The road to Sharpeville

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented September, 1986The Sharpeville shootings are a landmark o-f the South African past. People with only a fleeting knowledge of South African history are aware of the events of 21 March 1960 and Sharpeville Day is annually commemorated by opponents of apartheid all over the world. Nevertheless, there is remarkably little awareness of the local history of Vereeniging that led up to the shootings. This history makes fascinating reading. For one of its distinguishing characteristics was the success of the Vereeniging Town Council's administration of its two African townships, Sharpeville and Top Location. Throughout the 1950s Sharpeville was recognised across the country as the model African township, and the Council was able to censor almost all local African political activity (1). In the light of this it was particularly anomalous that the declaration of the State of Emergency in I960 should have been prompted by events in Sharpeville- However, most accounts of the Sharpeville shootings have not even noticed this anomaly, let alone offered any explanation for it (2). Rather, they look at the background to the shootings only in terms of the PAC's national campaign against the passes. It is a central premise of this paper that such an approach to the problem of explaining the Sharpeville shootings is inadequate- For it begs the question of why it was in Sharpeville as opposed to anywhere else in the Union that the PAC's campaign received its strongest response, a question that can only be answered by examinining the local history that led up to the shootings. It is to this history, then, that I address myself in the following paper. The paper's first two sections describe the social and economic development of Vereeniging up to the 1950s and the administration of its African townships. I then examine tensions around police raids and rising rents that built up in Vereeniging's townships over the 1950s, and relate these to processes described in the first two sections. Finally I look at the Council's removal of Top Location residents to Sharpeville in 1958/59, and show how the PAC was able to capitalise on the residents' grievances relating to the removal and to the, issues of raids and rent (3)

Apartheid with a human face: Punt Janson and the origins of reform in township administration, 1972-1976

African Studies Seminar series. Paper presented February, 198

Or telle his tale untrewe : an enquiry into a narrative strategy in the Canterbury Tales

In this thesis I discuss aspects of Chaucer's interest in the relation of Language to the reality which it attempts to express and the relation of poetic fiction to Christian truth, and the type of readerly response invited by this interest. The method employed includes analysis of the structural development of the narrative frame and, to a lesser degree, of the entirety of the poem, as well as discussion of the historical context of the issues under consideration. These issues are raised in the narrative frame of the Canterbury Tales and are explored there and in the individual tales. Their treatment in the narrative frame is seminal and has provided the major focus of discussion in what follows. The narrative frame structure operates dually. In the diachrony of a first reading of the poem, the frame world provides a correlative to the actual world in which man experiences serial time. The realignments of interpretation necessary because of its changing claims regarding its own nature — and hence its changing demands upon its readers — are constant reminders of the relativity of human judgment and experience in space and time. "rn the synchrony inevitable in a second or subsequent Lng, which comprehends the entirety of the poem at each point in its linear progression, the reader's position outside the poem's time span of past, present and future, is analogous to the poet’s in his original conception of the poem and to God's in relation to the actual world, which the poem's world imitates. After a first reading the reader sees that initially Chaucer's truth claim has enabled him to trust the authenticity of the account and to regard it not as poetic invention but as a report of historical truth

Women as a Sign of the New? Appointments to South Africa's Constitutional Court since 1994

The aim of the article is to develop our understanding of the role bodies play in processes of institutional change. It does so through developing an approach to the politics of institutional newness that highlights the way in which raced and gendered bodies can become entangled with claims to, or judgements of, “being new.” These questions are explored through South Africa's Constitutional Court, newly established as part of South Africa's transition to democracy in the 1990s and at the center of the broader claims being made about the creation of a new democratic, nonracial, and non-sexist South Africa. Focusing on judicial appointments to the Constitutional Court since 1994, the article draws attention to the ways in which historically excluded bodies, women and black men, have been included into this new space within the judiciary. It is argued that exploring the ways in which institutions lay claim to “being new” through the bodies of historically excluded groups is important for our understanding of the dynamics of institutional change being constituted

Losing Sight of Land: Tales of Dyslexia and Dyspraxia in Psychophysical Actor Training

This article reports on the findings of a research project into the impact of psychophysical actor training methods on neurodiverse students. It illustrates how the application of a Social Theory of Learning Difference reveals the mechanisms whereby these training methods dysconsciously discriminate against those students who are dyslexic and/or dyspraxic learners. The research findings recognise the inherent value of psychophysical methods in the training of actors but suggests that there is a need to move away from a singular Psycho-Medical Theory of Learning Difference and to adopt a framework of learning difference based on the Social Model of (dis)ability, which requires institutions to adapt their provision to better meet a diverse range of needs. A revision of psychophysical approaches is proposed, which draws on a neuroscientific theory of experiential practice and a psychological framework of actor engagement. This new approach seeks to enhance the effective communication of embodied knowledge and skills in diverse actor training contexts and to allow students who are dyslexic and/or dyspraxic learners equal access to that learning