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University of Cape Town

The African Art Collection in the Iziko South African National Gallery: Past, Present and Possible Futures

This dissertation investigates acquisition and exhibition histories of parts of the Permanent African Art collection of the Iziko South African National Gallery. The ISANG, which is South Africa’s oldest state art museum, began growing its African art collection in 1967 at the height of the apartheid era. With an institutional life that spans from 1872 to the present, the ISANG has been shaped by legacies of settler colonialism, but also by the imperatives of the post-1994 cultural project of nation building.

Land and minorities in Africa: a case study of the Mbororo in Northwest region, Cameroon

Minorities’ land rights in Africa have been very complex because of the different socio economic and political dynamics which influence these rights. The different construction and implementation of minorities’ land rights by different communities in different circumstances have not only led to violent land disputes, but also to their denial, restriction and challenges in many African states. This study is situated within the scholarship on land and minorities.

Alternatives to the economic rationalisation of renewable energy transitions: The Tsitsikamma Community Renewable Wind Farm Story

Within the climate mitigation discourse, renewable energy technology is understood as vital to reduce coal energy reliance. This discourse which is deeply anthropocentric in its approach understands ‘green’ energy transitions largely as reliant on reductionist techno-scientific ‘solutions’ and green economic growth rationalisation. If energy transitions are not engaged with critically, ongoing injustice and extractive relationships are likely to be perpetuated.

Theatres of Migritude: Towards a Dramaturgy of African Futures

The thesis aims to contribute to the genre of black migrant cultural production called migritude, developed largely in African diasporic literary circles and tracing its evolution from the Négritude movement. It will mobilize Shailja Patel’s significant work to shape a new migritude that stands in continuation and contestation with the older version of this artistic project. The research question at the heart of the thesis is, what does it mean to have a migrant attitude for theatre and performance making?

Dwelling in Diversity Religion and Belonging in Kibera, a Neighbourhood in Nairobi

This dissertation is an ethnographic study of how religious communities make and take place in Kibera, a neighbourhood that is also a homeland in the city of Nairobi. Since its establishment in 1907, the debate about who belongs in Kibera and to whom Kibera belongs has shaped how religious communities in Kibera define themselves and relate to each other.

An exploration of ‘Gurans’ phenomena: The face of Youth Violence in Khayelitsha Township

Youth violence has been troubling the South African society ever since the country’s transition to democracy in 1994. Although the problem has been a countrywide phenomenon, certain provinces and cities, predominantly black inhabited townships in the City of Cape Town, have been most afflicted by the new form of youth violence, code-named ‘Gurans’. Cases of Gurans-related violence first appeared in the City of Cape Town’s townships around the year 2000 and have exponentially increased. Of these townships, Khayelitsha has been the most afflicted.

The kuils river multiple: Versions of an urban river on Theedge of Cape Town, South Africa

This thesis explores how diverse ways of knowing and being with the Kuils River, located in Cape Town, South Africa, are shaped and in turn shape the river. The management of water (in pipes and rivers) and the development of water infrastructure are deeply rooted in societal development agendas that, over time, have been embedded in discourses of empire, economic growth, state formation, sustainability and technological efficiency.

The Necropolitical crisis of Racial Subjectivity: Black Consciousness as a Technology of the Self and the Limits to Transformation

In this thesis, I problematize whether Steve Biko’s Black Consciousness Philosophy, reread as an affective and psychic Foucauldian technology of the self can operate as a strategy of psychic repair and transformation for pathological racialised subjects, produced by Necropolitical governmentality in the South African colony and postcolony.

Domestication of open educational resources by academics in an open distance e-learning institution of South Africa

Problem Statement: The emergence of open educational resources (OER) has gained popularity and acceptance in higher education institutions and beyond the basic education sector. This has brought a persistent shift in tuition and research provision. Higher education institution management and curriculum instructors are praising the existence of the OER initiative. In such a situation, the social capital has a role in promoting the adoption, development, and dissemination of OER.