Dissertations / Theses on the topic 'Colonial Discourse Theory'

The aim of this essay is to provide a perspective on literature inculpating colonialism using postcolonial literary theory and method. The subject material incorporates four novels studied during the literature modules for the English course at Högskolan Gävle (HIG). The four novels combine to highlight various issues that affect the Self-identity through hybridization and colonial discourse as well as the detrimental nature of the colonial project for indigenous value systems during the period of colonialism. There is also application of theories and concepts raised in academic literature from within and outside the curriculum of HIG. The use of the postcolonial literary methodology provides a critical perspective of the aforementioned literature while implementing theories associated with that movement such as hybridity and the redefining of borders as well as focusing on the social, cultural, political and religious impact of the coloniser’s activities in the colonies as raised in the novels.  The most significant findings of this essay include the roles of isolation and disconnection within the colonial project and the subsequential effects on the colonised and their descendants. There are findings and observations of the level of strategic application of universalistic colonial discourse and the intrinsic application of the language used in the objectification of the indigenous and the subjugation of their value systems. The role of perception is also highlighted including findings on the social implications for the colonies inhabitants, both dissident and conformist, raised within the chosen literature and this essay. The essay also examines the application of various strands of literary theory incorporated within postcolonialism including poststructuralism and psychoanalytic criticism as well as anthropology material.  The conclusion of this essay culminates with the conflicting interpretations of progress as a universalism that counters the theories of postcolonialists and poststructuralists and their subsequent refusal to succumb to literature’s prevalence. The subjectivity of the postcolonial literary theorist and the self-imposed parameters restrict the interpretation of the colonial and postcolonial literature. The aforementioned progress defined by improved standards of health, education and social justice is lacking in presence in both the postcolonial literature and the accompanying literary theory counterpart. Subsequently, the disconnected voice of isolation and the split/double identity take precedence over higher standards of living and the appreciation of access to improved human rights and social justice within postcolonial society.

Like elsewhere in Europe, the tides of nationalist right-wing rhetoric in Sweden have become instrumental in generating a wave of anti-liberal and anti-immigration sentiments in politics and media. In particular, one branch of right-wing alternative media has become a breeding ground for normalizing such rhetoric. Does the anti-immigration stance in such media disguise racist inclinations? In this thesis we examine the discourse of three right-wing alternative media sites in Sweden to explore the possible employment of different types of racism in their articles. By taking the constructivist viewpoint and adopting the post-colonial conceptions of the 'Self' and the 'Other', racist discourse was analyzed and characterized as either biological or cultural. From these two theories, we derived concepts concerning descriptions of contemporary and ideal Swedish society that will be used as further indicators of racist discourses. In this single case study, 94 articles from Fria Tider, Nya Tider, and Samhällsnytt were analyzed on the topics of immigration, integration and crime through a qualitative content analysis. The results show that most of the articles contain cultural racist discourse.

This dissertation examines and writes the early history of distribution and exhibition of moving images in Southeast Asia by observing the intersection of transnational itinerant entertainment and colonialism. It is a cultural history of turn-of-the-century Southeast Asia, and focuses on the movement of films, people, and amusements across oceans and national borders. The starting point is two simultaneous and interrelated processes in the late 1800s, to which cinema contributed. One process, colonialism and imperialism, separated people into different classes of people, ruler and ruled, white and non-white, thereby creating and widening a colonial binary. The other process was bringing the world closer, through technology, trade, and migration, and compressing the notions of time and space. The study assesses the development of cinema in a colonial setting and how its development disrupted notions of racial hierarchies. The first decade of cinema in Southeast Asia, particularly in Singapore, is used as a point of reference from where issues such as imperialism, colonial discourse, nation-building, ethnicity, gender, and race is discussed. The development of film exhibition and distribution in Southeast Asia is tracked from travelling film exhibitors and agents to the opening of a regional Pathé Frères office and permanent film venues. By having a transnational perspective the interconnectedness of Southeast Asia is demonstrated, as well as its constructed national borders. Cinematic venues throughout Southeast Asia negotiated segregated, colonial racial politics by creating a common social space where people from different ethnic and social backgrounds gathered. Furthermore, this study analyses what kind of worldview the exhibited pictures had and how audiences reproduced their meanings.

This thesis 'Orientalism in Transit' examines the literary-cultural representation of Eastern Europe within the discourse of Orientalism as pioneered by Edward Said and, subsequently, by other post-colonial theorists. It, thus, aims to push the boundaries of postcolonial theory beyond its conventional literary-critical landscape. The thesis investigates the complexity and the ambivalence of the place of Eastern Europe in some literary-cultural texts, with particular attention to The Balkan Trilogy and The Levant Trilogy. Eastern Europe emerges as a paratext, a place that is represented paradoxically as in and out of Europe. The thesis shows how Eastern Europe is subjected to a process of othering. This process, I argue, is not completely dissimilar to the Orientalising of the Saidian Orient. Ideas and concepts of otherness, gender and gendered identities, hybridity, and language are key to my analysis.

Research on analogies in science education has focussed on student interpretation of teacher and textbook analogies, psychological aspects of learning with analogies and structured approaches for teaching with analogies. Few studies have investigated how analogies might be pivotal in students’ growing participation in chemical discourse. To study analogies in this way requires a sociocultural perspective on learning that focuses on ways in which language, signs, symbols and practices mediate participation in chemical discourse. This study reports research findings from a teacher-research study of two analogy-writing activities in a chemistry class. The study began with a theoretical model, Third Space, which informed analyses and interpretation of data. Third Space was operationalized into two sub-constructs called Dialogical Interactions and Hybrid Discourses. The aims of this study were to investigate sociocultural aspects of learning chemistry with analogies in order to identify classroom activities where students generate Dialogical Interactions and Hybrid Discourses, and to refine the operationalization of Third Space. These aims were addressed through three research questions. The research questions were studied through an instrumental case study design. The study was conducted in my Year 11 chemistry class at City State High School for the duration of one Semester. Data were generated through a range of data collection methods and analysed through discourse analysis using the Dialogical Interactions and Hybrid Discourse sub-constructs as coding categories. Results indicated that student interactions differed between analogical activities and mathematical problem-solving activities. Specifically, students drew on discourses other than school chemical discourse to construct analogies and their growing participation in chemical discourse was tracked using the Third Space model as an interpretive lens. Results of this study led to modification of the theoretical model adopted at the beginning of the study to a new model called Merged Discourse. Merged Discourse represents the mutual relationship that formed during analogical activities between the Analog Discourse and the Target Discourse. This model can be used for interpreting and analysing classroom discourse centred on analogical activities from sociocultural perspectives. That is, it can be used to code classroom discourse to reveal students’ growing participation with chemical (or scientific) discourse consistent with sociocultural perspectives on learning.

Berlin is heralded worldwide as being a city that is open, innovative and diverse: a true multicultural metropolis. Music plays a central role in the city’s claim to this title. Go to any one of Berlin’s many notorious alternative nightclubs and you will hear techno, house and electronic dance music blasting out to hoards of enthusiastic partygoers. Many of these clubs and their participants claim that these parties represent diversity, acceptance, equality and tolerance: Spaces within which social divisions are suspended, difference is overcome and people are united. This ubiquitous discursive assertion is referred to in this thesis as a “diversity discourse”. This “diversity discourse” will be deconstructed and situated within a wider political context, with a specific focus on perceptions of race, ethnicity, sexuality and gender. Engaging with theories of intersectionality, post-colonial theory (looking specifically at Jasbir Puar’s important work on homonationalism) and employing qualitative methods such as in-depth interviews and autoethnographic inquiry, it will be argued that the “diversity discourse” works as a mask to conceal a reality of social segregation. Far from being sites of equality and diversity, it will be suggested that access to these nightclubs is premised on the possession of societal privilege. That being said, it will also be argued that research into EDM nightclub participation refrain from viewing these clubs within a binary framework of “good” or “bad”; Rather, they should be seen as complex sites of ambivalence, within which multiple identities are acted out and explored. The project contributes to the current body of work within the (post-) discipline of intersectional gender studies, arguing for the need for theorisations in the field to encompass notions of intersecting privilege and disadvantage.

The aim of this thesis is to elucidate the tension between feminism and nationalism in Israel and to investigate the ways by which such discursive currents mark the identities of Israeli women. The specific field of investigation is Israeli theatre, and the identities examined are dramatic characters created by the Israeli playwright Miriam Kainy. Also examined is the character of the playwright herself. Theatre is being observed as a specific field of society in which the position of women can be clarified. What kind of women characters the Israeli theatre produces is therefore a leading question for this study.

Feminist theories, focusing on gender aspects of power relations, together with the postcolonial perspective, which considers power relations by focusing on ethnicity and geopolitical aspects, provide the theoretical tools. The social constructionist viewpoint is used since it provides an appropriate understanding of important notions for the thesis, such as nation and identity, considering them as constructions created by discourse. The discourses focused upon are the national v. the feminist discourse and theatre is viewed as a discourse mediator, which is why the dramatic text is the object of the analysis. The specific method of analysis is inspired by Norman Fairclough’s critical discourse analysis.

The main part of the thesis consists of a discursive analysis of five women characters, constructed within a period of about five decades, namely between the 1950s and 1990s. Each one of these characters consists of an articulation which is considered representative of a specific time-relevant discursive struggle between the two discourses in question. One of the central assumptions of the thesis is that the Israeli national identity is thoroughly masculine. The identity problems it has been causing Israeli women since the time of the pioneers until today are clearly illuminated throughout the analysis. The conclusion emphasises that the subjectpositions being introduced by Israeli national discourse, namely the ways of being a New Jew, an Israeli, collide with those introduced by feminist discourse, i.e. ways of being an independent woman subject. Nevertheless, each and every character demonstrates creative ways of transforming the discourses by aiming at a hybrid formation.

Genom användning av diskursanalys ämnar denna studie besvara följande frågor: ”Hur framställs skillnaderna och likheterna mellan våld i nära relationer och hedersrelaterat våld, och hur betraktas de som olika fenomen?” samt ”Hur kan synen av olika kulturer påverkas genom att definiera våldet på olika sätt?”. För att besvara dessa frågor har 29 tidningsartiklar om våld i nära relationer och 61 artiklar om hedersrelaterat våld som skrivits i svenska dagstidningar mellan åren 2002 och 2021 samlats in. Dessa har sedan analyserats med hjälp av Laclaus och Mouffes diskursanalys. Analysen fokuserar på hur hedersrelaterat våld och våld i nära relationer presenteras i den mediala debatten. Utifrån analysen uppkom två diskurser: ”Det främmande våldet” samt ”Den mediala rapporteringen av distinktionen mellan olika våld”. Diskursanalysen tillhör det socialkonstruktivistiska perspektivet. Majoriteten av den tidigare forskningen berör det feministiska perspektivet. Dessa perspektiv brukas för att försöka förklara om det finns någon skillnad mellan nyhetsrapporteringen av hedersrelaterat våld och våld i nära relationer samt hur detta påverkar synen på icke-svenska kulturer. Studien klargör att det finns en skillnad på rapporteringen av hedersrelaterat våld och våld i nära relationer. Detta bidrar bland annat till att kunna särskilja olika grupper i samhället där etniska minoriteter framställs som främmande och oförmögen att kunna anpassa sig till det svenska samhället.
Through the application of discourse analysis, the purpose of this study is to answer the following questions: “How are the similarities and differences of domestic violence and honour-related violence portrayed, and in what ways are they viewed differently?” and “How can the perception of other cultures be affected by redefining the violence?”. To answer these questions, 29 news articles regarding domestic violence and 61 news articles regarding honour-related violence have been collected and then analysed with the help of Laclau’s and Mouffe’s discourse analysis. The analysis focuses on the way domestic violence and honour-related violence is portrayed in the journalistic space. Through this analysis, two discourses emerged: “The foreign violence” and “The distinction in portrayal of difference types on violence in the sphere of media”. Discourse analysis lies within the realm of social constructivism. Most prior research touches upon the feministic perspective. These perspectives are used in order to explain any difference in the reporting of honour-related violence and domestic violence in the media, and furthermore how it affects the regard of non-Swedish cultures. The study identified that there is a difference in the portrayal of honour-related violence and domestic violence in Swedish media. Ramifications include segregation, leading to the view that ethnic minorities are unable to conform to the structure of Swedish society at large.

This thesis investigates the narrated experiences of a number of individuals that migrated to Argentina from Russia and Ukraine in the wake of the fall of the Soviet Union. The over-arching aim of this thesis is to study the ways in which these migrants navigated the social reality in Argentina, with regards to available physical, material, and socioeconomic positions as well as with regards to their narrated self-understandings and identifications. The empirical data consists of ethnographic in-depth interviews and participatory observation from Buenos Aires between the years 2011 and 2014. Through the theoretical frameworks of political discourse theory, critical race studies, auto-ethnography, and theories on coloniality, the author examines questions of migration, mobility, race, class, and gender in the processes of re-establishing a life in a new context. The interviewees were not only directly affected by the collapse of the USSR in the sense that it drastically changed their terrain of possible futures as well as retroactive understandings of their pasts, but they also began their lives in Argentina during the turmoil of the economic crisis that culminated in 2001. Central to this thesis is how these dislocatory events impacted the interviewees’ possibilities and limitations for living the life they had expected, and thus how discursive structures affect subject positions and identifications, and thereby create specific conditions for different relocatory trajectories. By focusing on how these individuals narrate their reasons for migration and their integration into Argentine labor and housing markets, the author demonstrates the role Argentine and East European history, as well as the neoliberal restructuring of the postsocialist region and Argentina in the 1990’s, had for self-understandings, subject positions, identities, and mobility. Various intersections of power, and particularly the making of race and whiteness, are important for the way that the interviewees negotiated subject positions and identifications. The author addresses how affect and hope played a part in these processes and how downward mobility was articulated and made meaningful. She also examines how participants’ ideas about a “good life” were related to understandings of the past, questions of race, social inequality, and a logic of coloniality.
Den här avhandlingen undersöker hur ett antal individer som migrerade från Ryssland och Ukraina till Argentina efter Sovjetunionens fall berättar om sin erfarenhet. Det övergripande syftet är att studera hur dessa migranter navigerade i den sociala verkligheten i Argentina, särskilt vad det gäller kroppsliga, materiella och socioekonomiska positioner, såväl som hur detta påverkat deras berättade självförståelse och identifikationer. Det empiriska materialet består av etnografiska djupintervjuer och deltagande observationer gjorda i Buenos Aires mellan åren 2011 och 2014. Författaren använder sig av ett teoretiskt ramverk bestående av politisk diskursteori, kritiska ras- och vithetsstudier, autoetnografi och teorier om kolonialitet för att undersöka frågor om migration, mobilitet, rasialisering, klass och kön i en kontext av återetablering av ett liv i ett nytt samhälle. De som intervjuas i denna avhandling påverkades inte bara av Sovjetunionens kollaps, på så sätt att det påverkade deras förståelse av möjlig framtid samt deras retroaktiva förståelser av det förflutna, utan de påbörjade även sina nya liv i Argentina under den ekonomiska krisen som kulminerade år 2001. Centralt i avhandlingen är hur dessa dislokatoriska händelser inverkade på de intervjuades möjligheter och begränsningar för att kunna leva det liv som de hade förväntat sig, och därmed hur diskursiva strukturer påverkar subjektspositioner och identifikationer och därmed skapar specifika villkor för olika vägar för återetablering. Genom fokus på hur dessa individer berättar om sina anledningar för migrationen och om deras väg in i den argentinska arbets- och bostadsmarknaden visar författaren vilken roll argentinsk och östeuropeisk historia, såväl som 1990-talets nyliberala omstrukturering av den postsovjetiska regionen och Argentina, hade för deras självförståelse, subjektspositioner, identitet och mobilitet. Viktigt för hur de intervjuade förhandlade om olika subjektspositioner och identifikationer är intersektionella maktordningar och särskilt skapandet av ras och vithet. Författaren analyserar hur affekt och hopp spelade en roll i dessa processer och hur social deklassering artikulerades och gjordes meningsfull. Här undersöks även hur de intervjuades idéer om möjligheten att leva ett ”gott liv” var sammanflätade med förståelser av det förflutna, rasialisering, social ojämlikhet och en logik som präglades av kolonialitet.
Тема этой диссертации – это личный опыт ряда индивидуумов, переехавших в Аргентину вскоре после распада Советского Союза, на основе их собственных повествований. Основная цель работы заключается в исследовании того, как мигранты-участники вписывались в общественную реальность Аргентины на фоне её превалирующих физических,  материальных и социо-экономических позиций, а также по отношению к тому, как согласно их рассказам, эти люди сами себя воспринимали и идентифицировали. Эмпирическая компонента диссертации включает в себя комплекс углубленных этнографических интервью и включенного наблюдения, проводимых в Буэнос Айрес в 2011 -2014 гг. Автор изучает вопросы миграции, класса, социальной мобильности, расы и гендера в процессе переустановки жизни в новых условиях, руководствуясь теоретическими посылами теорий политического дискурса, критических расовых исследований (critical race studies), автоэтнографии и теорий колониальности. В дополнение к тому факту, что на интервьюируемых оказал непосредственное влияние распад Советского Союза, который кардинальным образом изменил как возможные сценарии их будущего, так и ретроактивные интерпретации их прошлого, эти люди начали свою новую жизнь в Аргентине сразу после сумятицы экономического кризиса, достигшего кульминации в 2001 г. Центральным аспектом диссертации является изучение воздействия, которое имели эти дислоцирующие обстоятельства на спектр естественных возможностей и преград на пути реализации жизненного проекта участников исследования, как они себе его представляли, а также какое влияние оказывают соответствующие дискурсивные структуры на позиции и идентификации субъектов, обуславливая определенные условия реализации различных траекторий их жизни в эмиграции. Фокусируя внимание на том, как эти индивидуумы повествуют о том, что побудило их к эмиграции в Аргентину и интеграции в местные рынки труда и жилья, автор подчеркивает ту роль, которую сыграли в этом особенности как аргентинской, так и восточноевропейской истории, наряду с более поздними структурными изменениями 90х гг., происходившими как на постсоветском, так и аргентинском пространствах в эпоху неолиберализма. Это касается в равной степени аспектов самовосприятия, позиций субъектов, а также вопросов их идентификации и мобильности. Важной составляющей того, каким образом интервьюируемые устанавливали рамки своей субъективной идентификации и позиции, являлись различные грани концепции власти; в частности того, как возникают понятия расы и ‘белизны’ (whiteness). Автор обращается к вопросу, какую роль в этих процессах сыграли аффект и надежда, и как субъекты исследования артикулировали и находили смысл в своей нисходящей мобильности. Параллельно автор анализирует то, как представления участников о "хорошей жизни" ставились ими в зависимость от их собственной интерпретации прошлого, наряду с вопросами расы, общественного неравенства и колониальной логики.
Esta tesis investiga las experiencias narradas por una serie de individuos que emigraron a Argentina desde Rusia y Ucrania a raíz de la caída de la Unión Soviética. Su objetivo general es estudiar el modo en que estos inmigrantes transitaron la realidad social argentina en lo que se refiere a las posiciones físicas, materiales y socioeconómicas disponibles, así como también a su auto-comprensión y a las identidades construidas desde sus narraciones. La autora examina cuestiones de migración, movilidad, raza, clase y género en los procesos de restablecimiento de la vida de estos sujetos a través del marco de la teoría política del discurso, los estudios críticos de la raza, la auto-etnografía y teorías sobre la colonialidad. Los datos empíricos consisten en entrevistas etnográficas en profundidad y observación participante realizadas en Buenos Aires entre los años 2011 y 2014. Los entrevistados no sólo se vieron directamente afectados por el colapso de la URSS en el sentido de que éste cambió drásticamente su terreno de futuros posibles y la comprensión retroactiva de su pasado, sino que también comenzaron sus vidas en Argentina durante las turbulencias de la crisis económica que estalló en el año 2001. En esta tesis, es central la indagación sobre cómo estos eventos dislocatorios impactaron en las posibilidades y limitaciones de los entrevistados para vivir la vida que esperaban y cómo las estructuras discursivas afectan las posiciones y las identificaciones de los sujetos, creando condiciones específicas para diferentes trayectorias de reubicación. Al enfocarse en cómo estos individuos narran sus razones para la migración y su integración en los mercados laborales y de la vivienda en Argentina, la autora demuestra el papel que tienen en las auto-comprensiones, posiciones de sujeto, identidades y movilidad, tanto la historia argentina y de Europa del Este, así como también la reestructuración neoliberal de la región postsocialista y de la Argentina en los años 90. Diversas intersecciones de poder, y particularmente la raza y la blancura son importantes para la manera en que los entrevistados negociaron posiciones subjetivas e identificaciones. La autora aborda cómo el afecto y la esperanza desempeñaron un papel en estos procesos y cómo la movilidad descendente se articuló y se hizo significativa. También examina cómo las ideas de los participantes acerca de una "buena vida" se relacionan con la comprensión del pasado, las cuestiones de raza, desigualdad social y una lógica colonial.

Thesis (Ph. D.)--Miami University, Dept. of Educational Leadership, 2003.
Title from first page of PDF document. Document formatted into pages; contains xxi, 478 p. Includes bibliographical references (p. 439-466).

Denna uppsats undersöker diskursen kring Linnémonumentet i Humlegården, Stockholm och Louis De Geer-statyn på Gamla Torget, Norrköping, samt diskuterar vilken betydelse skulpturerna fick under Black Lives Matter-demonstrationerna år 2020 i relation till antirasism och historiska företeelser av 'damnatio memoriae'. Med ett postkolonialt och kritiskt rasteoretiskt perspektiv syftar denna uppsats till att framhäva och analysera de resonemang som tog mest plats under debatten, centrerat kring antirasistiska och icke-vitas röster. Genomgående används därav den kritiska diskursanalysen och semiotiken som metoder för att skapa en förståelse kring auktoritet, samt att belysa det svenska samhällets syn på sin koloniala historia och lyfta diskussionen kring bland annat ras, klass, kön och makt i förhållande till den offentliga konsten. Uppsatsen resonerar sålunda hur offentliga och publika platser i samhället kan avkolonialiseras med avsikt att skapa ett hem för oss alla.
This thesis examines the discourse regarding the Linnaeus Monument in Humlegården, Stockholm, and the Louis De Geer statue at The Old Square, Norrköping. It further analyzes the significance that sculptures gained during the Black Lives Matter demonstrations in 2020, in relation to anti-racism and historical phenomena of 'damnatio memoriae'. With a theoretical framework of postcolonialism and critical race theory, this thesis aims to highlight and analyze the reasonings that were central during the debate, focusing on anti-racist and people of color's voices. Thus, critical discourse analysis and semiotics are used as methods to create an understanding of authority and to shed light on Sweden's own view of its colonial history and elevate the discussion concerning race, class, gender, and power, etcetera, in relation to public art. The thesis, hence, argues how public places in society can be decolonized with the intention of creating a home for all of us.

This work highlights specific lexical items that have become racialized in specific contextual applications and tests how these words are cognitively processed. This work presents the results of a visual world (Huettig et al 2011) eye-tracking study designed to determine the perception and application of racialized (Coates 2011) adjectives. To objectively select the racialized adjectives used, I developed a corpus comprised of popular media sources, designed specifically to suit my research question. I collected publications from digital media sources such as Sports Illustrated, USA Today, and Fortune by scraping articles featuring specific search terms from their websites. This experiment seeks to aid in the demarcation of socially salient groups whose application of racialized adjectives to racialized images is near instantaneous, or at least less questioned. As we view growing social movements which revolve around the significant marks unconscious assumptions leave on American society, revealing how and where these lexical assignments arise and thrive allows us to interrogate the forces which build and reify such biases. Future research should attempt to address the harmful semiotics these lexical choices sustain.

An expanding body of research explores the social, political, cultural and personal challenges presented by the Western emphasis of curricula around the world. The aim of my study is to advance this field of inquiry by gaining insight into perceptions of Western modern science presented by students, teachers and administrators in a given Caribbean setting. Through this study I asked how my research participants described the nature of scientific knowledge, how they related scientific knowledge to other culturally-valued knowledges and the meanings they attached to the geographic origins of science teachers. Situating this work firmly within the practice of Foucauldian critical discourse analysis, I have utilised a conceptual framework defined by the power/knowledge and complicity/resistance themes of post-colonial theory to support my interpretation of participant commentary in an overall quest that is concerned about the ways in which Western modern science might be exerting a colonising influence. Fourteen students, nine teachers (both expatriate and local) and three administrators participated in the study. I combined a semi-structured question and answer interview format with a card sort activity. I used a procedure based on my own adaptation of Stephenson’s Q methodology, where the respondents placed 24 statements hierarchically along a continuum of increasing strength of agreement, presenting their rationalisations, personal stories and illustrations as they sorted. I used an inverse factor analysis, in combination with the interview transcripts, to assist me in the identification of three discourse positions described by my research participants: The truth value of scientific knowledge, The pragmatic use of science to promote progress, and The priority of cultural preservation. The interview transcripts were also analysed for emergent themes, providing an additional layer of data interpretation. The research findings raise concerns regarding the hegemonic potency of certain scientific assumptions and assertions of participants, leading me to emphasise the importance of developing teachers’ knowledge of the historical, philosophical and social background of Western modern science as well as focusing on developing the conceptual and intellectual engagement of students with Western modern science without demanding the kind of belief commitment that would insist that students replace alternative modes of meaning making.

This qualitative study aims to use some of Frantz Fanon&rsquo
s critical insights to explore how individuals within the Health Sciences Faculty at the UCT experienced change and perceived the transformation process instituted by University management and the change taking place in the wider society. Frantz Fanon, a critical theorist born in a Martinique, university-educated in France and later employed in Algeria, wrote extensively on how the colonial condition affects the psychology of individuals, thus inter-linking psychology and politics. This study selected six individuals who had experienced the institutional context before and during the process of transformation. Data was collected by way of unstructured interview schedules. A Fanonian psychoanalytic-inspired discourse analysis was employed to analyse the data. The data showed that broader discourses influences the way people talk about phenomena. Our past still plays a role in the way we construct current realities.

Magister Psychologiae - MPsych
This qualitative study aims to use some of Frantz Fanon’s critical insights to explore how individuals within the Health Sciences Faculty at the UCT experienced change and perceived the transformation process instituted by University management and the change taking place in the wider society. Frantz Fanon, a critical theorist born in a Martinique, university-educated in France and later employed in Algeria, wrote extensively on how the colonial condition affects the psychology of individuals, thus inter-linking psychology and politics. This study selected six individuals who had experienced the institutional context before and during the process of transformation. Data was collected by way of unstructured interview schedules. A Fanonian psychoanalytic-inspired discourse analysis was employed to analyse the data. The data showed that broader discourses influences the way people talk about phenomena. Our past still plays a role in the way we construct current realities.

This thesis deploys Homi Bhabha's perspective of postcolonial literary theory as a critical procedure to examine particular instances of fiction, as well as reportage on Botswana. Its unifying interest is to pinpoint the shifting nature or reality of Botswana and, by extension, of African identities. To that end, I use Bhabha's concept of liminality to inform the work of writers such as Unity Dow, Alexander McCall Smith, and instances of reportage (by Rupert Isaacson and Caitlin Davies), from the 1990s to date. The aims of the thesis are, among other things, to establish the extent to which Homi Bhabha's appropriation of the term liminality (which derives from Victor Turner's notion of limen for inbetweenness), and its application in the postcolonial context inflects the reading of the above works whose main motifs include the following: a contestation of any views which privilege one culture above another, challenging a jingoistic rootedness in one culture, and promoting an awareness of the existence of several, interlocking or even clashing realities which finally produce multiple meanings, values and identities. In short, it is proposed that identity is not a given but rather a product of a lived reality and therefore a social construct, something always in process. The thesis begins by theorizing liminality in Chapter 1 within the context of Homi Bhabha's understanding and interrogation of the colonial discourse. This is followed by the contextualization of liminality through the reading of, firstly, the fiction of Unity Dow in Chapters 2 and 3, and then the "detective" fiction of Alexander McCall Smith in Chapters 4 and 5. In the discussion of these works, I also touch on instances of reportage which relate to the lives of the authors. In the case of Smith's "detective" fiction, for example, reportage refers to his incorporation of actual historical events and personages whose impact, I argue, suggests the liminality of culture. In Chapter 6, the idea of reportage varies slightly to denote works of fiction in which there is a great deal of historical fact. Thus Rupert Isaacson's The Healing Land: A Kalahari Journey and Caitlin Davies' Place of Reeds are treated as works of reportage in line with Truman Capote's application of that term. What comes out most evidently in this study is the shifting idea of (Botswana/African) identity. It should be noted that rather than present an all-embracing account of the fiction on Botswana, the study only looks at the selected examples of writing and reportage.
University of South Africa National Research Foundation
English Studies
D. Litt. et Phil. (English)

This dissertation examines the way in which South African colonial texts may be read for the historical signs they inadvertently reveal. The history of land acquisition in South Africa may be read through the representation of burial and illegitimate pregnancy in South African farm novels. Both burial and illegitimate pregnancy are read as signifiers of illegitimacy in the texts, surfacing, by indirection, the question of the illegitimacy of land acquisition in South Africa. The South African farm novel offers a representational form which seeks (or fails) to mediate the question of land ownership and the relationship between colon and indigene. In the four texts under discussion, Olive Schreiner's The Story of an African Farm, Florence Ethel Mills Young's The Bywonner[sic], Pauline Smith's The Beadle and Daphne Rooke's Mittee, the representation of burial and illegitimate pregnancy is problematic and marked by narrative displacements and discursive breakdowns. KEY TERMS burial, colonial discourse, farm novel, illegitimacy, illegitimate pregnancy, land, postcolonial theory, representation
English
M.A. (English)