Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (History)

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Southern Cameroons: fifty years of subtle violence and subjugation 1961-2016
(Universty of the Western Cape, 2022) Ambe, Anthony Nforh; Pillay, Suren
The Southern Cameroons question which has come to be known as the ‘Anglophone problem’ has drawn international attention as a result of the physical and ‘spectacular’ violence that have recently engulfed the region. Central and essential to this study is the concept of subtle violence drawn from Kevin D. Holden’s explanation of soft subtle violence which is regarded as injury by infringement. According to Holden, one of the most common encouragements to physical violence from an apparent nonviolent past evolves as a result of withholding, neglect and indifference. Here withholding, neglect and indifference would signify injury by infringement. In the case of Southern Cameroon, subtle violence could be seen as the withholding of the rights of Southern Cameroonians, the neglect of their socio-economic and infrastructural needs, and the indifference towards their plight for equality as Cameroonian citizens by the state as inscribe in the Cameroonian constitution. Many Southern Cameroonians feel subjected to the position of second class citizens in the Republic of Cameroon because of the legal, linguistic and socio-cultural identity they inherited and appropriated as a result of colonial legacies.
From chisungu to the museum: a historical ethnography of the images, objects and anthropological texts of the chisungu female initiation ceremony in the Moto Moto Museum in Zambia, 1931 to 2016
(Universty of the Western Cape, 2023) Mbewe, Mary; Hayes, Patricia
This study examines the processes through which sacred cultural practices and people were made subjects of ethnological studies. It considers these histories through a renewed examination of the contexts under which the chisungu female initiation ceremony of the Bemba-speaking people of northern Zambia came to be studied, and how the sacred belongings of the ceremony were collected and turned into objects of ethnography in museums. This project is conceived not only as a biographic study of these collections and their histories but is also a study of processes of meaning-making about cultural practices and people in a museum in Zambia, the Moto Moto Museum. Founded by the missionary Jean Jacques Corbeil in the 1950s, this museum had its origins in particular colonial contexts and was formalised as a national museum in the period after colonialism. The project involves a critical examination of the work of the British anthropologist Audrey Isabella Richards (1899-1982), and the missionary ethnographer Jean Jacques Corbeil (1913-1990) who respectively studied and conducted collecting on the ceremony in the 1930s and in the 1950s respectively. Their studies led to the collection of images, texts and objects for museums and institutions in Britain, South Africa, and Northern Rhodesia (now Zambia). This transformation of sacred cultural belongings into museum objects, and the mobilities that resulted in their circulation were part of the making of empire. This was done within processes of colonial knowledge construction that were disruptive, extractive, and epistemologically violent. Ethnological studies and resultant ethnographic museums were part of colonial governance and control, within the broader contexts of indirect rule, which operated through the use of local systems to rule over colonised people
The un/timely death(s) of Chris Hani: discipline, spectrality, and the haunting possibility of return
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Longford, Samuel; Rassool, Ciraj
This dissertation takes Chris Hani beyond the conventionally biographic by thinking through his multiple lives and deaths and engaging with his legacy in ways that cannot be contained by singular, linear narratives. By doing so, I offer alternative routes through which to understand historical change, political struggle and subjectivity, as well as biographical and historical production as a conflicted and contested terrain. I attend to these conflicting narratives not as a means through which to reconcile the �good� and �bad� sides of history, struggle, or the political subject. Nor to sacrifice either to what Frederick Jameson has referred to as a dialectical impasse: a �conventional opposition, in which one turns out to be more defective than the other�, and through �which only one genuine opposite exists� [therefore sharing] the sorry fate of evil� reduced to mere reflection.�1 Instead I place contested narratives about Hani and the anti-apartheid struggle into conversation with one another, and treat them as �equally integral component[s]�2 of the life and legacy of Hani.
A Space for Genocide: Local Authorities, Local Population and Local Histories in Gishamvu and Kibayi (Rwanda
(University of the Western Cape, 2010) Mulinda, Charles Kabwete; Hayes, Patricia
Soon after the Tutsi genocide in Rwanda, in 1994, research around this horrific event flourished. Although a variety of authors of different expertise (journalists, human rights activists, witnesses, academics, both Rwandans and foreigners) produced a great deal of literature, it is mostly scholars who had conducted research in Rwanda prior to 1994 who after 1994 took the lead in the endeavour to write about this genocide. Certain of these scholars produced serious work that has advanced our knowledge about it. These include anthropologists, political scientists, historians, sociologists and economists. As their prior research had brought them close to Rwanda, they felt the need and the moral obligation to contribute to the understanding of this genocide. This serious literature has increased our understanding with regard to a number of problems. It has for instance challenged the view that the genocide was the result of popular anger following the death of President Habyarimana in the plane crash of April 6h,lgg4.It has rejected the western journalistic view of the war and genocide in Rwanda as a result of innate and secular "tribal" conflict and confrontation between the Hutu and the Tutsi. Most importantly, it has advanced knowledge about the causes,2 the making of the genocide at the national level,3 and at some local levels. In this respect, it has to some extent analysed the contexts of the genocide from the politicals economic,and social T and culturals perspectives. ln establishing the context of the genocide, many authors have turned to the whole history of Rwanda in order to understand the genocide. some extent analysed the contexts of the genocide from the political,s economic,6 social and culturals perspectives.e ln establishing the context of the genocide, many authorshave tumed to the whole history of Rwanda in order to understand the genocide.
Baswahili and Bato ya Mangala: Regionalism and Congolese diasporic identity in cape town, 1997-2017
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Vuninga, Rosette Sifa; Israel, Paolo
My research is on regionalism among Congolese migrants of South Africa with the focus on the tensions between Baswahili (Kivu inhabitants) and Bato ya mangala (Kinshasa inhabitants) in the city of Cape Town. The two groups incarnate the geopolitical East and West of the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), respectively. I locate the tensions between these two regional groups in Cape Town in the DRC�s politics as well as that of the host country, South Africa. In the DRC, the tensions between Baswahili and Bato ya mangala are rooted in the identity politics and discourse of the post-Mobutu era, mainly that which emerged from the major events that have shaped the dynamics of the DRC�s crisis since the late 1990s.
Southern African human remains as property: Physical anthropology and the production of racial capital in Austria
(University of Western Cape, 2021) Schasiepen, Hella Sophie Charlotte; Rassool, Ciraj
From 1907 to 1909, the Austrian anthropologist, Dr Rudolf P�ch (1870-1921), conducted an expedition in southern Africa that was financed by the Imperial Academy of Sciences in Vienna. P�ch enjoyed administrative and logistical support from Austria-Hungary as well as the respective colonial governments and local authorities in the southern African region. During this expedition, he appropriated the bodily remains of more than one hundred people and shipped them to Vienna. When P�ch started teaching anthropology and ethnography in 1910, the remains became an essential part of the first �anthropological teaching and research collection� at the University of Vienna.
Voices from the Kavango: A study of the contract labour system in Namibia, 1925-1972
(University of the Western Cape, 2012) Likuwa, Kletus Muhena; Mesthrie, Uma-Dhupelia
This thesis seeks to explore how the life histories and the voices of the contract labourers from the Kavango contribute to our understanding of the contract labour system in Namibia. In particular, it seek to ask what light do they shed on migration and on new living and working experiences, their experiences with recruiting organizations and local recruiting agents and the effect of the contract labour system on them? Is it possible to view the migration of the Kavango . workers as a progressive step or does the paradigm of exploitation and suppression remains dominant? Oral interviews were carried out among the former contract labourers and their narratives were used empirically for information about their experiences. Yet this thesis also pays attention to analyzing these narratives for meaning. Archival sources further provided insight into the colonial views about contract labourers and the operation of the system itself. This thesis points to the slow inclusion of the Kavango in the contract labour system. It also draws attention to how there is a silencing of the Kavango in the contract labour system due to the colonial counting of contract labourers earlier where they were often included under the 'Ovambo' label. During the South African colonial rule, traditional chiefs sided with South Africa for continued survival and they supported the colonialists in labour recruitment. Although contract labourers made their own decision to leave home to get recruited they did so because of the compelling social and economic hardships that resulted from the activities of the colonial officials. Labour narratives point to many journeys both within and outside Namibia. Contract labourers aimed to purchase clothing which they lacked locally, as a result of the stringent colonial laws. The 1923 Kavango workers' protest against being sent to the diamond mines in the south, where they heard workers were dying in high numbers, played a role in shaping their labour recruitment and distribution to the copper mines such as Tsumeb, Otavi, and Grootfontein according to their wishes. From the perspective of workers, the contract labour system was nothing but slavery. They felt treated like property to be sold. The naming of employers became a way to deal emotionally with this mistreatment. The memory of the 'missus' lingers on centrally because workers related to their home experience of the submissive role of women and, therefore, they could have found it traumatizing to be shouted at by a woman. The labourers adapted to new colonial times and a new rhythm of labour such as bells and whistles. They developed good inter-ethnic relations among them. Contrary to the literature, the workers' relation with the location residents was not always bad. The impact of the labour system was that there were but small benefits and these were not long lasting and necessitated a return to contract. The thesis points to this cycle of entrapment which led to the mobilizing of workers. The workers' mobilization extended to the Kavango and resulted in rebelliousness against SWANLA and its institutions. While this thesis hopes to contribute to ending silences about the Kavango's engagement within the contract labour system, it points also to the need for future research highlighting women's narratives about life in the Kavango as well as postcolonial labour migration to the charcoal and grape farms which, as narratives of the former Kavango contract labourers show, continues.
Locating 'home': Strategies of settlement, identity-formation and social change among African women in Cape Town, 1948-2000
(University of the Western Cape, 2002) Lee, Rebekah; Beinart, William
This dissertation constructs a social history of African women in Cape Town from the vantage point of their varied attempts over the last five decades to map 'home' in the urban setting: in the physical structures of their homes; the character of their social and kinship networks; and in the ways a notion of 'place' was re-worked. An historiographical examination of existing research has shown that, especially in the South African context, much scope remains for a regionally specific historical analysis of the urbanisation process, and African women's unique role in it. The use of oral histories and the adoption of a trans-generational interviewing strategy have helped fashion a textured account of African women's settlement strategies, and the underlying social and personal transformations that their design and use suggested. 'First-generational' women, who entered Cape Town at mid-century, led an uncertain and highly regulated urban existence, by virtue of their enforced marginalisation under apartheid. Until the late-1980s, Cape Town retained a distinctive demographic composition, and an historical association as the 'home' of the Coloured population. This made state and local efforts to control the entry and residence of the minority African populace more coercive and successful, at least in the first two decades of apartheid rule. Despite these restrictions, African women constructed and managed a dense set of strategies which affirmed their material livelihoods in the city and increasingly enmeshed their identities in the workings of a modern and commoditised world. However, first-generational women also actively contested these developments to some extent, evident particularly in their efforts to regulate the movement of and compel financial support from their increasingly mobile daughters and granddaughters. Evidence from second and third-generational respondents show a growing reluctance to utilise first-generational women's settlement strategies and the conceptual frameworks which underpinned them. For instance, associational links were increasingly organised along non-racialised lines. Third-generational women's desire to establish residence in other areas of the city, or in other cities entirely, was indicative of a similar dynamic. This was also reflective of their embrace of mobility as an expression of greater economic and social freedoms possible in a post-apartheid world. This dissertation constructs a social history of African women in Cape Town from the vantage point of their varied attempts over the last five decades to locate 'home' in the urban setting. It charts the experiences of a group of women who first moved to Cape Town in the 1940s and 50s, and their children and grandchildren. My focus is on the way in which succeeding generations of women developed differing strategies of settlement, in the context of sometimes dramatic social and political change. The social as well as the physical elements of locating home are key elements in the analysis, including the redefinition of kinship and associational networks, as well as the re-casting of identities and a sense of place. Until the late 1980s, Cape Town retained a distinctive demographic composition, and an historical association as the 'home' of the Coloured- population. This made state and local efforts to control the entry and residence of the minority African populace more coercive and successful, at least in the first two decades of apartheid rule. Rather than painting a comprehensive portrait of urban African life in the apartheid era (1948- 1994), this dissertation hopes to map a few significant dynamics which were manifest in the encounters between a select group of African women and the distinctive terrain of this city during the apartheid years.
Social welfare policy for a post-apartheid South Africa: A developmental perspective
(University of the Western Cape, 1995) Kotze, Frans Gabri�l; Redlinghuis, A.C.
This research project, in which social welfare constitutes the central focus of study, is undertaken within the broad field of development studies. The basic concern of the study is to determine the role and the place of social welfare in a post-apartheid South Africa. The study therefore seeks to produce some of the policy-making knowledge and a framework for formulating alternative social policies. With the emergence of the post-apartheid South Africa, social welfare as a system, and social policy in particular, finds itself at a water-shed. For many years social welfare has been practised on a racially-differentiated basis. Social policies were firmly rooted in the prevailing political ideology of apartheid. During its formal inception in the 193Q's, the primary objective of social welfare was to solve the Poor White problem. Currently we have reached a critical turning point in the history of our country. The establishment of an inclusive democracy should have a direct impact on the welfare of all citizens. In this new context we have to deal with mass poverty - the basic human needs of many South Africans not being met - and extreme inequalities. Meanwhile we are saddled with different models of welfare based on the fragmented social policies of the past. Various themes pertaining to social welfare are examined with the view to proposing some solutions to the dilemma. Theories of development constitute the frame of reference for the analysis and development of alternative social policies. Applying these theoretical foundations, a special study is made of the emergence and structuring of social welfare in South Africa. In an empirical study the views of stakeholders in the field are gathered using qualitative methodology. Theories of development, the Reconstruction and Development Programme, the idea of social welfare as a system to meet human needs, and the views of stakeholders, form the basis for the development of alternative social policies in the post-apartheid South Africa. Using this conceptual framework and analysis of contemporary realities, certain policy proposals are examined for their appropriateness to address post-apartheid challenges. The study demonstrates that a paradigm shift is absolutely necessary in order to deal with emerging realities in South Africa. This paradigm shift entails that social welfare adopt a developmental approach within an integrated policy framework.
The Impact of Migrant Labour Infrastructure on Contract Workers in and from Colonial Ovamboland, Namibia, 1915 to 1954
(University of the Western Cape, 2020) Nampala, Lovisa Tegelela; Hayes, Patricia
This thesis explores the ways in which migrant labour infrastructure and the related operating practices of the South African colonial administration impacted on workers in and from the colonial north-central part of Namibia, formerly known as Ovamboland. This study stretches from the Union of South Africa�s occupation of the region in 1915 up to 1954 when the last Native Commissioner for Ovamboland completed his term of office and a new administrative phase began. Infrastructure refers to the essential facilities that an institution or communities install to use in order to connect or communicate.4 Vigne defines infrastructure as the mode of connections between techniques, practices, social values, cultures, economies and politics.5 This dissertation deals with two types of infrastructures. The first is the colonial infrastructure, which was comprised of tangible facilities such as medical examination procedures, transport, housing, rations, sanitation and postal and remittance services. The second type of infrastructure was an intangible one, based on cultural resources that included domestic rituals performed around contract labour, human infrastructures and practices of hospitality (uukwawo wanankali), all were rooted in the pre-colonial Aawambo beliefs and practices, which passed on through generations even under colonial conditions. The thesis starts with the preparations and arrangements commonly done for a man leaving home for the recruitment centre, when he is away, and when he returns from contract. It also reveals how the ancient Oshiwambo custom siku lyoye siku lyamukweni (a similar proverb is �every dog has its day�) was employed by homestead owners as they welcomed strangers into their homes which later included the migrant labour community. The dissertation goes on to examine the entire recruitment process, explaining why and how the recruiting organizatclassified the workers, and explores the implications of the mandatory medical examination. It also articulates what okaholo (the contract) signified to all parties involved in the migrant labour system. The thesis then investigates how workers coped in the new milieu with compound accommodation and communal sanitation systems, unfamiliar climates, as well as different nutrition and diseases. It examines how workers adapted to a new social setting: without family structures and women; with new liabilities to care for their sick colleagues; dealing with death and the impact of workplace mortality on others and families back in the sending area. The thesis also explores the infrastructure in which migrant workers from colonial Ovamboland engaged before they were introduced to the infrastructure of contract labour. It analyses the approaches and arrangements regarding mortality within which institutions were operating and how those strategies were implemented. The final chapter considers why the colonial administration redirected some of its new technologies and facilities such as remittance and postal services to the migrant labour system in order to serve the contract workers and broader community of Ovamboland. It also deliberates on what the contract labour infrastructure meant to such a society, indicating how people made use of the infrastructures as well as the social impact of these new communication networks. I learned that the colonial infrastructure introduced from 1947 of postal and remittance services served people in ways that were not as oppressive as the other features of the existing migrant labour system infrastructure. The colonial administration ensured that these facilities reached and were accessed by beneficiaries in rural areas of Ovamboland, who greatly benefited from the new services. I argue that many Aawambo eventually adopted these colonial means of communicating (letter writing in particular), a mode they employed across many years, even when the contract labour system was over.
The impact of migrant labour infrastructure on contract workers in and from colonial Ovamboland, Namibia
(University of Western Cape, 2020) Nampala, Lovisa Tegelela; Hayes, Patricia
This thesis explores the ways in which migrant labour infrastructure and the related operating practices of the South African colonial administration impacted on workers in and from the colonial north-central part of Namibia, formerly known as Ovamboland. This study stretches from the Union of South Africa�s occupation of the region in 1915 up to 1954 when the last Native Commissioner for Ovamboland completed his term of office and a new administrative phase began. Infrastructure refers to the essential facilities that an institution or communities install to use in order to connect or communicate.4 Vigne defines infrastructure as the mode of connections between techniques, practices, social values, cultures, economies and politics.5 This dissertation deals with two types of infrastructures.
A history and critical analysis of Namibia�s archaeologies
(University of the Western Cape, 2020) Gwasira, Goodman; Rassool, Ciraj
This study critically examines the political, social and institutional settings in which archaeology was introduced in Namibia. I re-examine the idea of archaeology as a scientific and objective discipline that could be practiced without input from the knowledge systems of local communities. Archaeology developed alongside colonialism in Africa. Archaeology became an apparatus for knowing about the strategic resources that could be found in Namibia. Through the processes of recording sites and artefacts archaeology provided information that was useful to the colonial administration.
The hand and the head: the handspring puppet company and the arts archive
(University of the Western Cape, 2021) Minkley, Emma Smith; Lalu, Premesh
My Doctoral dissertation, titled The hand and the head: The Handspring Puppet Company and the arts archive, is focussed on the hand as it appears variously in the production, performance and reception of puppetry as a metonym of care and comfort, but conversely of manipulation and tyranny. The shared proponent of the hand, so crucial to the puppeteer as a means of controlling the movements and �life� of the puppet, acts as the object of study which links the puppet to the modern human and the human body, both through means of creation and representation, in other words, both aesthetically and ontologically. The study thus initiates a set of dialectical connections between body and mind, intuition and intellect, practice and theory, all centred on the relationship between the hand and the head.
Digital storytelling and the production of the personal in Lwandle, Cape Town
(University of Western Cape, 2019) Sykes, Pam; Witz, Leslie; Hayes, Patricia
Digital storytelling is a workshop-based practice, originally developed by the Californiabased nonprofit StoryCenter, in which people create short, first-person digital video narratives based on stories from their own lives. The practice has been adopted around the world as a participatory research method, as a pedagogical tool, as a community-based reflective arts practice and as medium for advocacy. It is associated with a loosely connected global movement linked by genealogy and a set of ethical commitments to the significance of all life stories and to the power of listening as a creative and political act.
�n Histories-kritiese ondersoek na diei armoede-vraagstuk onder die gekleurde gemeenskap van Kaapstad 1910-1933
(University of Western Cape, 1993) Van der Ventel, Izak Jacobus; De Jongh, P.S
Hierdie verhandeling is die vrug van intensiewe nadenke en navorsing oor die armoedesituasie van gekleurdes van Kaapstad gedurende die jare 1910-1933. Die tydperk is gekies omdat dit besonderlik die teelaarde vir armoede was en vername gebeure soos die Eerste W�reldoorlog (1914-1919), die Groot Griepepidemie (1918). die Groot Droogte (1930) en die Depressies van 1920-1922 en 1930-1932 (Groot Depressie). Dit is egter me't "n historiese aanloop (1652-1909) voorafgegaan om die grondslag van die betrokke mense se voorsate se armoede sowel as di� van hulself deeglik uit te lig en op skrif te stel. Die gekleurde gemeenskap is as onderwerp gekies omdat die meeste gekleurdes in Kaapstad saamgetrek was. Hul regstreekse voorsate, die inheemse Khoi-khoi was reeds van die begin van die wit nedersetting in die omgewing van die Kaap woonagtig. Hulle was in di� vroe� stadium welvarend; gemeet aan destydse standaarde. maar is spoedig tot 'n verarmde. besitlose proletariaat gereduseer. Dit is deur die slinkse handels- en geweldsmetodes van die Europese nedersetters veroorsaak. Dit het die basis van die armoedeerfenis van hul nasate die Kaapse gekleurdes gevorm. Die Khoikhoi het met verloop van tyd 'n metamorfose ondergaan deur ondertrouery met ingevoerde slawe en van die nedersetters. Daaruit is 'n bepaalde groep gebore en ontwikkel wat mettertyd met die benaming "Kaapse gekleurdes" ge�tiketteer sou word.
Culture, History and Politics in Malawi: The Production of National Heritage, 1964-2009
(University of the Western Cape, 2019) Lusaka, Mwayi; Witz, Leslie
This thesis is essentially about how Malawi�s national heritage was constituted, in particular how heritage emerged and how it has changed over time. It largely looks at the period from 1964 to 2009. This is significant period which covers the transition from colonialism to independence; dictatorship and the emergence of multiparty democracy. The study explores the changing governments during this period in relation to how knowledge about Malawi�s pasts were constructed and reconstructed as heritage using different cultural forms: national museums, ethnic festivals, cultural performances, national language, commemorations and memorials (monuments, commemorative days and biographical memory) and the framing of traditions and customs into what is referred to as intangible cultural heritage. The overarching question of the research is what changes were made to national heritage in relation to the changing of governments during this period? In response to this question multiple historical modes of inquiry were used to study and examine the production of different aspects of heritage during this period.
Frameworks of representation: A design History of the district six museum in Cape Town
(University of Western Cape, 2020) Hayes-Roberts, Hayley Elizabeth; Witz, Leslie; Murray, No�leen
Since 1994, the District Six Museum, in constructing histories of forced removals from District Six, Cape Town, commenced as a post-apartheid memory project which evolved into a memorial museum. Design has been a central strategy claimed by the museum in its process of making memory work visible to its attendant publics evolving into a South African cultural brand. Co-design within the museum is aesthetically infused with sensitively curated exhibitions and a form of museumisation, across two tangible sites of engagement, which imparts a unique visual language
A visual struggle for Mozambique. Revisiting narratives, interpreting photographs (1850-1930)
(University of the Western Cape, 2020) Assubuji, Rui; Hayes, Patricia
�A Visual Struggle for Mozambique. Revisiting narratives, interpreting photographs (1850 � 1930)� is a study that requires an engagement with the historiography of the Portuguese empire, with reference to Mozambique. This is initially to provide some context for the East African situation in which photography began to feature in the mid- to late 19th century. But the other purpose is to see what impact the inclusion of visual archives has on the existing debates concerning Portuguese colonialism in Mozambique, and elsewhere. The rationale for this study, therefore, is to see what difference photographs will make to our interpretation and understanding of this past. The central issue is the �visual struggle� undertaken to explore and dominate the territory of Mozambique. Deprived of their �historical rights� by the requirements of the Berlin Treaties that insisted on �effective occupation�, the Portuguese started to employ a complex of knowledge-producing activities in which photography was crucially involved. Constituting part of the Pacification Campaigns that led to the territorial occupation, photographic translations of action taken to control the different regions in fact define the southern, central and northern regions of the country. The chapters propose ways to analyze photographs that cover issues related to different forms of knowledge construction. The resulting detail sometimes diverges from expectations associated with their archival history, such as the name of the photographers and exact dates, which are often unavailable.1 In discussing processes of memorialization, the thesis argues that memory is fragile. The notion of ellipsis is applied to enrich the potential narratives of the photographs. The thesis reads them against the grain in search of counter-narratives, underpinned by the concept of �visual dissonances�, which challenges the official history or stories attached to the photographs. Besides a participation in the general debates about the work of photography in particular, this research is driven by the need to find new ways to access the history of Mozambique. Ultimately the project will facilitate these photographic archives to re-enter public awareness, and help to promote critical approaches in the arts and humanities in this part of southern Africa.
Social and political history of Wollo Province in Ethiopia: 1769-1916
(University of the Western Cape, 2020) Melaku, Misganaw Tadesse; Pillay, Suren
Wollo, formerly referred to as ?Bete Amhara,? refers to a region of Amharic-speaking Christians. It was one of the oldest provinces of Ethiopia; located in the north-eastern part of Ethiopia at the cross- roads of the Red Sea, Gulf of Aden, Sudan, and central and Southern Ethiopia. Its geostrategic central position has made it a historical focal point of historical dynamics in Ethiopia. Due to its geostrategic position, many writers of the medieval period referred to Wollo as the ?center and the heartland of the Abyssinian Empire. On account of these, major historical battles among political, social, and religious forces occurred in this region leaving their own mark on it and the nature of the Ethiopian state. Before the sixteenth century, Wollo had been a center of history, political administration, religion, and religious education. As a result, numerous historical events have taken place in this province. Due to such factors, it was part of the historically dominant regions in Ethiopia. However, after the sixteenth century we see a decline in the position of Wollo. A province which was part of the center, afterwards the sixteenth century, had been downgraded to the periphery following its domination by Islam and Oromo, which were two subjects of marginalization in Ethiopian historiography. Thereafter, the province was relegated from the country�s political ground and historical narration due to ethnic, religious, and political backgrounds. In the earliest recordings of the historically dominant groups of Ethiopia, Wollo was not properly represented as it was regarded as a Muslim and Oromo province. In much of the recently recorded literature on the subaltern groups in the post-1991 period, the internal events of Wollo have been ignored. Therefore, both in the past and recently, the socio-political history of Wollo province has never been given due regard. Despite the fact that Wollo bears elements of both the historically dominant and historical subaltern of Ethiopia, it has not been provided proper representation by the narrative of the historically dominant groups, as it is not given proper place in the emergent history of the subaltern in Post-1991 Ethiopia. This paradox of Wollo belonging to both but not given due attention and representation is the corridor leading to explore the dark sides of Ethiopian historiography. Thus, this study attempts to examine why, how and in what way Wollo has been neglected from the country�s political ground and historical narration. It will also try to reconstruct the social and political history of the province in the period under study.
Frameworks of representation: A design history of the District Six Museum in Cape Town
(University of the Western Cape, 2020) Hayes-Roberts, Hayley Elizabeth; Witz, Leslie
Since 1994, the District Six Museum, in constructing histories of forced removals from District Six, Cape Town, commenced as a post-apartheid memory project which evolved into a memorial museum. Design has been a central strategy claimed by the museum in its process of making memory work visible to its attendant publics evolving into a South African cultural brand. Co-design within the museum is aesthetically infused with sensitively curated exhibitions and a form of museumisation, across two tangible sites of engagement, which imparts a unique visual language. The term design became extraordinarily popular in contemporary Cape Town, where the city was - in 2014 -the World Design Capital. Yet at the same time as design was being inscribed into the public imaginary, it was simultaneously curiously undefined although influential in shifting representational aesthetics in the city. This research seeks to ask questions about this proliferation of interest in design and to examine this through a close reading of the work of the District Six Museum situated near District Six. In particular, micro and macro design elements are explored as socio-cultural practice in re-imagining community in the city that grew out of resistance and cultural networks. Various design strategies or frameworks of representation sought to stabilize and clarify individual and collective pasts enabling and supporting ex-residents to reinterpret space after loss, displacement and separation and re-enter their histories and the city. Post-apartheid museum design modes and methodologies applied by the District Six Museum as museumisation disrupts conventional historiographies in the fields of art, architectural and exhibition design, where the focus is placed on temporal chronologies, in a biographic mode profiling examples of works and designers/artists. Instead, the research contextualises the work of design as making in a more open sense, of exploring the very constructedness of the museum as a space of method, selection, process and representation thereby asking questions about this reified term design as method and practice. The designing ways of the District Six Museum contribute to understanding idioms mediated through design frameworks allowing for a departure from the limited ways design history has been written. Through an unlayering of projects, practices and an examination of archival case studies, exhibition curation, the adaptive reuse of buildings and through institutional rebranding my argument is that the particularities of the claims to design work at the District Six Museum provide a rich case for relating to other contemporaneous processes of making apartheid�s spatial practices visible as projects such as this claim community. Therefore seeking to demystify how this community museum �making� has been fashioned through an investment in various design disciplines, forms and practices revealing the inherent complexity in doing so.

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