Browsing by Author "Weinberg, Paul"

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    A blurred paradise : insider and outsider perspectives on Paternoster
    (2014) Smith, Alyson Karen; Weinberg, Paul
    Paternoster is perpetually represented as being a tourist destination primarily through the use of imagery; yet this is often without interrogation of the primary narrative which when examined cracks in the visual façade surface. The overall objective of this research was to review the community conflicts through the use of an insider and outsider approach. This was achieved through using an insider qualitative, consensual, documentary style approach. Fieldwork, participant observation and interviews were used as inroads to the community and to enable the use of photography to explore existing narratives, why they exist and the possibility for alternative narratives. As an owner of property within this community (an insider), one is still categorised as an outsider, as someone not born in the community. This dual role allowed a different interrogation while providing its own challenges of not influencing the research. Further, this contested community with emotional undercurrents embedded in its complex matrix of relationships is further explored through research and interrogation of the perfect picture postcard view. This interrogation uncovers missed opportunities, mistrust, impacts of capitalism, categorisation of people along preconceived lines and a community in strife as it attempts to shift itself from its 19th century comfort zone to the 21st century filled with new economic and social realities. Simultaneously, the research explores the role that insider research presents, as well as the role of the potential biases of the photographer in her ability to create an objective view as possible. This is balanced with being on the outside, on the peripheries of this community and being part of a group that are seen as intruders. This provided a unique opportunity to research the community from a number of angles.
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    Extreme Identities: An examination of extreme sports and the creation of identity within the extreme sports experience
    (2019) Patch, Sophie; Weinberg, Paul
    In recent years has been a rapidly growing increase in the popularity of extreme sports. Whilst the root of the exact reasons that extreme sports have grown so dras;cally as an industry is not en;rely clear, there are many theories and sugges;ons which can create a narra;ve to the evolu;on of the sports. Not only have the sports become more popular, but the varie;es of the sports and the varie;es of the par;cipants have also increased, crea;ng more diversity and the evolu;on of a extreme sports culture. This has coincided, inten;onally or un-inten;onally, with the glamorisa;on and commodifica;on of extreme sports lifestyles and the technological advancements of the twenty-first century. In line with the above, the purpose of this study, and the photographic project which accompanies it, is to examine; • What are the factors that contribute to the popularity of extreme sports • Who takes part in extreme sports • Why do people take part • What is the future for extreme sports and it’s par;cipants The photographic project comprises of four photographs of each par;cipants, two of which are portraits and two of which are supplied by the par;cipants themselves. The inten;on of the photographs is to give insight into both who the par;cipants are as individuals and as athletes and how they view themselves within these roles. Interviews were also conducted alongside which are referenced throughout the paper. The paper combines the research and theories of other scholars, against the findings of my own study and how the photographic project represents this, to try and draw answers to the above state ques;ons. The results were varied and did not offer full answers but rather sugges;ons into where more research could be done to further this study and future studies. Most notably; Extreme sports and femininity, Extreme sports and diversity, Extreme sports and classism and Extreme sports and environmentalism.
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    Hidden Hout Bay mainstream, myths and margins
    (2019) Luckett, Sidney; Weinberg, Paul
    This essay, which accompanies a photo-book, constructs a different picture which I have made of Hout Bay; a picture that lies behind the glossy postcard and calendar photographs of this global tourist attraction; one that lies hidden from foreign tourists as well as from local visitors to the harbour, who are attracted by sunset trips into the bay and ‘locally harvested’ sea-food ‘fresh from the sea’ eateries. Using a photographic metaphor this picture is an overlay of three ‘negatives’ and like the negatives used in film photography, they need to be ‘developed’ before they can be seen by the eye of a casual passer-by who might gaze upon them in an exhibition. However a photographer knows that (the process of) developing a negative can be halted at any point that she chooses and what is revealed is what she already had in her minds-eye as the significant idea that she wants to communicate (which may or may not be what the passer-by sees). This is an apt metaphor for the three sections of this essay– each of the three central sections are in the process of being developed and what is read now is nothing more than a moment in their development. Like any overlay they need to be seen in combination to make the sense that the photographer (myself) wishes to communicate. But unlike most overlays, this overlay is comprised of three ‘negatives’ that in each case have been halted the process of their development. These three transparencies are: Firstly of my adventure in a political praxis that has traversed social activism, academia as a rural/environmental economist and currently involves photographically documenting the lives of the people of Hangberg (Hout Bay), squeezed between the iconic Sentinel peak and Mariners Wharf (an important tourist attraction) on the Hout Bay harbour. The second transparency is an account of the development of documentary photography, a much contested enterprise (Rosenblum 1997, Marien 2002, Golden 2005, Abbott 2010), using Habermas’ three knowledge constitutive interests (Habermas 1981, Habermas 1985) as an indicative framework. The third is an analysis of the socio-political context of Hangberg that draws together political theories that have their roots in Antonio Gramsci’s (Gramsci 1971, Simon 1991) notion of the subaltern, most notably the Subaltern Studies Group in Calcutta formed by Gayatri Spivak and exemplified in Partha Chattterjee’s (Chatterjee 2000, Chatterjee 2004, Chatterjee 2011) distinction between political and civil societies, Asef Bayat’s (Bayat 2013, Bayat 2013) quiet encroachment of the ordinary, Hardt and Negri,’s (Hardt 2009, Hardt 2017) perspective on the commons, as well as Murray Li’s (Li 2007, Li 2014), Shiva’s (Shiva 1988) and Scott’s (Scott 1998, Scott 2009) (re)thinking about capitalist modernity.