Department of Anthropology/Sociology

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Africa after apartheid: South Africa, race, and nation in Tanzania
(Routledge, 2016) Becker, Heike
South African economic and political expansion into the African continent has been a controversial feature of the post-apartheid era. Now human geographer Richard Schroeder has taken up the matter in an ethnographic study based in Tanzania, a preferred destination for South African business. The country presents a particularly interesting example of the post-apartheid social, cultural and political dynamics of "South Africa in Africa" since Tanzania had been one of the apartheid regime's staunchest enemies. Schroeder starts off with observations of white South African expatriates he met in Tanzania; the book's core theme, however, is the country's and the wider African region's dilemma in an era that saw both the rise of neoliberalism and the fall of apartheid.
Against trauma: silence, victimhood, and (photo-) voice in Northern Namibia
(UFS, 2015) Becker, Heike
The article shows how the discourses of trauma, victimhood and silence regarding local agency contributed to the production of the nationalist master narrative in postcolonial Namibia. However, I point out repositories of memory beyond the narratives of victimhood and trauma, which began to add different layers to the political economy of silence and remembrance in the mid-2000s. Through revisiting visual forms of remembrance in northern Namibia an argument is developed, which challenges the dichotomy between silence and confession. It raises critical questions about the prominent place that the trauma trope has attained in memory studies, with reference to work by international memory studies scholars such as Paul Antze and Michael Lambek (1996) and South African researchers of memory politics, particularly the strategies of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC). The fresh Namibian material supports the key critique of the TRC, which suggests that the foregrounding of pain and victimhood, and rituals of therapy and healing entailed a loss of the political framings of the testimonial moments.
?Anything about us, without us, is against us?: An ethnography of the genocide reparations and decolonial movements in Namibia
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Van Wyk, Bayron; Becker, Heike
This thesis explores decolonial memory activism and queer activism in Namibia. It demonstrates how activists have mobilized in intersectional struggles (Becker 2020; 2022) against the structural remnants of colonialism. The activists have pointed to how racist-, patriarchal- and heteronormative hierarchies that were imposed through German and South African colonialisms have remained and are taken even further in the postcolony. In this sense, activists have targeted colonial monuments, colonial laws and the colonization of human remains in their decolonial campaigns. I specifically focus on the #ACurtFarewell petition against the Curt von Fran?ois statue, the formation of the Namibia Equal Rights Movement calling for the recognition of same-sex relationships, and the campaigns by the Namibia Genocide Association (NGA) and other activists for the recognition of the graves of Prisoner-of-War graves to show respect to those who died during Germany?s colonial genocide (1904-1908) in Namibia.
The burden of history: Namibia and Germany from colonialism to postcolonialism
(Taylor & Francis, 2017) Becker, Heike
When former German Foreign Minister Joseph �Joschka� Fischer visited Windhoek in October 2003, he went on record to say that there would be no apology that might give grounds for reparations for the first genocide of the 20th century, which was committed by German colonial troops in Namibia in 1904�1908. Fischer�s rather undiplomatic words are indicative of the intense and heated historical and present relations between Germany and her erstwhile colony.
The changing faces of the klopse: performing the rainbow nation during the Cape Town carnival
(University of the Western Cape, 2013) Oliphant, Chanell; Becker, Heike
This thesis explores the embodied aesthetics of performance in the making of belonging in post-apartheid South Africa, through an investigation of the klopse, also known as Cape Minstrel and the ?Coons?, which are part of the annual New Year?s carnival in Cape Town. For this thesis I use the word klopse to refer to the carnival troupes. I map how from its inception the carnival aesthetics changed and came to represent something new and different as the participants engaged with the changing South African and Cape Town society. These changes are explored in connection with both coloured identity politics in the context of the ?rainbow nation? discourse and the efforts to represent carnival in Cape Town as a colourful event in a global city to international and national visitors. I argue that at the core of it is the issue of belonging which is embodied through the aesthetics.
Changing urbanscapes: Colonial and postcolonial monuments in Windhoek
(Nordic Journal of African Studies, 2018) Becker, Heike
This article investigates how recently-constructed sites that anchor memories of anti-colonial resistance and national liberation have changed the urban landscape of the Namibian capital, Windhoek. The discussion is focused on the Namibian Independence Memorial Museum and the Genocide Memorial. These North-Korean-built monuments in a prominent hilltop position central Windhoek have significantly altered the city�s skyline with their massive aesthetics of Stalinist realism. Built in a particular position, they have replaced an infamous colonial memorial, the �Windhoek Rider�, and dwarf the �Alte Feste� fort and the �Christuskirche�, iconic German colonial remnants of the built environment.
A critical analysis of the effects of tourism on cultural representation: a case study from Leboeng
(University of the Western Cape, 2004) Mamadi, Masete; Becker, Heike; Faculty of Arts
Cultural tourism is a vehicle for economic growth. Cultural representations are made in order to make the cultural tourism sector a more vibrant one. Given this argument, research in cultural tourism should take a critical stance in the analysis of cultural representations. An understanding of the meaning of culture is necessary to analyse the comparison of daily life with cultural representations. Observing the daily lives of host communities creates a conductive environment for realising and understanding the gaps between tourists experiences and the daily realities of the host communities. This research analysed how people represent their culture to tourists through the sale of crafts and dance performances. The research was carried out in Leboeng village, on the border between Mpumalanga and Limpopo provinces, near the small town of Ohrigstad.
Dissent, disruption, decolonization: South African student protests 1968 to 2016
(Center for Economic Research and Social Change, 2018) Becker, Heike
Fifty years after student protests shook much of the Cold War world, in the �West� and in the �East,� �Global 1968� has become the catchword to describe these profound generational revolts. We hear a lot about West Berlin, Paris, Berkeley, London, and then the Prague Spring, even occasionally the 1968 events in Mexico City may be mentioned; in contrast, none of the relevant overviews bring events to the fore that happened on the African continent in general, and in South Africa in particular. This beckons a number of questions: Was there something �1968� on the continent that matched the activism of the generation in revolt elsewhere? And as indeed there was, as we have shown in an overview article, how did students in African countries contribute to the global uprising with their own interpretations, and why have these been largely �forgotten� in the global discourse? And what do they mean today when we talk about protests of students and youth? After all, Africa has recently become again a hotbed of significant protests of young people who share a great desire for democracy and social justice. From Senegal and Burkina Faso to Namibia, Zimbabwe, and South Africa, young Africans have hit the streets in their hundreds of thousands. South Africa for one has seen a massive revolt of university students during 2015 and 2016. This article looks at South African student movements in the late 1960s and early 1970s, following some notes on the wider continent, specifically the May 1968 protests in Senegal, the only African 1968 event that has found marginal attention. Then the focus shifts towards the recent South African student protests of 2015�2016 to explore the ways in which the revolt of the generation that has come of age after the end of apartheid may relate to past uprisings in ideology and activist practice.
Dunoon, iKasi lami (my township): young people and the performance of belonging in a South African township
(University of the Western Cape, 2013) Makhale, Lerato Michelle; Becker, Heike
This study focuses on young people and how they etch a sense of belonging in the cosmopolitan city of Cape Town, in multicultural, post-apartheid South Africa. The study mainly focuses on a group of performers known as Black Ink Arts Movement (Black Ink), who are based in Du Noon township, near Cape Town, South Africa. The study looks at how young people who are involved in community performance projects; it also engages with their varied audiences. Lastly, the thesis shows the performers? day to day lives when they are not on stage to see what it means to be young and black in Du Noon as a member of Black Ink
Fashion, performance and the politics of belonging among Muslim women in Cape Town
(University of the Western Cape, 2013) Hendricks, Hibah; Becker, Heike
This thesis explores how the hijab fashion market has emerged in Cape Town and how Capetonian Muslim women are appropriating hijab fashion as a means of redefining themselves as Muslim South Africans instead of ?Cape Malays?, the ethnic label given to Muslims in the Western Cape during the apartheid era. I argue that through self stylisation Cape Malay women are performatively rejecting the ethnicisation of Islam during apartheid. I show that ?Cape Malay? women are using hijab fashion to perform their ?Muslimness? in order to claim a positive and legitimate spot in the ?rainbow nation? as Muslims as a religious-cultural category, and not as ?Malays?, an ethnic category, while simultaneously claiming their belonging to the global umma (Muslim community)
The formation of 'national culture' in post- apartheid Namibia: a focus on state sponsored cultural festivals in Kavango region
(University of the Western Cape, 2011) Akuupa, Michael Uusiku; Becker, Heike
This dissertation investigates colonial and postcolonial practices of cultural representations in Namibia. The state sponsored Annual National Culture Festival in Namibia was studied with a specific focus on the Kavango Region in northeastern Namibia. I was particularly interested in how cultural representations are produced by the nation-state and local people in a post-colonial African context of nation-building and national reconciliation, by bringing visions of cosmopolitanism and modernity into critical dialogue with its colonial past. During the apartheid era, the South African administration encouraged the inhabitants of its Native Homelands to engage in cultural activities aimed at preserving their traditional cultures and fostering a sense of distinct cultural identity among each of Namibia officially recognized ;ethnic groups. This policy was in line with the logic of South African colonial apartheid rule of Namibia, which relied upon the emphasis of ethnic differences, in order to support the idea that the territory was inhabited by a collection of requiring a central white government to oversee their development. The colonial administration resorted to concepts of traditional and cultural heritage in order to construct Africans as members of distinct, bounded communities attached to specific localities or homelands. My central argument is that since Namibian independence in 1990, the postcolonial nation-state has placed emphasis on cultural pride in new ways, and identifying characteristics of Namibian-nessa. This has led to the institution of cultural festivals, which have since 1995 held all over the country with an expressed emphasis on the notion of Unity in Diversity. These cultural festivals are largely performances and cultural competitions that range from lang-arm dance, and traditional dances, displays of traditional foodstuffs and dramatized representations. The ethnographic study shows that while the performers represent diversity through dance and other forms of cultural exhibition, the importance of belonging to the nation and a larger constituency is simultaneously highlighted. However, as the study demonstrates, the festivals are also spaces where local populations engage in negotiations with the nation-state and contest regional forms of belonging. The study shows how a practice which was considered to be a colonial representation of the other has been reinvented with new meanings in postcolonial Namibia. The study demonstrates through an analysis of cultural representations such as song, dances and drama that the festival creates a space in which social interaction takes place between participants, spectators and officials who organize the event as social capital of associational life.
From �to die a tribe and be born a nation� towards �culture, the foundation of a nation�: the shifting politics and aesthetics of Namibian nationalism
(Otjivanda Presse, 2015) Becker, Heike
Namibia�s postcolonial nationalist imaginary is by no means homogeneous. Overall, however, it is conspicuous that as Namibia celebrates her twenty-fifth anniversary of independence, national identity is no longer defined primarily through the common history of the liberation struggle but through the tolerant accommodation, even wholehearted celebration, of cultural difference. This article attempts to understand the shifting politics and aesthetics of Namibian nationalism from two interconnected angles. On the one hand, it takes a historical perspective; it looks into shifting discourses and practices of nationalism over the past century, starting from the anti- colonial resistance at the turn to the 20th century through to the twenty-fifth anniversary of Namibian independence. On the other hand, the article investigates the cultural redefinition of the bonds between the Namibian people(s), which has been a significant aspect of the constructions of postcolonial Namibian nationhood and citizenship. The argument highlights urban social life and cultural expression and the links between everyday life and political mobilization. It thereby emphasizes the nationalist activism of the developing Black urban culture of the post-World War II era and the internal urban social movements of the 1980s.
A hip-hopera in Cape Town: The aesthetics, and politics of performing �Afrikaaps�
(Taylor & Francis, 2017) Becker, Heike
This paper looks into the aesthetics and politics of the �hip-hopera� Afrikaaps. Afrikaaps was produced in 2010 by a group of musicians and spoken-word artists from Cape Town and the rural Western Cape Province of South Africa. The show premiered at an annual Afrikaans cultural festival; it then had a three week-run at a theatre, located in a predominantly white, English-speaking part of Cape Town, followed by different sets of performance in South Africa and abroad and the documentary by a Cape Town film maker. Dylan Valley�s (2011) film follows this group of local artists creating the stage production as they trace the roots of Afrikaans to Khoi-San and slaves in the Cape. The production aimed to �reclaim and liberate Afrikaans from its reputation as the language of the oppressor, taking it back for all who speak it.� (Valley 2011) The paper presents an analysis of how visual and musical aesthetics converge in the performed production of history, as creolization, and ethnically-specific �heritage�, and how the self-stylization is employed in attempts at authenticating a recently asserted linguistic and cultural �identity�.
Human Rights Modernities: Practices of Luo Councils of Elders in Contemporary Western Kenya
(University of the Western Cape, 2013) Akoth, Stephen Ouma; Becker, Heike
This dissertation is ethnography of human rights discourse in postcolonial Kenya. It situates itself in the inexorable rise of the application of International Human Rights Law witnessed in the 21st century. For this reason, many contemporary observers refer to this period as an �era of Human Rights�. With an ethnographic account centred primarily in Luo Nyanza, western Kenya, the dissertation seeks to open up questions about the practice of Human Rights by reference not to their philosophical origin but their practical manifestations. It conceptualizes Human Rights as a discourse of ongoing conversations of �multiple realities� thus resulting to an empirical rather than ideological account of manifestations of personhoods and modernities. It is a study of the production of human rights that journeys in particular contexts and moments but conscious enough not to be circumscribed by its specific location. With this strategy, the dissertation is based on some sort of dialogue. On the one hand is a notion of Human Rights as rooted in Western enligthmenent discourse which one can describe as a Eurocentric perspective visible through the International Human Rights Instruments promulgated by the United Nations (UN) and its agencies and the other a perspective common among a section of Luo people of western Kenya visible through chike, kido and kwero that are articulated and safeguarded by Luo Councils of Elders. In suggesting the distinction between �the Western� and �the Luo� notions of personhood, the researcher is aware that both frameworks are manifestly plural and �intercivilizational� in their conceptualization
Life beyond protests: An ethnographic study of what it means to be an informal settlement resident in Kanana/Gugulethu, Cape Town
(University of the Western Cape, 2018) Gaqa, Mzulungile; Becker, Heike
This study explores the lives of Kanana residents, an informal settlement in Gugulethu Township on the outskirts of Cape Town, South Africa. It pays particular attention to their everyday lives to dispel negative and simplistic representations of informal settlement residents when they collectively take part in protests. Although there are extensive reasons for the protests in the informal settlements, the media and the South African government have reduced these protests to portraying them as demands for ?service delivery?, and furthermore as criminally induced protests. I point out that this problem is partly due to scholarly work that does not engage these misleading representations and illustrate the lives of shack residents in the ordinary, when they are not protesting. Thus the focus of this thesis is life beyond protests. I argue that the lives of shack residents who participate in the protests are complex. As opposed to negative and simplistic representations, this thesis illustrates that one needs to be immersed in the lives of shack residents so as to understand them as identifiable human beings who make meaning of their lives. I explore their lives in the shack settlement further and argue that these human beings live their ordinary harmonious lives centred on the practice of greeting. To highlight the complexity of life of protesting informal settlement residents this thesis makes a point that there exist unsettling realities in the shack settlement; unsettling realities that make residents feel to be less of human beings. Kanana residents, therefore, draw from these perpetual unsettling realities to organise and protest. This thesis is based on ethnographic research, which was conducted between September 2015 and February 2016. During fieldwork, I observed and interacted in informal conversations with Kanana residents. With the main co-producers of this work, I carried out their life histories and further in-depth interviews.
Love relationships, texting and mobility : an ethnography of cell phone use in intimate relationships among labour migrants in Cape Town
(University of the Western Cape, 2013) Motau, Marjorie Disebo; Becker, Heike
This thesis explores the different ways in which labour migrants in contemporary South Africa make use of cell phones in their daily lives to maintain their love relationships. I start by tracing the history of labour migration and show how the gradual change of migration has played a role in the assertion of labour migrants in their communities in Cape Town. I look specifically into the use of cell phone by Setswana and Sesotho speaking migrants in Delft, Thornton, Brackenfell and Gugulethu. While the focus of the research is on the role of cell phones in maintaining love relationships between migrants and the partners they left behind ?at home?, I also show how the negotiation of the cell phone in the social lives of migrants helps build wider social networks. The value of the functions of the cell phone through employed communication patterns that encourage social relations and interactions are also the focus of this thesis.
Namibia�s moment: youth and urban land activism
(Taylor & Francis, 2016) Becker, Heike
A few months short of the 25th anniversary of independence from South Africa in March 1990 Namibia reached her Fanonian moment. As Achille Mbembe has explained this term with regard to the South African student movements of 2015, a new generation has entered the country�s social and political scene and has forcefully asked penetrating new questions. In Namibia this has come in the shape of the Affirmative Repositioning (AR) movement.
Olufuko revisited: female initiation in contemporary Ombadja, Northern Namibia.
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Kautondokwa, Erastus T.; Becker, Heike
This thesis analyses post-independence Namibian Heritage and identity discourse and its contestations through the contemporary public performance of olufuko. Olufuko is the ritual of female initiation that marks the transition of young girls into adulthood. The initiation has been an important aspect of the Aawambo women's identity that live in north-central Namibia and southern Angola as it is believed to legitimise womanhood. I show how Owambo residents embrace regional or ethnic diversity through the performance of olufuko as a way of expressing their belonging. Throughout the thesis, I also reflect on the fact that through national attendance at, participation in, and performing of olufuko by state representatives and individuals, from all the regions of Namibia and beyond, people have expressed their belonging to a nation state. During olufuko ceremonies, both regional and national state representatives advocated the ideas of nation-building through 'unity in diversity', which emphasises the diversity of ethnic backgrounds while harmoniously coexisting. Following Becker (2004), and Becker and Lentz (2013), my central argument is that in the contemporary dispensation, national citizenship in Namibia appears to be defined largely through the emphasis on regional or ethnic diversity. In my discussion, I show how the state appropriated and mediated the olufuko ceremony as a national event, though it was performed at the regional level. I show how national identity was visibly represented by national symbols such as the national flag and anthem and how it was audibly live broadcasted by state television and radio during the event. This signified the event as national. The thesis further investigates how national heritage is discussed in post-colonial Namibia by looking into the controversies between the state and ELCIN religious leaders which emanated from the performance of olufuko. The thesis is based on ethnographic research, which was conducted between December 2012, during olufuko ceremonies that took place in villages in Ombadja, and August 2013, when it culminated in participant observation during the public olufuko ceremony at Outapi, Ombalantu.
Our memories of the liberation war: How civilians in post war Northern Namibia remember the war.
(University of the Western Cape, 2003) Akawa, Martha; Becker, Heike
This research looks at the gap that exists between public representation and personal narratives of the Namibian liberation war. Having observed the absence of private narratives in the grand national memory, I address the questions of how civilians remember the war of liberation and how that shapes their lives in postcolonial Namibia. I am interested in how civilians remember and how they relate the memories and the experience of the past, how they locate themselves in public history and their perspectives on national memory and commemorations. The Namibian government has reconstructed the liberation struggle as one where all Namibians fought against colonialism, but it has excluded and suppressed the memories of ordinary citizens of the country. I conclude that national memory is one-sided as it has not included the memories of all Namibians. The civilians have fought and contributed towards the attainment of independence, but their contributions are neither acknowledged nor rewarded.
Performances of Muslim-ness in post-apartheid Cape Town: Authenticating cultural difference, belonging and citizenship
(University of the Western Cape, 2017) Alhourani, Ala; Becker, Heike
This thesis presents an ethnographic study of the resurgence of public performances of Muslim-ness and an exploration of the Muslim politics of cultural difference in the democratic, post-colonial, and liberal context of the post-apartheid South African nation-state. The central argument that underpins my approach throughout this thesis is that the post-apartheid cultural politics of 'rainbowism' has led to an enhanced and remarkable resurgence of public performance of Muslim-ness in Cape Town. This thesis posits that this resurgence has mediated a sense of belonging that is defined by the multiple allegiances of Muslims to their local cultural particularity, to the South African nation-state, and to the transnational Muslim Ummah.

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