Magister Artium - MA (Linguistics, Language and Communication) / Street harassment refers to the unsolicited verbal remarks and nonverbal gestures that women
are subjected to by men when moving through (public) spaces. The dominant discourse sees
this phenomenon as firstly a gendered interaction. In this sense, men are construed as
initiators and women as recipients, although this is not always the case. Secondly, the
remarks are often viewed as solely sexualized in nature. Lastly, public spaces are seen as
male realms in which the actions of males are context specific, whereby the public nature of
space sees it as conducive for inevitable street harassing events. This study seeks to
understand how street harassment unfolds in the South African (post-apartheid) context.
Drawing on Phenomenological Discourse Analysis approach, the study focuses on interview
accounts of six participants from across the demographics whose experiences represent a
microcosm of harassed female skinscapes in and around Cape Town. Phenomenology is a
useful entry point to understanding emotive recounts of traumatic events in the lives of the
participants, specifically street harassment. Public space is approached through the lens of
Linguistic Landscapes (LL) which focuses on language and linguistic artefacts as they are
arranged or located in space. For this study, the perception of and bodies in space comes to
the fore. Hence, it is the interplay between space, body and the phenomenological account of
the body as a corporeal 'site' of harassment which is a focal point.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:uwc/oai:etd.uwc.ac.za:11394/6270 |
| Date | January 2018 |
| Creators | Harry, Janine |
| Contributors | Banda, Felix, Peck, Amiena |
| Publisher | University of the Western Cape |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Rights | University of the Western Cape |
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