Thesis (MA)--University of Stellenbosch, 2006. / Bibliography. Also available via the Internet.

The master thesis Identity and location in the novel about South Africa explores the relation between identity of a person, group, culture or nation and location. The objective of this study is to determine how this mutual relation is reflected in the literature. To formulate the main research question: In how far the location where a man is located can determine his identity in the novel about South-Africa? How the relation between identity and location is reflected in Etienne van Heerden's novel Kikoejoe? The theoretical part of the thesis describes the status quaestionis about the topics of identity and location. It determines the meanings that are attributed to those two concepts in the postcolonial discourse. This master thesis makes use of cultural analysis, imagology and deconstruction. The practical part of the thesis applies those theories on the novel Kikoejoe (1996) by the South African author Etienne van Heerden. The analysis explores the relation between plaas, the traditional South African farm, and the Afrikaner identity. Furthermore, this study uses the concept of hybrid identity introduced by the postcolonial theorist Homi K. Bhabha.

South African artist William Kentridge's (b. 1955) work frequently employs optical tools, such as the stereoscope, to highlight the contingency and instability of witness. These visual tools become metaphors for the process of historicization in post-apartheid South Africa. Kentridge is best known for his animations that are filmed by drawing with charcoal, photographing, erasing, redrawing and photographing again, leaving a palimpsest of previous traces on the paper's surface. Kentridge's prints, drawings, puppetry, theatrical projects and performances are also addressed in (un)Fixing the Eye. Kentridge's vast array of works narrates a history critical of the narrow and objective history of apartheid constructed by the Truth and Reconciliation Commission's (TRC) official report. Furthermore, the metaphors suggested by Kentridge's optical tools undermine the ideology that apartheid is in the past. It suggests the necessity of colonial narratives as well as issues of class and materialism, within apartheid as traces that are very much part of the present. Each chapter of (un)Fixing the Eye uses a separate optical device to explore the narration of history in South Africa. To do so I draw from an eclectic group of thinkers: psychoanalytic models of melancholia and reparation, Jacques Derrida's work on forgiveness, Hayden White's theories of narrative and Jonathan Crary's work on optical tools and perception. Chapter one argues there is an ironic and impossible condition of forgiveness and truth in the TRC. Using Kentridge's Ubu Tells the Truth and its specific invocation of Dziga Vertov's realist 'kino-eye' and Alfred Jarry's brutal and absurd King Ubu as metaphors of absurdity and truth represented through the movie camera, this chapter argues that there is an impossibility of truth in the TRC. Chapter two reads Kentridge's Felix in Exile as a materialist response to the naturalized and a historical landscape tradition in South Africa. Felix's use of the theodolite and sextant as mapping and navigation tools highlights colonial mapping practices and the history of property ownership, particularly in the mining industry. In this way these optical tools link colonialism and mining alongside of the violence rendered in the film, unearthing a history of colonialism and class issues in apartheid narratives. Chapter three uses X-rays and CAT scans as metaphors for the testimony in the TRC, as both require an expert to decode and contextualize the testimony. Kentridge's films during the TRC use medical imaging technologies that are ambiguous and uncertain within the TRC's discourse of truth. Chapter four returns to the camera, this time as a colonial image in Namibia, arguing its usage in Black Box/Chambre Noir creates a melancholic relationship between Enlightenment Europe and colonial Africa. In this melancholia, Kentridge's history of the 20th century's first genocide in Namibia links a tremendous number of global histories. The focus in optical discourses, particularly the stereoscope is not new in Kentridge's work but (un)Fixing the Eye considers a number of tools that have not previously been a part of this optical work in Kentridge's art. It expands the political scope of Kentridge's work to include colonialism and class issues, insisting on their place in the current political landscape. Ultimately this project argues that Kentridge's work through a destabilized optical apparatus works both formally and allegorically as a way of conceiving of narrative and ideological critique in an expanded sense from the narrow confines set by the TRC.

This thesis in an exploration of political mobilisation and its relation to violence and control in the townships of the Vaal Triangle, South Africa, c.1976 to 1986, with a particular focus on the Vaal Uprising of 1984. It examines the emerging conflict between councillors and local communities and the redrawing of imagined boundaries of community. Councillors were demarcated as a collective group that was perceived to be violating the social contract and were regarded as being obstacles to meaningful political change. The period saw the emergence of a localised discourse around accountability, political legitimacy, transparency, freedom and community. Political subjectivities were influenced by the straddling of everyday experiences of oppression, violence, inequality and poverty on one hand and the impact of ideologies of freedom and liberation on the other. The latter were promoted by the African National Congress in exile, as well as the United Democratic Front, but these organisations did not provide direct leadership. On 3 September 1984 the conflict escalated, sparked by an announcement to increase rent, service tariffs and municipal levies. It led to a large-scale uprising that altered the political and social landscape. It heralded the beginning of the insurrectionary period of the mid-1980s that brought the most sustained challenge to the apartheid regime. The relative success of the uprising in enforcing concessions from local authorities and the departure of councillors from the townships informed subsequent political strategies. The state attempted to win Hearts and Minds with limited reforms but also used heavy-handed repression. Terror began to escalate and state violence further conscientised and radicalised local communities. Youth activists in particular came to believe that the regime could only be overcome if confronted with strategies of political violence. Alleged informers and black policemen came under increasing attack, reflecting a redrawing of boundaries of community and hindering effective policing.