An interrogation of the representation of the San and Tonga ethnic ‘minorities’ in the Zimbabwean state-owned Chronicle, and the privately owned Newsday Southern Edition/Southern Eye newspapers during 2013

This study critically interrogates representations of the San and Tonga in the Chronicle and the NewsDay Southern Edition/Southern Eye newspapers in 2013. It makes sense of how these representations and the journalistic practices that underwrite them position the ethnic groups as ‘minorities’ - in relation to other ethnic groups - within the discourses of Zimbabwean nationalism. Underpinned by a constructionist approach (Hall, 1997), the study makes sense of the San and Tonga identities otherwise silenced by the “bi-modal” (Ndlovu- Gatsheni, 2012: 536; Masunungure, 2006) Shona/Ndebele approach to Zimbabwean nationalism. In socio-historic terms, the study is located within the re-emergence of ‘ethnicity’ to contest Zimbabwean nationalism(s) during debates for the New Constitution leading to a Referendum in March 2013. The thesis draws on social theories that offer explanatory power in studying media representations, which include postcolonial (Bhabha, 1990, 1994; Spivak, 1995), hegemony (Gramsci, 1971), and discourse (Foucault, 1970, 1972; Laclau and Mouffe, 1985) theories. These theories speak to the ways in which discourses about identity, belonging, citizenship and democracy are constructed in situations in which unequal social power is contested. The thesis links journalism practice with the politics of representation drawing on normative theories of journalism (Christians et al, 2009), the professional ideology of journalism (Tuchman, 1972; Golding and Elliot, 1996; Hall et al., 1996), and the concept of journalists as an ‘interpretive community’ (Zelizer, 1993). These theories allow us to unmask the role of journalism’s social power in representation, and map ways in which the agency of the journalists has to be considered in relation to the structural features of the media industry in particular, and society in general. The study is qualitative and proceeds by way of combining a Critical Discourse Analysis (CDA) (Fairclough, 1992; Richardson, 2007) and ideological analysis (Thompson, 1990) of eight news texts taken from the two newspapers and in-depth interviews with 13 journalists from the two newspapers. This way we account for the media representations journalists produced: sometimes reproducing stereotypes, at other times, resisting them. Journalists not only regard themselves as belonging to the dominant ethnic groups of Shona or Ndebele, but as part of the middle class; they take Zimbabwean nationalism for granted, reproducing it as common-sense through sourcing patterns dominated by elites. This silences the San and Tonga constructing them as a ‘minority’ through a double play of invisibility and hyper visibility, where they either don’t appear in the news texts or are overly stereotyped

Articulations of the media, migration and the urban in constructions of black African subjectivity in post-apartheid South Africa: a decolonial approach.

Doctoral Degree. University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg.This study enacts a decolonial Media and Cultural Studies. Rather than think in terms of what the media as technologies of culture ideally ought to do, the thesis focuses on what the media have historically done in South Africa. This epistemic delinking from a Media and Cultural studies that proceed from liberal pluralist normative assumptions locates representation at the centre of what the media have historically done in colonised and postcolonial parts of the world. The study embraces the constructivist approach to representation. Here representation is seen as emerging out of modernity and playing a constitutive role in contemporary postcolonial culture (Lloyd, 2019; Webb, 2009; Colebrook, 2000; Hall, 1997). Culture then occupies a similar space to the economy and material conditions in shaping historical events and social subjectivities (Hall, 1997). Media and Cultural Studies emerged in South Africa in the 1960s as a terrain for conversations and debates between British and Afrikaner viewpoints (Tomaselli, 2002; De Beer and Tomaselli, 2000). Historically, in both media practice and media studies, the black African subject has always been represented, that is spoken about and spoken for (Webb, 2009; Alcoff, 1991; Spivak, 1988). Decolonising Media and Cultural studies, then, partly means exploring this ‘visible’ black absence. In the postapartheid moment, western theory and methods have continued to be hegemonic. To explore this coloniality, this thesis puts representation at the centre of Media and Cultural Studies historically tracing the media’s articulations to its broader context that includes migration, the border and urbanity. The study theoretically stages a conversation between postcolonial studies, decolonial studies, black studies, Marxism, and other variants of critical theory. Located in the debates between Cultural Studies and critical political economy approaches to the study of culture, this research combines ethnography and textual analysis. Texts include 18 news stories taken from the Independent On line (IOL), News24 and the isiZulu Ilanga newspaper and in-depth interviews are analysed through discourse and ideology analysis. Eleven images, including 5 photojournalism and 6 photographs taken during the ethnographic field work, are analysed through semiotics analysis. The black African subject who emerges tethered to global colonial capital as a racialised colonial labourer, serf and slave still emerges in the contemporary articulations of the media, border and urban discourses as a precarious colonial labourer, illegalised, violent, dead, a non-being and an ethnicised national subject

The Futility of Chasing Shadows of Patriarchal Liberation: the African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL) and Anti-Colonial Feminist Politics

In this paper, I combine critical feminist theories and postcolonial/decolonial feminist theories to examine the persistence of patriarchy in South Africa’s postcolonial moment. The postcolonial is taken as both the time that comes after settler rule is over and the recognition that colonialism continues in another form even after settler rule is over (Hall, Post-colonial 244). I ask how is it that at a postcolonial time, when South Africans seem to have made strides on the liberation of women, especially black women, political parties are still reluctant to elect females to lead. Through a close reading of the election of five men and only one woman to lead the ruling African National Congress (ANC) for the next five years – as a news event – I argue that the reasons include an ineffectual liberal feminist praxis adopted by the leaders of the African National Congress Women’s League (ANCWL) as some kind of ‘depoliticised politics’ (Jorgensen and Phillips, Wodak and Meyer, Fairclough). This lack of ideological clarity is characterised by reluctance to tackle patriarchy head on by the women leaders

Working with Waste: Hazards and Mitigation Strategies Used by Waste Pickers in the Inner City of Durban

Informal waste pickers in cities across the Global South divert significant amounts of tonnage from landfills. This diversion contributes towards a sustainable environment and better public health practices. Informal workers globally derive livelihoods from collecting, sorting, and selling recyclable waste. In South Africa, there is growing recognition of the valuable work that waste pickers carry out. Despite this, however, these informal workers remain largely unrecognised, are often stigmatised, and suffer from a lack of social protection linked to their work. This lack of recognition and protection creates specific occupational hazards for waste pickers. Using an ethnographic method, this study explores the physical and socio-psychological hazards that emerge from waste picking on the streets of the inner city of Durban, in South Africa. We found that the waste pickers, the majority of whom were women, developed mitigation strategies against these risks. A better understanding of how the occupational hazards of waste picking are shaped by the local context of working on the street enables the recognition of the knowledge waste pickers already hold regarding mitigation strategies. Insight into occupational hazards are important to consider if the municipal integration of waste pickers is to happen in a way that ensures access to social protections for these informal workers