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This work narrates a qualitative sociological exploration with auto-ethnographic underpinnings. It deals with the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (SATRC) as a contextual case among others. The thesis seeks to answer the question of whether countries following a TRC route did better than those that did not use TRCs, when it comes to establishing civil control over the military. The author's exposure and involvement in the process as participant, participant observer, observer participant and observer inform the study. With the SATRC as one cornerstone other cases reflected upon include Argentina and Chile (Latin America), Spain and Portugal (Southern Europe), Namibia, Nigeria and Rwanda (Africa). / Sociology / D.Litt. et. Phil. (Sociology)

This study focused on the schools of KwaDabeka Township in KwaZulu-Natal. This project explored the underlying reasons for and types of violence, as well as initiatives for violence prevention. This is a qualitative study; therefore it is located within the interpretive paradigm. A case study strategy was employed in which qualitative methods such as interviews, observations, document reviews, and journals were used to collect data. The findings suggest that besides ill-discipline and uncooperativeness by learners, criminals and thugs from outside schools pose a threat to the stability of schools. The findings also suggest that girls and young boys are victims of violence in schools. The research findings suggest that violence production in schools is shaped by socio-economic status of community where the school is in, as well as gender and masculinity. / Educational Leadership and Management / M. Ed. (Education Management)

A segunda onda do Movimento Feminista no Brasil emergiu em um contexto de combate à Ditadura. E surgiu em São Paulo como possibilidade de reforçar mais uma frente de luta contra o governo militar. Mas o feminismo ainda era uma novidade pouco conhecida até por aquelas que se declaravam como feministas. Era rechaçado pelos segmentos mais conservadores da sociedade, mas também pelos militantes da Esquerda revolucionária. Estes o consideravam fora de tempo e lugar. Ao impulsionar o movimento social, o feminismo no Brasil reapareceu em meados da década de 70 enfrentando a questão do poder externamente, na sociedade e no Estado, e internamente, no próprio Movimento de Mulheres. Os vários grupos que compunham o campo em que se afirmava o feminismo disputavam o controle do Movimento de acordo com os referenciais tradicionais de poder. E, ao mesmo tempo, buscavam alternativas de gestão do movimento que fugissem daqueles modelos. Ora porque assim as circunstâncias impunham, ora porque assumiam as críticas elaboradas pelo feminismo à natureza patriarcal e autoritária do poder tradicional. As contradições que o Movimento de Mulheres abrigou punham em jogo as posições de todas as suas ativistas, inclusive das próprias feministas. Fazia com que reexaminassem os seus papéis sociais e constatassem as suas condições de oprimidas. Construir as identidades feministas significava romper com os cânones estabelecidos para o ser mulher que haviam aprendido. Assim como implicava assumir-se como sujeito de suas lutas. / The second wave of the Feminist Movement in Brazil emerged in the context of fighting the Dictatorship. And it arose in São Paulo as a possibility to further enhance a battle front against the military government. Yet feminism was still a little known novelty even by those who declared themselves as feminists. It was rejected by the more conservative segments of the society, and also by supporters of the revolutionary Left, who regarded feminism as out of place and time. By propelling the social movement, feminism reemerged in Brazil in the midseventies facing the issue of power both externally, regarding the society and the state, and internally, inside the Women\'s Movement. The various groups comprising the field where feminism was grounded vied for control of the Movement in accordance with traditional references of power. At the same time, those groups sought alternatives to manage the movement, thus trying to escape from those conventional models. And this was because either the circumstances imposed, or because the groups adopted the Feminisms critique regarding the authoritarian and patriarchal nature of traditional power. The contradictions harbored by the Women\'s Movement put at stake the position of all its activists, including the feminists themselves. They were led to re-examine their social roles and to face their condition of oppressed beings. Building feminist identities meant breaking with the established canons that they have learned regarding what is to be a woman. The construction of the feminist identity also meant to become the subject of their own struggles.

A segunda onda do Movimento Feminista no Brasil emergiu em um contexto de combate à Ditadura. E surgiu em São Paulo como possibilidade de reforçar mais uma frente de luta contra o governo militar. Mas o feminismo ainda era uma novidade pouco conhecida até por aquelas que se declaravam como feministas. Era rechaçado pelos segmentos mais conservadores da sociedade, mas também pelos militantes da Esquerda revolucionária. Estes o consideravam fora de tempo e lugar. Ao impulsionar o movimento social, o feminismo no Brasil reapareceu em meados da década de 70 enfrentando a questão do poder externamente, na sociedade e no Estado, e internamente, no próprio Movimento de Mulheres. Os vários grupos que compunham o campo em que se afirmava o feminismo disputavam o controle do Movimento de acordo com os referenciais tradicionais de poder. E, ao mesmo tempo, buscavam alternativas de gestão do movimento que fugissem daqueles modelos. Ora porque assim as circunstâncias impunham, ora porque assumiam as críticas elaboradas pelo feminismo à natureza patriarcal e autoritária do poder tradicional. As contradições que o Movimento de Mulheres abrigou punham em jogo as posições de todas as suas ativistas, inclusive das próprias feministas. Fazia com que reexaminassem os seus papéis sociais e constatassem as suas condições de oprimidas. Construir as identidades feministas significava romper com os cânones estabelecidos para o ser mulher que haviam aprendido. Assim como implicava assumir-se como sujeito de suas lutas. / The second wave of the Feminist Movement in Brazil emerged in the context of fighting the Dictatorship. And it arose in São Paulo as a possibility to further enhance a battle front against the military government. Yet feminism was still a little known novelty even by those who declared themselves as feminists. It was rejected by the more conservative segments of the society, and also by supporters of the revolutionary Left, who regarded feminism as out of place and time. By propelling the social movement, feminism reemerged in Brazil in the midseventies facing the issue of power both externally, regarding the society and the state, and internally, inside the Women\'s Movement. The various groups comprising the field where feminism was grounded vied for control of the Movement in accordance with traditional references of power. At the same time, those groups sought alternatives to manage the movement, thus trying to escape from those conventional models. And this was because either the circumstances imposed, or because the groups adopted the Feminisms critique regarding the authoritarian and patriarchal nature of traditional power. The contradictions harbored by the Women\'s Movement put at stake the position of all its activists, including the feminists themselves. They were led to re-examine their social roles and to face their condition of oppressed beings. Building feminist identities meant breaking with the established canons that they have learned regarding what is to be a woman. The construction of the feminist identity also meant to become the subject of their own struggles.

Historical sources suggest that the bad reputation of Bioko island ―a product of mixed exoticism, fear of death and allure for profit— might have started as early as the first European explorations of sub-Saharan Africa. Today, the same elements seem to have been reconfigured, producing a similar result in the Western imagination: cultural exoticization, fear of state-sponsored violence and allure for profit are as actual as ever in popular conceptions of Equatorial Guinea. A notion of ongoing terror keeps conditioning the study of the tiny African nation, resulting in media trends and academic discourses polarized by the grand themes of oil/money/corruption and human rights violations —which are highly counterproductive when trying to account for Equatoguineans’ everyday practices, mainly because the violence exerted by the state has shifted in nature. Deploying a triple theoretical framework made up by Michel de Certeau’s (1984) concepts of readers/writers/texts and strategies, Michael Jackson’s (2005) work on being, agency and intersubjectivity, as well as Bayart’s (1993) ‘politics of the belly’, this thesis explores some of the complex cultural and social-psychological strategies that urban populations in Malabo have developed in order to create, sustain and protect the integrity of their social selves while living in inherently oppressive environments. People’s means of personhood negotiation are observed through contemporary systems of beliefs, narratives and practices. I suggest that negotiations are products of, but also preconditions for, the existence of a social apparatus and the integrity of the selves moving within its discursive boundaries. Consequently, Equatoguineans’ strategies for self-making are seen as potentially responsible for reproducing a destructive status quo. This idea is further developed through the concept of lateral struggle, a form of social violence alternative to top-down flows which builds on sociality as culturally calibrated forms of symbolic interaction between selves constructed in a zero sum fashion. The dynamics of lateral struggles are illustrated through ethnographic data on what people phrase as el Guineano’s innate ‘rebelliousness’, which in turn visibilizes processes of collective self-making and the verbalization of negative national stereotypes. Possibilities for the rise of more positive types of personhood based on a habitual splitting of individual self from national other are explored. Finally, a brief assessment of how such splitting could be hindering people from collectively writing a ‘homeland’ is made. / Fuentes históricas sugieren que la mala reputación de la isla de Bioko ―producto de una mezcla de exoticismo, miedo a la muerte y deseo de ganacias económicas― pudo haber comenzado desde las primeras exploraciones europeas del África sub-sahariana. Hoy, los mismos elementos parecen haber sido reconfigurados, produciendo un resultado similar en el imaginario occidental: exotización cultural, miedo a la violencia perpetrada por el estado, y deseo de ganancias económicas dada la prominencia de su industria extractiva son elementos importantes en la concepción popular de Guinea Ecuatorial. Una noción de terror prevalente condiciona el estudio de la pequeña nación africana, lo cual resulta en tendencias mediáticas y discursos académicos polarizados por los grandes temas de petróleo/dinero/corrupción y violaciones de derechos humanos ―discursos que resultan contraproducentes a la hora de dar cuenta de las prácticas cotidianas de los Ecuatoguineanos, principalmente porque la violencia ejercida por el estado ha cambiado en lo cualitativo. Haciendo uso de un marco teórico compuesto por los conceptos de lectores/escritores/textos y estrategias desarrollados por Michel de Certeau (1984), el trabajo de Michael Jackson (2005) sobre el ser, la agencia y la intersubjetividad; así como por ‘la política del vientre’ de Bayart (1993), el presente estudio explora algunas de las complejas estrategias culturales y sociopsicológicas que las poblaciones urbanas de Malabo han desarrollado con el fin de crear, mantener y proteger la integridad de su yo social viviendo en ambientes inherentemente opresivos. Los medios utilizados por la gente para el posicionamiento de su yo social son observados mediante sistemas de creencias contemporáneos, narrativas y prácticas. La autora sugiere que dichas negociaciones son productos de, pero también condiciones para, la existencia del aparato social y la integridad de los entes culturales moviéndose dentro de sus fronteras discursivas. En consecuencia, las estrategias que los ecuatoguineanos utilizan para la formación y el mantenimiento de su yo social son consideradas potencialmente responsables de la reproducción de un status quo destructivo. Esta idea es desarrollada mediante el concepto de conflicto lateral ―una forma de violencia social alternativa a flujos ‘top-down’― basado en el principio de la socialidad como una forma culturalmente calibrada de interacción simbólica entre yoes creados como en un juego de suma cero. Las dinámicas de los conflictos laterales son ilustradas mediante material etnográfico sobre lo que la gente denomina “la rebeldía innata del Guineano”, la cual visibiliza además procesos de formación de la identidad colectiva y la verbalización de estereotipos nacionales negativos. Las posibilidades para la creación de identidades individuales más positivas basadas en una diferenciación habitual entre yo-individual y otro-nacional son exploradas. Finalmente, la autora hace un breve comentario sobre cómo dicha diferenciación podría estar impidiendo la formación colectiva de una idea de ‘patria’ en el imaginario ecuatoguineano contemporáneo.

This Qualitative research investigated and explored using a Narrative approach with teachers to find ways to improve the quality of teachers’ lives through the use of stories in Pastoral Counselling. A small group of teachers from a local primary school were invited to share their stories as a means to explore care and support actions for other teachers in the South African context. Statistics seem to point to a crisis in the South African education system, especially regarding the well-being of teachers. Various factors contribute to this including issues of diversity in the teaching context and challenges posed by inclusive education. It is my belief that a Narrative approach can assist Practical Theology to make a significant contribution towards helping struggling teachers nurture resilience and create more meaningful lives. Narrative Inquiry, a relatively new Qualitative methodology, was used to study the teachers’ experiences. This required a “collaboration between researcher and participants” which happened over time, in a particular context (Beaumont Primary School in Somerset West) and in social interactions with the research participants: a small group of teachers from Beaumont Primary School. African and South African views were investigated. Data collection methods included: interviewing; attentive listening; and observation, through which stories (data) was collected from the focus group. After analysing and interpreting the research data, an integrated Narrative Pastoral model was constructed which could assist Practical Theology and Pastoral Counselling to better equip teachers to deal with the challenges they are facing. It is hoped that this model will ultimately help the teachers involved in this research project to grow into integrated, whole (quality) beings who can make a difference where they work and live. The vision is that this model can also be implemented in the rest of South Africa’s teacher population. / Practical Theology / D. Th. (Practical Theology)

The purpose of this study was to identify the relevant factors to develop a framework for optimising public participation to improve service delivery in a metropolitan municipality in South Africa. This approach was undertaken with a view to identify the gaps created through the expectations generated among citizens by the national government and the weaknesses in the capacity of the local government to deliver through its supply chain processes, and hence develop strategies to close the existing gaps as much as possible. There were four samples in the study namely: citizens, managers, businesses and ward committee members (WCM). The data that were collected for citizens were conducted at each Customer Care Centres (CCC). For the other three sets of respondents, it was conducted through email. The research approach was quantitative. Factor analysis was applied in this research study in order to identify significant factors that drive public participation in service delivery by local government. Findings of this study showed that there are two major perceptions of the respondents perceived to affect the optimisation of effective service delivery: 1) the facilitating factor and 2) the impeding factor. This was assisted by Structural Equation Modelling (SEM) where a model was designed which resulted in the development of the public participation framework for effective municipal service delivery. These findings will inform the management of local governments to prioritise inclusion of all citizens by optimising their participation for effective service delivery. Areas where participation in local government was lacking were identified and this study presents well-informed strategies for local governments and for their possible implementation. / Business Management / D.B.L.