Browsing by Author "Erasmus, Zimitri"
Now showing 1 - 8 of 8
Results Per Page
Sort Options
- ItemOpen AccessChanging contexts, shifting masculinities : a study of ex-combatants(2009) Zuma, Buhle; Erasmus, ZimitriThis thesis explores the contexts in which combatant masculinities were constructed: (a) in apartheid South Africa through mass mobilization and politicization; (b) in exile through military training; and (c) in post-apartheid South Africa through cultural concepts of manhood and non-governmental organisations' (NGOs) initiatives. This qualitative study, based on six in-depth interviews, follows through the three different contexts, the narratives of the same group of ex-combatants ofUmkhonto weSizwe (MK), the military wing of the African National Congress (ANC). These men went into exile as part of the 1980 generation. It concludes that the different contexts facilitated the construction of different masculinities. During resistance to apartheid, civilian struggle masculinities were made. Military training made militarised masculinities. Post 1994 marks the creation of masculinities in transition. Among the key factors shaping each of these masculinities are: political structures, ideological and political youth constructs; the totality of the military and a patriarchal and heterosexual discourse; and cultural concepts of manhood. This thesis outlines similarities and differences between the three types of masculinities as well as other broad themes that permeate the study.
- ItemOpen AccessConfronting the categories: Equitable admissions without apartheid race classification(2010) Erasmus, ZimitriSouth Africa’s government requires information on apartheid race classification to implement and monitor racial redress. This has sparked resistance to race classification as a criterion for redress in higher education admissions. I argue that (1) jettisoning apartheid race categories now in favour of either class or ‘merit’ would set back the few gains made toward redress; (2) against common sense uses of ‘race’ and against the erasure of ‘race’ through class reductionism; and (3) for developing and testing new indicators for ‘race’ and class disadvantage with a view to eventually replacing apartheid race categories. I offer a critical-race-standpoint as an alternative conceptual orientation and method for transformative admissions committed to racial redress that is socially just. I conclude that admissions criteria should encompass the lived realities of inequality and be informed by a conception of humanism as critique. This requires resistance to ways of knowing orchestrated by apartheid’s codes.
- ItemOpen AccessInherited memories : performing the archive(2007) Davids, Nadia; Erasmus, Zimitri; Banning, YvonneThis thesis explores the way in which words, memories, and images of District Six are mediated and performed in an attempt to memorialised a destroyed urban landscape. It expands the borders of 'performance' to include oral (re)constructions of place by ex-residents, which in turn opens a space for a reflective analysis in which Marianne Hirsch’s psychodynamic theory of ‘postmemory’ is explored through the phrase ‘Children of District Six’. It traces the role and influence of ex-residents in shaping the politics and poetics of the District Six Museum and argues that orality and performance are singularly sympathetic in evoking and remembering the aesthetic, cultural, and political realms of District Six. It then shifts towards an analysis of two creative projects; Magnet Theater's Onnest’bo and the Museum’s Re-Imagining Carnival in which the themes of place, home, loss, exile, resistance, advocacy and restitution rotate around experiences of forced removals in general and District Six in particular. A thematic cord is created between these performance pieces and oral testimonies and their combined mediation of the many archives of District Six. Through an engagement with the performative odysseys and attendant archives of Re-Imagining Carnival and Onnest’bo the thesis examine metaphysical enactments of material loss, engages with tactics of re-construction of place and experience through memory, connects the psychic worlds of memory and performance and suggests an ideological flow between oral history, witnessing, and theatre. It is an exploration underpinned by the question of the role of performance in memorialising national narratives and the potential of creative mobilisations of memory in enacting psychic restitution. Both Onnest’bo and Re-Imagining Carnival are linked to the District Six Museum, and as such the Museum, its methodologies, ethics, ethos, and work with tangible and intangible heritage serve as an essential ideological foundation from which these creative visions emerge.
- ItemOpen AccessNot naming race : some medical students' perceptions and experiences of 'race' and racism at the Health Sciences faculty of the University of Cape Town(2011-12) Erasmus, Zimitri; De Wet, JacquesThis report will be of value to those studying and researching transformation in higher education in post-apartheid South Africa. Over the past few years the Faculty of Health Sciences at UCT embarked upon a series of transformation processes. Despite these efforts, students at Medical School continue to lodge complaints about racist practices on the part of staff at the School and to claim such practices undermine their learning and academic performance. Following some complaints lodged early in 2001, the Dean of the Faculty convened a meeting where a study was commissioned to provide a scan of issues to inform terms of reference for a panel to be tasked with an in-depth evaluation of processes of transformation at Medical School. These issues are specifically related to students' experiences and perceptions of 'race' and racism.
- ItemOpen AccessOblique figures : representations of Islam in South African media and culture(2004) Baderoon, Gabeba; Higgins, John; Erasmus, Zimitri; Steadman-Jones, RichardIn 1996 stories in South African newspapers about the group Pagad articulated a new vision of Islam. In this thesis I conduct a long reading of the ways in which Islam has been represented in South Africa to provide a context for analysing the Pagad stories. Drawing on Edward Said's Orientalism and later elaborations that emphasise gender, the thesis is attentive to the latent weight of fantasies of 'race' on non-fictional representations. In the introduction I look at the use of the offensive word 'kaffir' in colonial South Africa and contend that, in the context of slavery and the displacement of indigenous people, the proliferating use of the term functioned to recast indigeneity as misplaced and unfit, facilitating settler claims to the land. Through the example of this deformation of a word originally drawn from Islam, I show how the meanings and experiences of Islam are transformed by specific circumstances and histories. Islam arrived in South Africa when Dutch colonists brought slaves and servants to the Cape from 1658. The context of slavery and colonial settlement is crucial to the way Islam has been represented in South Africa. Muslim slaves were characterized as industrious, placid and picturesque. I contend in analyses of nineteenth century landscape paintings that the figure of the 'Malay' played a role in discursively securing a settler identity in the Cape Colony. This occurred through their 'oblique' positioning near the edge of the frame, where they appear to certify the boundaries of the settled space of the colony. I follow these readings of the picturesque vision of Islam by exploring instances of its underside - the discourse of oriental fanaticism.
- ItemOpen AccessOrganisational democracy and economic viability in producer cooperatives in the Western Cape Region of South African and in Zimbabwe : case studies and comparative analysis(1991) Erasmus, Zimitri; Maree, JohannThis study is a sociological analysis of participatory-democratic organisations in 'third world' contexts. Firstly, it assesses the degree of participatory democracy in each enterprise studied. Secondly, it explores whether cooperative development is a process. Thirdly, it assesses the applicability of existing theory in the field for organisations in 'third world' contexts. The data used is predominantly qualitative, though quantitative information is utilised. Qualitative data is gathered from in-depth interviews using semi-structured questionnaires, observation and the examination of primary sources. Empirical information is analysed in the light of theoretical constructs reviewed and practical constraints identified by other researchers in the field. The key construct is an 'ideal-type' participatory-democratic organisation. Significant findings include the following: (a) cooperatives in 'third world' contexts are formed and joined primarily for material reasons; (b) specific constraints include a severe lack of basic education among cooperators, relationships of dependency between co-ops and service organisations, and a 'survival' consciousness among cooperative members; (c) the nature of relationships between cooperatives and service organisations have significant implications for co-op development; (d) there is a relationship between organisational structures and viability as an economic unit and (e) members in different positions in the enterprise have different conceptions of cooperation. The study concludes that cooperative development is a process involving different stages characterised by different degrees of participation in decision-making, viability, organisational development and cooperative consciousness.
- ItemOpen Access'Travelling Tales' : American (re)constructions of South Africa and Africa through study abroad in Cape Town(2009) Hutchinson Tsekwa, Jennifer; Steyn, Melissa; Erasmus, ZimitriPostcolonial theory has been critiqued for essentializing the North and being too theoretical. Yet it has also been described as essential for the ongoing decolonization of our world. Scholars in a range of disciplines have therefore suggested the need to 'examine specific practices and devises in particular times and places' in order to expose and challenge the ways that certain forms of discourse function to maintain imperialist interests and misrepresentations of Africa in the 'West.' To these ends, this study looks at the construction of early European/American travelers' tales and the experience of study abroad in South Africa as two particular practices that are relevant to the concerns of postcolonialism. While much has been written about each of these phenomena on their own, little has been done to bring them into a conversation with each other. To fill this gap, this dissertation draws on narrative analysis, symbolic convergence theory, discourse analysis and postcolonial theory to explore the dominant narratives that emerge in the pre-trip, embodied trip and post-trip tellings of both types of tales. In order to discover the meaning-making processes of these narratives, qualitative methods were used. Firstly, an extensive literature review was undertaken of early travelers' tales (written between 1600 and 1900), images of Africa in the United States, travel and tourism theory and study abroad literature. Eight focus groups and six one-on-one interviews were then conducted with a total of 36 American students, who were either directly enrolled at the University of Cape Town or participants in the School for International Training (SIT) in Cape Town. These interviews were then followed up with email correspondence once the students had returned home. This study found that while study abroad narratives have enormous potential to challenge the negative and inaccurate stereotypes about Africa in the United States, many strains still exist that mirror the rhetoric of early travelers' tales and promote notions of Africa as 'wild', 'dangerous' and 'underdeveloped' and South Africa as the 'light' version of Africa. However, in contrast to the writers of early travelers' tales, the students who participated in this study demonstrated many more instances of critical self-reflection and desire for change.
- ItemOpen AccessWhite men speaking : an exploration of intersections, tensions and alternative ways of being white and a man in South Africa(2005) Kelly, Claire; Erasmus, ZimitriIt is becoming widely recognised that those at the centres of power are also responsible for social transformation. In South Africa, white men still dominate these centres. Some white men have recognised this and have taken on the task of confronting their prejudice and acknowledging their privilege, in order to forge more transformative ways of being a white man in South Africa. These ways of being, however, remain marginal. Hegemonic masculinities and whiteness continue to dominate South African society, hampering transformation. In order to counter these hegemonic ways of being, alternatives need to be actively engaged and emboldened. This can be achieved partly by disaggregating narratives of masculinity and whiteness, as neither are homogenous. In so doing, dominant discourse is challenged and a more robust discursive space for alternative ways of being is allowed to emerge.