Browsing by Subject "narrative"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Hallways. Place and object between body and narrative: scenographic approaches to devising theatre.
    (2021) Glanville, Joanna; Crewe, Jenni-Lee
    This explication seeks to frame a practice-led research project that explores the scenographic elements of place and object as an intermediary device between body and narrative in devising theatre. A focus of this work is scenographics as a mediating moment between traumatised body and painful narrative; using objects and place as a means of safely exploring and un/recovering memory to make theatre. The research also explores wider applications of scenographics in their formative and generative potential in devising theatre. The practical research is underpinned and located in various conceptual frameworks. Place is guided by Rachel Hann's work Beyond Scenography (2019) with a focus on place orientation, as well as terminologies of space and place introduced by Gay McAuley in various texts. Object is primarily considered through assemblage, semiotics and phenomenology with a focus on a disruption of the subject/object hierarchy as a means of facilitating a scenographic mediatory stand-in during the devising process and in the final theatre piece. The final practical output is process-orientated and focuses on devising a piece of theatre, Hallways, with other participants using place and object. This will be achieved through sets of exercises, activities and games developed throughout the research process; these will be expounded on in the paper.
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    Media Representations of Gender-Based Violence Against Black Women: A Decolonial Feminist Analysis
    (2024) Thusi, Khanyisile S; Boonzaier, Floretta
    Gender-based violence (GBV) is a well-known problem, with South Africa having one of the highest rates of GBV in the world. Additionally, South African media plays a role in how and what information about GBV is disseminated. This work looks at two case studies to investigate how the media represents GBV against black women in the South African context. It uses Decolonial Feminist theory to frame and contextualise current forms of violence against black women, to the colonial history of violence against them. This approach serves to call attention to the fact that GBV against black women does not exist simply as a problem of the present. Instead, there are narrative and physical continuities of the historical dynamics of power and domination against black women, that have founded GBV's present state, and which allow it to continue. These colonial narratives and the violences they perpetuate must be investigated in the various ways in which they may manifest themselves, such as through the media. This research draws to light the ways in which the media reinforces narratives that further marginalise black women, and in so doing, perpetuate black women and their bodies as sites of violence. The project explores how black women are decentred from their own stories and experiences of GBV, and how this decentring is normalised. It also seeks to further the work within Decolonial Feminism of conscientising society to the colonial legacies of violence perpetrated against black women. Finally, it poses questions concerning black women's positionality and safety within primary modalities of justice that exist within and from colonial structures of the law and criminality.
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    Survivors narratives of intimate partner violence in Cape Town, South Africa: A life history approach
    (2019) Chikwira, Rene; Boonzaier, Floretta; van Niekerk, Taryn
    Intimate partner violence (IPV) is a problem that is present and pervasive globally and in South Africa. In the South African context, IPV exists within a larger context of high levels of interpersonal violence and violence against women. Understanding the context in which IPV occurs from the perspective of survivors is important for informing effective intervention and prevention programs to counteract its effects. This study explores the life histories of South African women who have experienced IPV. Framed through the lens of intersectionality, it gauges the broader context within which IPV emerges and is sustained, and explores how experiences of IPV are shaped at the intersection of women’s identity markers of race, class and gender. This study is one of a few studies that have used life history methods with women to explore their life contexts and experiences of IPV. Purposive sampling was used to recruit a sample of 11 women based in a Cape Town women’s shelter for abused women and children. Two semi-structured qualitative life history interviews were conducted with each participant. The interviews were transcribed and analysed through thematic narrative analysis, where four noteworthy narrative themes emerged, namely An unsteady and violent beginning, No place called home: A search for belonging and survival, IPV: The unanticipated cost of love and belonging, and Normalisation of IPV experiences: The effects of withdrawal from support. The findings and their relation to existing literature as well as recommendations for future IPV research are discussed. One of the key findings of the study was that the childhood context of the participants was the first point of identifying intersectional oppression and marginalisation that may have shaped a vulnerability to the women’s later experiences of IPV. Another key finding was recognising the value that women place on love and belonging in the context of a difficult, violent and low socioeconomic childhood background, and how this could have an impact on the vulnerability of women to IPV. The use of a life history approach framed by intersectionality thus demonstrated significant benefits in tracking the contextual experiences of women who have experienced IPV. These benefits are of significance because they made it possible to identify points of intervention and prevention of IPV amongst marginalised South African women.
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    The hare and the baboon: intersecting violences experienced by African sexual and gender-expansive individuals in the UK asylum system
    (2024) Chirape, Skye; Boonzaier, Floretta
    Black African sexual and gender-expansive persons seeking asylum in the UK context face specific barriers because of their intersecting identities and experiences related to race, religion, gender, sexuality, cultural background, language, and geographical origin. With idealised white bodies continuously used as the prototype for LGBTQI+ persons seeking asylum, the legislation that protects LGBTQI+ asylum claimants conflicts with the actuality of African sexual and gender-expansive persons' identities and experiences. The research explores co-researchers' narratives about their experiences of the UK asylum regime and how structural and symbolic violences are implicated in the shared narratives. Twenty-seven narratives of the UK asylum system were gathered from diverse sources, including forcibly displaced co-researchers, legal caseworkers, NGO workers and substantive interview documents. The gathered experiences demonstrated structural and symbolic violence perpetrated by the state, through narratives of violent uncertainty, exclusion, vulnerabilisation to exploitation and gendered violence, dislocation and, intersectional discrimination and colonial notions of gender and sexuality. These findings reveal the intersecting and distinct migration obstacles underpinned by anti-Black discrimination that creates systems of racialised and gendered violence against applicants – forming part of the UK's hostile environment and exposing a reality wherein historical legacies of colonialism continue to shape the UK's asylum regime and bordering practices. The findings demonstrate the UK Home Office's significant failings in safeguarding sexual and gender-expansive asylum claimants, and how the COVID-19 pandemic exacerbated their precarious situation. From a decolonial feminist perspective, the participatory action research methodology and principles contribute to knowledge on decolonial and liberatory research practices and offer suggestions for anti-oppressive practices to support just asylum claims.
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    Turning up the Volume: Dialogues about Memory Create Oral Histories
    (2008) Field, Sean
    This article sketches an overview of South African oral history since the 1970s and argues that while oral history projects have grown rapidly since 2000, insufficient attention has been given to international debates about memory, myth and subjectivity. It then explores the conception of oral history being constructed by ‘dialogues about memory’, and how this furthers our understanding of narrative, agency and identity formation. This conception also compels us to reflect on the position of the oral historian. The article then argues that ‘traces’, especially the mental imagery evoked during acts of remembrance, have implications for conducting and interpreting oral history dialogues. This is in a context shaped by post-apartheid memory politics and our anxieties over the fragility of memory traces and the urgent desire to record and conserve before these traces are lost. But dialogues about memory continue to creatively produce oral histories in the present.
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    Women Shelter Residents' Experiences of Intimate Partner Violence: A Digital Storytelling Project
    (2022) Mabaso, Karabo; Boonzaier, Floretta
    Intimate partner violence and more generally gender-based violence (GBV) are worldwide issues that threaten the health of the public and people's rights, and South Africa is no exception. In the context of South Africa, IPV is especially prevalent in contexts of high levels of violence against women, shaped by intersectional factors such as race, class, and culture, and various forms of power that perpetrate and perpetuate inequality and dominance over women. Understanding the contextual factors behind IPV from the viewpoint of women survivors is critical to obtaining a thorough understanding of the various contexts in which it occurs. This is crucial for understanding the identities implicated in violent experiences. The purpose of this study was to examine the experiences of South African women in shelters who experienced violence. Using intersectionality theory as a lens, it examined how racial, cultural, and class-related identity markers influence and shape IPV. Participatory action research (PAR) methodologies and digital storytelling (DST) in visual and digital formats were used to explore the narratives and experiences of women exposed to IPV. Purposive sampling was used to recruit a sample of nine women residing at St Anne's Homes, a shelter for abused women and children situated in Cape Town. Semi-structured qualitative interviews were conducted with each participant. In addition, a half-day DST training workshop was conducted for the women where they were trained on DST. Thereafter, the women were asked to take images and videos that represented their narratives of violence. The interviews, images, and digital stories were transcribed and analysed through a thematic narrative analysis. Six themes around women's experiences of violence and the support received from the shelter were established. Themes covered: ‘narratives of loneliness and feeling stuck'; ‘narratives of control'; ‘drugs and alcohol: a cause and response to IPV'; ‘consequences of abuse'; ‘narratives of escaping'; and ‘shelter: refuge, empowerment, and independence'. A key contribution of this study was women's narration of the impact of structural inequalities on their experiences. Furthermore, the women constructed a variety of reasons for their experiences of abuse, notably with drug and alcohol abuse among them. Another key finding dealt with the women's identities as mothers and how this was central to their motivation to escape their abusive environments. By using DST to advance a social justice agenda, the method was able to create a space for particular narratives to emerge.