Division of the earth : gender, symbolism and the archaeology of the southern San

Bibliography: pages 180-207.Gender studies in various disciplines, particularly anthropology, have shown that the opposition of masculine : feminine is commonly used to structure other cultural contrasts, and that the representation of this opposition in cultural products is in turn implicated in the cultural construction of gender content. This bidirectional problematic, supplementing the more limited critique of gender 'bias' and masculinist models, is the focus of this research into archaeological materials. Rock art is the principal archaeological 'trace' analysed. Because the impetus to gender studies comes principally from the critical standpoint of feminism, analyses of gender and gendering in archaeological materials are evaluated in the context of gender issues in the present day, in terms of archaeological 'reconstructions' as legitimising the existing gender order. Theoretical influences include feminism, hermeneutics, marxism, (post)- structuralism, semiotics, and discourse theory. Aspects of language, and, particularly, the oral narratives of various San groups - the /Xam, G /wi, !Kung, Nharo, and others - are examined in order to establish the way in which masculinity and femininity are/have been conceptualised and differentiated by San peoples. This is followed by an assessment of the manner of and extent to which the masculine: feminine opposition informs narrative content and structure. The analysis of language texts permits an approach to the representation of this opposition in non-language cultural texts (such as visual art, space). Particular constructions of masculinity and femininity, and a number of gendered contrasts (pertaining to form, orientation, time, number, quality) are identified. Gender symbolism is linked to the themes of rain and fertility/ continuity, and analysed in political terms, according to the feminist materialist contention that, in non-class societies, gender opposition is potentially the impetus to social change. Gender(ing) is more fundamental to San cultural texts than has been, recognised, being present in a range of beliefs which are linked by their gender symbolism. I utilise a 'fertility hypothesis', derived from a reading of the ethnographies, in order to explain various elements of Southern African rock art, Well-preserved (thus relatively recent) paintings, principally from sites in the Drakensberg and south-western Cape, were selected. Features interpreted via this hypothesis include: images of humans, the motif of the thin red line fringed with white dots, 'elephants in boxes', therianthropic figures, and 'androgynous' figures, including the eland. The spatial organisation of the art, the significance of non-realistic perspectives, and the problem of the numerical male dominance of the art are also interpreted from this standpoint. The analysis permits critique, of the theorisation of gender and ideology in rock art studies, and of the biophysical determinism implicit in current rock art studies, in which attempts are made to explain many features of the art by reference to trance states, altered consciousness and neurophysiological constitution. Rain, rather than trance, is proposed as the central element of San ritual/religious practices. Finally, the treatment of (or failure to consider) gender(ing) in the archaeological record is situated in relatio.n to contemporary gender ideologies, in the contexts of archaeological theory and practice

The Influence of Literacy on the Lives of Twentieth Century Southern Female Minority Figures

The American South has long been a region associated with myth and fantasy; in popular culture especially, the region is consistently tied to skewed notions of the antebellum South that include images of large plantation homes, women in hoop skirts, and magnolia trees that manifest in television and film representations such as Gone With the Wind (1939). Juxtaposed with these idealized, mythic images is the hillbilly trope, reinforced by radio shows such as Lum and Abner, and films such as Scatterbrain (1940). Out of this idea comes the southern illiteracy stereotype, which suggests that southerners are collectively unconcerned with education and the pursuit of knowledge. In an effort to examine this idea in the context of literature, this thesis addresses the historical research done in this field that argues southerners were reading and writing. Further, this thesis analyzes three southern novels in which the protagonists use their literacy skills to manage issues in their lives. Maya Angelou\u27s I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings (1969) presents the author\u27s narrative of using literacy as an outlet for the trauma she experiences in her life, including racism and sexual abuse. Erna Brodber\u27s 1994 novel Louisiana provides an interesting look at a young woman\u27s attempts to enter unfamiliar multicultural southern communities. In the process, she must learn new literacies as she works to complete the oral history project she is assigned and embrace the Caribbean and southern cultures she encounters. Finally, Bitter in the Mouth (2010) by Monique Truong features a young Vietnamese woman coping with synesthesia and racial difference in North Carolina. These differences cause her to rely heavily on the written word, primarily letters, a form that is revealed to be incredibly significant to managing her entire life. Overall, the question that must be asked about the South is not Were they literate? but How did they use literacy? For the southerners discussed, literacy is a skill, a social practice, and a tool that helps overcome trauma, navigate culture, and communicate more effectively

All Mixed Up:Music and Inter-Generational Experiences of Social Change in South Africa

In this thesis I use music as a starting point to animate the wider social experience of individuals and groups responding to rapid social change in South Africa. Social change in South Africa is linked in to discourses about identity that have been rigidly racialised over time. The cohorts and individuals who I engaged with cross, or are crossed by, the boundaries of racial categories in South Africa, either through family background or by the composition of cohort membership. The affective quality of music in people’s experience allows a more nuanced view of the changing dynamics of identity that is not accessed through other research methods. Music is used as a device to track biographies and stories about lived experiences of social change from the 1940’s to the first decade of the 21st Century in South Africa. Popular music cultures, including multi-racial church dances of the 1940’s, the 1970’s Johannesburg jazz and theatre scene and Kwaito, the electronic music that emerged in the 1990’s, provide a canvas to explore personal memories in very close connection to historical developments and groups of people ageing and working alongside each other in the inner western areas of Johannesburg, extending into other areas of the metropolis and the coastal city of Durban.The ethnography includes the life story of a member of a multi-racial family,the dynamic and biographies of a post-apartheid friendship cohort in Western Johannesburg, and an exploration of racial tension in a lap dancing club with a mixed clientele and staff base. The thesis draws on a period of 18 months of dedicated fieldwork in Johannesburg, where I was employed as a DJ in a number of night clubs, as well as many years living in the city as a South African national both as a child and an adult. The methodological implications of a close personal connection to the field site are thus also explored as a determinant of data gathering

How We Act Together

This dissertation defends the higher-order interdependence theory of collective intention. I introduce three results from experimental research on judgments about acting together with others in the sense of collaboration or partnership, which give a description of the character of our collective actions. Building from the literature, I assume that collective action is explained by collective intention. I then show how current theories of collective intention have difficulties explaining these results and develop a theory that gives a better explanation. This theory of collective intention also contains a novel account of the source of interpersonal normativity in collective action. People who form a collective intention owe each other something and are accountable to one another because they choose to co-determine their action in an obligation-generating way

Moving Ourselves, Moving Others

The close relationship between motion (bodily movement) and emotion (feelings) is not an etymological coincidence. While moving ourselves, we move others; in observing others move – we are moved ourselves. The fundamentally interpersonal nature of mind and language has recently received due attention, but the key role of (e)motion in this context has remained something of a blind spot. The present book rectifies this gap by gathering contributions from leading philosophers, psychologists and linguists working in the area. Framed by an introducing prologue and a summarizing epilogue the volume elaborates a dynamical, active view of emotion, along with an affect-laden view of motion – and explores their significance for consciousness, intersubjectivity, and language. As such, it contributes to the emerging interdisciplinary field of mind science, transcending hitherto dominant computationalist and cognitivist approaches

Drawing time: trace, materiality and the body in drawing after 1940.

Focusing on specific episodes from the rich history of drawing practice after 1940, this thesis examines issues of time, materiality and the body in relation to drawing's production and reception. The stakes and potentials of modern drawing remain largely under-theorized and under-acknowledged. Here I explore the way in which drawing involves an array of bodily, imaginative and affective investments how it has been configured in relation to other technologies of representation and how it has provided a small-scale, unspectacular yet complex means for artists to investigate problems of signification, materiality, and the registration of time. I concentrate largely on drawings from the 1940s and 50s, although I do also open onto a small number of key works from the late 1960s and early 70s, as well as some crucial contributions to contemporary practice. My thesis is organised into five chapters, which are bracketed by an introduction and a coda. Chapter 1 explores the relationship between drawing, writing and cinema as it is played out in Henri Matisse's suite Dessins: Themes et variations, made in the early 1940s. Chapter 2 examines drawing's physical and discursive 'smallness,' framed with reference to Rosalind Krauss's formulation of the 'expanded fields' of artistic practice. Here I focus on the drawings of Wols, as well as drawing's 'flight from the page' in the late 1960s and early '70s. Chapter 3 looks at the mobile work of erasure in the drawing practices of both Willem de Kooning and Robert Rauschenberg. Chapter 4 explores drawing's immersive material engagements, specifically in relation to liquidity in the practices of Joseph Beuys and Marcel Broodthaers. Lastly, Chapter 5 brings my concerns up to date with an examination of Tacita Dean's blackboard drawings framed in relation to the digital/analogue binary

The Family System of the Paramaribo Creoles

Indonesi

The Family System of the Paramaribo Creoles

Indonesi