskers oplê, sodat lesers as deelnemende karakters en as gevolg van Marriott se ontwerp, diepliggende betekenis in sprokies kan ontmasker. / MA (History of Art), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

In hierdie verhandeling ondersoek ek die wyse waarop die installasiewerke van Rosemarie Marriott se uitstalling relaas... (2010-2011), soos uitgestal in die hoofgalery op die Potchefstroomkampus van die Noordwes-Universiteit, deur aanskouers as 'n narratief gelees en geïnterpreteer kan word. In my lees en interpretasie van Marriott se werke sluit ek aan by Bal se argument dat kunswerke as tekste gelees kan word wanneer die kunswerke as narratiewe beskou word. Die teoretiese grondslag vir so 'n ondersoek is geleë in Bakhtin se argumente met betrekking tot die interaksie tussen die outeur, protagonis en die leser ten einde vas te stel hoe Marriott se uitstalling [relaas...] op ʼn Bakhtiniaanse wyse alle lesers in 'n polifoniese dialoog probeer betrek. Binne die bestek van die studie vorm Bakhtin se teoretisering van die karnavaleske die utopiese tydruimtelike konteks waarin die gelykstelling van perspektiewe kan plaasvind. Daarmee saam verduidelik die Bakhtiniaanse begrip van dialogisme [onder andere] dat narratiewe uit dialoë tussen medegeregtigde gespreksgenote opgebou moet word. Dialogisme word voorts benut as die beskrywende konstruk en die ideale ontwerp waarvolgens die outeur die narratief moet organiseer. Ek voer aan dat Marriott in haar ontwerp van relaas... op ʼn soortgelyke wyse as die Bakhtiniaanse karnaval, die wêreld omgekeer voorstel deur die groteske sameflansing van onsamehangende konsepte en materiaal soos sprokies, kinderspeelgoed en taksidermie. Soos ʼn sprokieschronotoop het relaas... antropomorfiese dierekarakters wat interaktief aan die narratief deelneem, klere aantrek, en selfs kan “praat”. Ten slotte argumenteer ek dat Marriott van ʼn komplekse maskerspel gebruik maak waarin sy, soos in die Bakhtiniaanse maskerade, groteske maskers oplê, sodat lesers as deelnemende karakters en as gevolg van Marriott se ontwerp, diepliggende betekenis in sprokies kan ontmasker. / MA (History of Art), North-West University, Potchefstroom Campus, 2015

Framed within Parse's theory of human becoming, this descriptive, exploratory study addressed the research question: What is the meaning of the experience of bearing witness for nurses in practice with persons living their dying. Study themes in the language of the participants were enduring commitment surfaces gifts and burdens, telling-not telling mingles with closeness-reserve. and fostering continuing competent practice. Interpreted in the language of the researcher, study findings were written as tenacious devotion engenders exquisite encumbrances, guarded intimacy, and fostering cherished confidence. Study themes were linked primarily with theoretical concepts of valuing, connecting-separating, revealing-concealing, and transforming. Findings were discussed in light of relevant literature, and possibilities for nursing practice, education, policy, and further research were offered.

Rosemarie Trockel: The Problem of Becoming is a theoretical investigation of the artwork of contemporary German artist Rosemarie Trockel (b. 1952). Although Trockel is best known for her knit canvas works made throughout the 1980s, she has a remarkably large oeuvre which utilizes almost every artistic medium possible – from video and film work, to public monuments, painting, earthworks, sculpture, drawing, installation art, book-making, photography, and even robotics. Trockel’s artwork is constantly changing stylistically and thematically, which makes her work difficult to write about but is also what makes her work unique. By opening up a multiplicity of readings that refuse a fixed symbolic order, her art represents a continuous state of becoming other. Ultimately this project claims that Rosemarie Trockel’s artwork exemplifies a ‘virgulian’ subjectivity and an aesthetics of becoming. This project reads Trockel’s art through the philosophers Gilles Deleuze and Felix Guattari, as well important feminist and queer theorists such as Griselda Pollock, Teresa de Lauretis, Marguerite Duras, Simone de Beauvoir, and Monique Wittig. It also uses the theoretical construct of the virgule as an alternative to common art historical methods such as gender, culture, biography, historicity, or intentionality. The virgule is a theoretical construct (representing both an aesthetic mode or style and a form of subjectivity), which is, ultimately, a new way of reading works of art and literature. Each chapter of this thesis demonstrates different ways in which the virgule operates within Rosemarie Trockel’s artwork. Chapter one, ‘BB/BB’, centres on Trockel’s vitrine work ‘The Bardot Box’ (1993), in which Trockel combines Brigitte Bardot and Bertolt Brecht. These two figures are used to explore concepts of myth, fandom, the rhizome, and adolescence. Chapter two, ‘Mermaid/Angel’, looks at Trockel’s sculpture Pennsylvania Station (1987), which is usually read as relating to the Holocaust. Here, instead, the work will be looked at in relation to fairy tales and mythological creatures. It will also demonstrate Trockel’s fascination with the history of art and how women’s bodies are constructed throughout that history. Chapter three, ‘Domestic/Violence’, discusses how Trockel’s work can relate to historical German events (namely, the activities of terrorist Group the Red Army Faction). It also demonstrates her interest in uncovering forgotten histories and people. Chapter four, ‘Body/Machine’, explains how Trockel’s sculptural machine Painting Machine and 56 Brushstrokes bridges the divide between mechanical production and the handmade. This chapter also discusses the very different ways in which Trockel’s work portrays bodies (visceral versus clinical). The concluding chapter of Rosemarie Trockel: The Problem of Becoming, ‘Across the/Continental Divide’ places Trockel’s video work ‘Continental Divide’ (1994) in dialogue with Monique Wittig’s novel Across the Acheron, to show how the virgule operates as a subject position, and to demonstrate the limits of a virgulian subjectivity.

This research contributes a detailed personal account of a FEMEN activist. It presents an autophenomenographic analysis of cultural artefacts, including a Retrospective Diary, resulting from the activity of Yelena Myshko in FEMEN between 2012 and 2014. Previously FEMEN has been used as raw material for external analysis by press and academics to fit their individual agendas. To counteract this, Myshko’s research proposes an insider perspective on FEMEN activism. She writes herself in response to academics and FEMEN leader Inna Shevchenko who ignore the contribution of FEMEN Netherlands. Myshko merges author/researcher/researched and uses evocative storytelling to provide an introspective account of sextremism, connecting it to relevant embodiment concepts that illustrate its technology of empowerment and unintended side effects.   Through an autophenomenographic analysis of her personal experience, Myshko suggests how FEMEN employs sextremism to create soldiers of feminism. Her research proposes that sextremism is an attitude, a way of life and technology of resistance. For Myshko, sextremism embodies feminist polemic that turns against patriarchy through topless protest. Through personal accounts she illustrates how she internalized this aggressive femininity during physical and mental training. Myshko argues that in protest FEMEN activists communicate to the public and mobilize new activists through feminist snap. In addition, Myshko observes that sextremism produces visual activism that internalizes feminist polemic and transforms it into figurative storytelling. Myshko explains how she reproduced sextremism through body image that made her assertive and empowered her in action.   In turn Myshko demonstrates how personal accounts of sextremist embodiment and problems encountered as a woman in the world reproduce FEMEN’s fight in the media. Myshko analysis interviews with the press where she pinpoints topical feminist issues, making FEMEN real and relevant in Western society. Myshko observes that the media appropriated the spectacle created by FEMEN Netherlands but often distorted it and bend the news to fit its own agenda. In addition, the media criticized FEMEN Netherlands for cross-passing national values and power symbols. For Myshko, sextremism is empowering but also destructive. It promotes an unapologetic self-critical attitude that accumulates collateral damage in battle. The sporadic and restrained relationships between activists does not allow intimacy. Because of the eye of the media, tenderness is perceived as weakness and is not aloud. The combination of criticism, media scrutiny and police persecution hurt Myshko’s feelings. These unresolved feelings of hurt led to resentment and disengagement from FEMEN.