Magister Artium - MA (History)

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Re-imagining family photography through Zanele Muholi’s lens.
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Am, Vuyisanani; Mnyaka, Phindezwa
This study examines Zanele Muholi’s photographs in relation to the genre of family photography. This study questions whether we can consider Zanele Muholi’s photos as part of family photography. Family photography documents events. It captures celebrations, birthday parties and graduations and rarely ever captures pain and sadness. This study questions the heteronormativity and patriarchy that is reinforced by family photography. This study also questions notions of identity and belonging through two selected works, Somnyama Ngonyama and Faces and Phases. Muholi photographs members of the LGBTQI community, capturing scars, funerals and celebrates same-sex tenderness. The study therefore questions the definition of what family photography is when considering the photographed LGBTQI community that Zanele Muholi portrays, and aims to expand understandings of this genre while simultaneously engaging it critically.
Radio as a domain of freedom: aurality, memory and object biography in the Eastern Cape.
(Universty of the Western Cape, 2024) Kobokana, Siyanda; Rassool, Ciraj
This thesis examines the role of radio as a domain of freedom in apartheid South Africa, exploring how it functioned both as a tool of state control and a site of resistance. Through the concepts of aurality, memory, and object biography, this study considers the ways in which radio shaped political consciousness and personal identity, particularly within Black communities. Using the Panasonic RF-2200 radio owned by the author’s grandfather as a focal point, the thesis explores insurgent listening a form of engaged and resistant listenership that defied state censorship and enabled communities to participate in the liberation struggle. Drawing on oral histories, archival research, and critical media studies, this research argues that radio was more than a means of broadcasting; it was a mediating object through which individuals and communities constructed meaning, remembered the past, and imagined alternative futures. By engaging with scholars such as Liz Gunner, Sekibakiba Lekgoathi, and Marissa Moorman, the thesis situates radio within broader debates on sonic heritage and historical acoustemology, demonstrating how sound technologies contributed to both oppression and resistance. The study also considers how the legacy of insurgent listening extends beyond apartheid, influencing contemporary social movements such as #FeesMustFall and #RhodesMustFall. Ultimately, this thesis contributes to discussions on media and resistance, arguing that radio, as both a material object and a site of listening, played a crucial role in shaping historical memory, political engagement, and subjectivity in South Africa.
The making and re-making of Platteklip precinct as heritage of Cape Town
(Universty of the Western Cape, 2024) Johnson, Wendy; Witz, Leslie
Platteklip precinct, one of the sites along the slopes of Table Mountain, has been layered with histories of communities over several hundreds of years, and it continues to be used by people as they believe in the spiritual value of the water from the mountain flowing down the gorge. In the early 2000s Table Mountain National Park (TMNP) launched a significant heritage intervention, trying to transform this into a heritage precinct through tourism. The motivation behind this was to generate an income for the National Park which can be seen as the basis on which heritage was made. This thesis attempts to critically analyze these interventions by TMNP to make the Platteklip precinct a heritage of Cape Town. I discuss the way that this has been done, the format it took, the decisions that were made, as well as the ideas to carry this forward. I also look at additional interventions that might be made to create a culture of heritage in the precinct. As part of my research, I explore archival material on the history of the Platteklip precinct, the history of TMNP and locate the interventions in the area in broader studies on the making of heritage.
The legacies of copper mining in Namaqualand
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Cloete, Romario Fabiano; Benson. Koni
In the 1850s, Namaqualand experienced a copper mining boom, the first of its kind in South Africa. Copper mining became the economic heartbeat of Namaqualand and people flocked to the Northern Cape to work in the copper mines. This mining mania did not last, and in the early 2000s the copper mines eventually closed. This mini-thesis investigates the economic, social, and environmental legacies of copper mining and its afterlives on local communities in Namaqualand both before and after the copper boom, with a particular focus on the experiences of mining workers and their descendants who contributed to the success of the mines. This study documents and amplifies these narratives to counteract hegemonic historical perspectives that continue to privilege the experiences of mining companies and overlook the voices of miners and marginalised community members. In seeking to understand how mining pasts have been assembled and exhibited to the public, the research highlights the legacies of copper mining in Namaqualand, the resilience of the Namaqua people, the values and counter-representations held in naming practices, landscape, and in language and memory, and the importance of inclusive heritage preservation and public history.
A land occupation called Covid in the time of COVID-19
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) Mvimbi, Yanathi; Benson, Koni
Most people would associate the word “Covid” with the coronavirus pandemic that disrupted people’s lives globally in 2020. However, in this research, besides referring to the pandemic, “Covid” refers to a land occupation in Cape Town, South Africa. Living without proper housing is one of the hardest struggles that millions of poor black South Africans experience every day. Reflecting ongoing spatial apartheid, it is one of the greatest injustices of the democratic era that many people still do not have a decent home. This research seeks to understand the struggles that people went through during and after COVID-19 in the land occupation that resulted in the informal settlement named Covid. The mini-thesis documents how settlements like Covid are publicly represented through a critical reading of a selection of news articles, government media statements and nongovernmental organisation (NGO) reports. The paper examines how these ‘outsider’ perspectives represent and construct socioeconomic rights, poverty and inequality and how this impacts their attitudes and solutions to homelessness in Cape Town. The study highlights the roles of NGOs and social movements in the fight against spatial injustice during and since the pandemic. Most importantly, all these perspectives are contrasted with how Covid residents represent themselves and their decision to occupy land.
In the shade of coal: A micro-history of resettlement and the mining industry in Tete province, Mozambique, 2009-2018
(University of the Western Cape, 2024) António, Bernardino; Israel, Paolo
The narratives and stories of the daily experiences of the local communities with the Vale mining project show that it has disrupted not only the lives, livelihood, and ecology but also the cultural and spiritual factors of the local communities in Moatize. Nevertheless, the power asymmetry between the various actors involved in the extractive industry (the mining company, local government, local communities and civil society organisations), dominated by the mining companies, has influenced how the mining issues have been negotiated at the local level. The emergence of the coal mining projects in Tete province displaced thousands of families from their homelands, where they have lived for generations. Thus, many scholars and civil society organisations have sought to analyse the socio-economic and environmental impact of the phenomenon. However, most of these studies have focused on the macro issues, preventing us from accessing peculiarities and details that can widen our understanding of the phenomenon. In contrast, my research, through a micro-historical approach, focuses on the singularities of the Vale resettlement, exploring a range of issues, such as the group of potters displaced by the Vale mining company to initiate its mining activities, the cemetery constructed by the mining company in Cateme and the conflict around the exhumation of the bodies from the old cemetery. However, besides the resettled communities, my research also analyses the ecological effects of the Vale mining activities on the local communities close to the mining site, which Nixon calls “Displaced without moving.”
Things pretty dull: Materiality and the making of Muizenberg in the 20th and 21st centuries
(University of the Western Cape, 2023) Hiscock, Jenna; Witz, Leslie
The purpose of this research is to explore processes of historical production and ideas about public space in Muizenberg, South Africa. It argues that the dominant narrative told about Muizenberg from the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries reinforces colonial hegemony concerning public space, development and progress. This research attempts to challenge and undermine this narrative. In order to do so, this research looks at postcards of Muizenberg as a way of re-reading history and historical production. Throughout, I explore whether the postcard can become an intervention for re-reading Muizenberg and its dominant histories. What can such a reading address? What sort of events are included in these dominant histories, who is present and absent, and which representations are included or excluded by local historians? Beginning with an analysis of the ‘golden years’ of Muizenberg, I problematise dominant production of Muizenberg’s history, and discuss how it is depicted on postcards, particularly within books produced by local historians. I engage with the postcard as a material object, looking at ‘more’ than its image, considering both its sides, and the stamps, addresses, messages, physical appearance, manufacturer, etc.
The politics of representation in the inanda heritage route: A case study of the Phoenix Settlement, Ohlange Institute and Inanda Seminary
(University of the Western Cape, 2023) Simelane, Ayanda Siphesihle; du Toit, Marijke
The thesis is a case study of three main sites on the Inanda Heritage Route, namely, the Phoenix Settlement, Ohlange Institute and Inanda Seminary. This is an important heritage route in post-apartheid KwaZulu-Natal, established in line with national government projects aimed at transforming the cultural landscape. As such, the route represents a particular approach to South African public history, strongly focused on a narrative of opposition to racial segregation and apartheid. The thesis provides a detailed analysis of the exhibitions found at the Phoenix Settlement, Ohlange Institute and Inanda Seminary. I discuss the overall dominance of biographical narration?featuring the lives and achievements of mission educated Africans and in which Gandhi is also presented as an important figure.
Popular history in South Africa in the 198Os: the politics of production
(University of the Western Cape, 1994) Rousseau, Nicky; Minkley, Gary; Witz, Lesley
Popular history, like indeed other histories, is informed by different ideas about the relationship between the past, the present and the political uses of history. However, a major problem in trying to explore these ideas as they developed in South Africa in the period under review, is that they remain for the large part embedded in popular history texts. A consistent and conscious theorisation has not been much evident - at least not at a published level. The triennial conferences of the WHW are thus perhaps unique in the opportunity they accorded to projects to reflect on their experiences and more generally to raise issues and debates relating to popularisation. At the same time, and perhaps precisely because it was one of the few arena6 where such reflection was happening, the relative paucity of research to emerge from these quarters is particularly regrettable. while not all would agree with Crais' assertion that the programmatic separation of the popularisation section2 from the mainstream academic one resulted in "exclusionary practices"3, it does seem undeniable that they enjoyed a different and lesser status.
Being and neoliberalism: A conceptual history of the subject
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Naidoo, Kiasha; van Bever Donker, Maurits
The idea of neoliberalism, as both a guiding principle for economic policy decisions and a governing rationality, is a pertinent issue of our time. The concept itself is often used to describe the contemporary mode of political economy but when we look closer, it is notoriously elusive. Scholars such as Michel Foucault and Wendy Brown seek to conceptualize neoliberalism as a governing rationality. What these scholars share is a reading of neoliberal governmentality in terms of the subject. In social and political philosophical critiques of neoliberalism which inherit from this Foucauldian line of thought, the subject is a central figure. However, thinking on the subject did not begin with a consideration of neoliberalism, it has a long philosophical history. I discuss this through a conceptual history of the subject and in doing so, understand the neoliberal subject as another iteration of subjectivity.
Visual technologies and the shaping of public memory of disappeared persons in Cape Town (1960-1990)
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Rahman, Ziyaad; Hayes, Patricia
The starting point of this thesis is the work of the Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC) and the Missing Person�s Task Team (MPTT), two instruments of the post-apartheid government, both of which have directly attended to the disappeared dead. The disappeared dead are defined in this thesis as persons abducted and subject to enforced disappearances, as well as those killed in other political circumstances whose bodies were buried by the apartheid state, in some cases as unnamed paupers, thus denying families the opportunity to bury and mourn according to familial or cultural norms. Today the MPTT still seeks to locate the gravesites of the disappeared dead, to exhume, identify and to return the mortal remains to their families.
The African child and the hidden curriculum at Blythswood Institute: Three snapshots
(University of Western Cape, 2021) Nogqala, Xolela; Rousseau, Nicky
This mini-thesis seeks to understand how the colonial and apartheid state imagined the African child in South Africa through education policies and their associated hidden curriculum. It asks what educational project was deemed suitable for the African child and how did this project configure her future? At the core of this enquiry is a preoccupation to understand how institutions, their curricula and objects rid themselves of colonial precepts. In working through this, I employ Blythswood Institute as a provocation to think and to historicise the education of African children, such as those at Blythswood, in three moments: colonialism and the founding of Blythswood in 1877; apartheid and the passing of the Bantu Education Act of 1953, and the post-apartheid times of democratic South Africa.
Listening and reading: Leon Levson�s �native studies� photographs in the anti-apartheid Mayibuye archives
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Mashiqa, Gcotyelwa; Du Toit, Marijke
The thesis focuses on Leon Levson�s �native study� photographs, taken in the 1940s in the rural areas of Transkei and Bechuanaland. These photographs are housed at the UWC-Robben Island Museum-Mayibuye Archives as part of the International Defence Aid Fund (IDAF) photography collection. I am interested in the archival glitch of the �native study� as located at an anti-apartheid archive and how Leon Levson has been situated at the centre of the South African social documentary photography tradition in this archive. Levson�s desire was to produce a pictorial testimony of �natives�.
Gender politics and problems in Southern Africa: KwaZulu-Natal, Swaziland and Namibia in the post-colonial/apartheid era.
(University of Western Cape, 1997) Mngomezulu, Bhekithemba Richard; Hayes, Patricia
The study of gender is crucial for the achievement and sustainability of the democratic ethos in Southern Africa. The substantial�literature in this field attests� to this notion1 '. It could help us understand why certain gender stereotypes are viewed by societies as given.rat could also help us explain such problems as the unequal representation in most political structures, and the gendered labour system!. In addition, as the quotation a~ove suggests, the way we talk has gender connotations of which most people are unaware. Many males however, distance themselves from public debates on gender issues on the grounds that gender is about women.
The 1945 General Strike in Northern Nigeria and its Role in Anti-Colonial Nationalism
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Yohanna, Stephen; Rousseau, Nicky
This thesis follows the course of the Nigerian general strike of 1945 in the Northern provinces, a previously under-researched region. It examines some of the many ways in which the strike has been understood in the academy, focusing in particular on the works of Alkasum Abba, Kazah-Toure and Bill Freund who have regarded the strike as well supported and successful. By employing Ian Phimister and Brian Raftopoulos's analysis of the 1948 general strike in colonial Zimbabwe, this thesis re-reads the narrative of success by bringing to the fore previosuly ignored issues relating to questions of planning, tactics, propaganda, solidarity, leadership, and execution of the strike. This re-reading reveals a considerably more varied and uneven response across and within the different categories of workers than has been previously assumed by scholars. Such unevenness challenges notions of "solidarity" and "steadfastness" attributed to the industrial action, with implications for how workers struggles have been incorporated into wider narratives of decolonization and anti-colonial nationalism.
The function of marked word order in Biblical Hebrew prose: An evaluation of existing theories in the light of 2 Kings.
(University of the Western Cape, 1996) Jackson, Leolyn M.; Van der Merwe, C.H. J.
This thesis .investigates the function of a topicalized constituent .in the narrative non-direct speech texts .in 2 Kings. Many traditional BH grammarians described the :function of a topicalized constituent as "emphasis". Recent BH grammarians pointed out that extralinguistic factors like the total communicative context should also be considered in the description of a function for a topicalized constituent. The shift from the structural to a more pragmatic approach is illustrated in this study. The pragmatic approach proved to be not only possible, but also advantageous to the study of function in BH. The aim of this study was to test the viability and results of the various theories and categories of the BH linguists. This study also researched whether their linguistic approaches are indeed an improvement on the descriptions as defined by the traditional grammarians. In other words, to see whether and in which way more recent studies of BH could aid the understanding of the function of a topicalized constituent in BH word order. The methodology utilized in this study is briefly outlined as follows: 1. This study examined the description of word order in terms of the traditional and more recent approaches. The categories used to describe the function of a topicalized constituent were our main focus. At the end we compiled a theoretical frame of reference that we regard as representative of modem attempts to acquire a more refined comprehension of BH word order. A theoretical linguistic framework was formulated which could be used in our description of a sentence in BH in 2 � Kings. This attempt could be described as eclectic because it used the diverse perceptions from the various linguistic approaches. Richter's theoretical linguistic framework (with its limitations) together with contributions of Van der Merwe, Buth and Gross were used as a basis for the description of the sentences. 3. Sentences were analysed systematically and holistically at the different levels of description, namely morphology, morphosyntax, sentence syntax, semantics and pragmatics. Because of the difficulty in defining semantics and with pragmatics still in disarray, this study defined some semantic-pragmatic concepts it worked with. 4. In the description of sentences we incorporated and tested the viability of the different categories of various grammarians. By carefully considering the context of each sentence, this study posed the question: which, if any; of the categories could adequately describe the semantic-pragmatic function of a topicalized constituent in 2 Kings.
Anthropology and literature: Humanistic themes in the ethnographic fiction of Hilda Luper and Edith Turner
(University of Western Cape, 2020) Shaik, Zuleika Bibi; Bank, Andrew
This mini-thesis makes an argument for the significance of a female-dominated hidden tradition of experimental ethnographic writing in British social anthropology. It argues that the women anthropologists who experimented with creative forms of ethnography were doubly marginalised: first as women in an androcentric male canon in British social anthropology and American cultural anthropology, and second as creative writers whose work has been consistently undervalued in sombre scholarly circles. The study proposes that Hilda Beemer Kuper (1911-1995) and Edith Turner (1921-2016) should be regarded as significant in a still unexcavated literary tradition or subgenre with Anglo-American anthropology.
Visual Storytelling in the Cape Flats Gang Biopics Noem My Skollie (2016) and Ellen: Die Storie van Ellen Pakkies (2018)
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Arendse, Lesl� Ann; Bank, Andrew
This M.A. mini-thesis seeks to open up the post-apartheid South African biopic as a topic for serious historical scrutiny. While book-length written biographies published in the post-apartheid (and apartheid periods) are the subjects of a now quite extensive historiographical literature, biography on film � including in the form of filmic dramas � has been hitherto entirely ignored. Social history or marginalised lives and not political lives of struggle against apartheid have been the predominant subgenre within this emerging field: with sixteen biopics having been produced in the 2010s. But the field is dominated by white men. This thesis showcases the story-telling gifts of one young coloured film-maker through a meticulously detailed analysis of �visual story-telling� and �visual language� used in his two award-winning gang biopics, Noem My Skollie (2016) and Ellen. Die Stories van Ellen Pakkies (2018). Read in the context of the extended processes of production of these two films in which the central protagonists played a shaping background role, the thesis explores and compares the linear chronological, four-chapter, narrative structure of Noem My Skollie with the architecture of �the parallel narrative� used in the deeply disturbing Ellen. Die Storie van Ellen Pakkies (2018) The thesis is a celebration of the film-making talent of Daryne Joshua.
�It�s My House and I Live Here�: The Mobilisation of Selective Histories for Claims of Belonging in Cape Town
(University of the Western Cape, 2020) Africa, Keenan; Benson, Koni
This mini thesis seeks to explore two legacies of apartheid: the insecurity of decent and available housing that has led to a housing crisis, and the insecurity of Coloured identity as caused by apartheid�s racial and identity politics and its aftermath in a democratic South Africa. Furthermore, it is an examination of identity and its relation to place, specifically Coloured identity in the place of Cape Town. It focuses the ripple effect of belonging, as this research starts with Cape Town then expands to further find cause for this growing cause of belonging by focusing on racism, the housing crisis, nation-building, globalisation, capitalism. Through interviews and archival research, I explore questions of belonging, identity, and its relation to the housing crisis in Cape Town. This is done through a case study of tensions that erupted in Siqalo, in Mitchell�s Plain on 1 May 2018. Siqalo is a land occupation of isiXhosa speakers in the apartheid-era �Coloured� area of Mitchell�s Plain in Cape Town. When Siqalo residents organised a protest around issues of electricity and housing they faced violent retaliation by neighbouring community and residents of Colorado, populated mainly by people classified as Coloured, with claims being made by an organisation called Gatvol Capetonians for Siqalo residents to return to Eastern Cape. I examine the role of identity in the creation of narratives of Cape Town and establish two narratives, one in which Cape Town is represented as a home for all and one in which it is not, this is done to show how belonging is made through identity and narrative and the effect that this creates. This comes to frame this mini-thesis as the question of a home is represented in the symbolic and physical sense and highlights the tension between Gatvol�s protest of Coloured belonging and Siqalo residents� protest for decent housing. Chapter Two reflects on this through the use of interviews from both sides of the protest. This chapter is written as an imagined debate that not only reflects on critiques of oral history but ways of writing history experimentally or speculatively Through investigating the source of the tension from the Siqalo protest, I argue that desegregation was, in theory, one of the first nation-building projects in South Africa, and its failure has deepened apartheid and colonial forms of classification that divide people. The views of Mahmood Mamdani, while rarely applied to African people classified as Coloured, are very important, as his book, Citizen and Subject was a premise for this research as it highlighted the pitfalls and requirements of African countries after independence from colonialism. At the same time, the literature on Coloured identity rarely brings up the question whether Coloureds can and do practice racism on those classified as black or African and how these categorisations have persisted in the post-apartheid era. This research asks: to what extent do present conditions enable a predatory dynamic to claims of Coloured identity? Based off the predatory argument which focuses on intensified competition for scarce resources under globalisation put forward by Arjun Appadurai, I highlight the influence that contemporary globalisation has had on both the dynamics of Coloured identity and on the housing crisis in Cape Town. This mini thesis concludes by providing two alternatives as to how the question of race can be assessed in South Africa.
Visual Storytelling in the Cape Flats Gang Biopics Noem My Skollie (2016) and Ellen: Die Storie van Ellen Pakkies (2018)
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Arendse, Lesle Anne; Bank, Andrew
This M.A. mini-thesis seeks to open up the post-apartheid South African biopic as a topic for serious historical scrutiny. While book-length written biographies published in the post-apartheid (and apartheid periods) are the subjects of a now quite extensive historiographical literature, biography on film � including in the form of filmic dramas � has been hitherto entirely ignored. Social history or marginalised lives and not political lives of struggle against apartheid have been the predominant subgenre within this emerging field: with sixteen biopics having been produced in the 2010s. But the field is dominated by white men. This thesis showcases the story-telling gifts of one young coloured film-maker through a meticulously detailed analysis of �visual story-telling� and �visual language� used in his two award-winning gang biopics, Noem My Skollie (2016) and Ellen. Die Stories van Ellen Pakkies (2018). Read in the context of the extended processes of production of these two films in which the central protagonists played a shaping background role, the thesis explores and compares the linear chronological, four-chapter, narrative structure of Noem My Skollie with the architecture of �the parallel narrative� used in the deeply disturbing Ellen. Die Storie van Ellen Pakkies (2018) The thesis is a celebration of the film-making talent of Daryne Joshua.

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