Cultural Identities and Narratives That “Race”

2020 ◽  
pp. 163-184
Author(s):  
Shose Kessi
Keyword(s):  
Black Students ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Social Representations ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Frames Of Reference ◽  
Historically White ◽  
The Common ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University ◽  
Education Discourse

This chapter explores how hegemonic representations of racialization are reproduced and/or resisted through stories told by a group of Black students located in a historically White university in South Africa, the University of Cape Town (UCT). The stories were collected through a photovoice project with 36 students from five different faculties at UCT over a period of three years, from 2013 to 2015.The photographs and written stories produced by the participants challenged and resisted the common social representations of Black underachievement and backwardness that prevail in higher education discourse. The students’ narratives, in the context of a transforming institution, shifted the terms of engagement in conversations about race and opened up spaces for meaningful dialogue and action toward social change. Their narratives not only constructed alternative frames of reference that provided positive resources for identity construction, but also conscientized and empowered them to influence the direction of the academic project.

scholarly journals Representation and Identity Construction of Ethnic Minorities from Discourses in Government Media

2018 ◽  
Vol 21 ◽  
pp. 91-99
Author(s):  
Guru Prasad Poudel
Keyword(s):  
Ethnic Minority ◽  
Identity Construction ◽  
Ethnic Minorities ◽  
Social Groups ◽  
Cultural Identities ◽  
Minority Languages ◽  
Ethnic Communities ◽  
Political Ideologies ◽  
Public Media ◽  
The Common

Discourse is the common sense language that represents the society, culture, social groups, group behaviours, socio-cultural identities and political ideologies. It signifies communication as a whole. Media gives space for people’s voices in its programs and publications. In the same way, media is a common representative of the voices of all the ethnic communities regardless of majority or minority in its true principle. However, the languages and voices of all ethnic communities have not been represented in the discourse of government media in Nepal. In such a situation, this research aimed to; examine the representation of ethnic-minority languages in the discourses of government media of Nepal; critically assess the socio-cultural and political cognitions of the ethnic-minorities throughout the discourses in those media, and; identify the various identities constructed by the speakers of ethnic-minority languages through the discourses in government media. The finding of the study shows that our of 125 languages spoken in Nepal only 22 ethnic languages are represented in the discourse of Nepalese government media and the ethnic minority felt themselves being included within the national discourse when they found their discourses being represented in public media.

Can-Do descriptors – Realigning English Language Curriculum at Higher Education Institution to CEFR

2020 ◽  
Vol 4 (2) ◽  
pp. 84
Author(s):  
Erda Wati Bakar
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
Foreign Language ◽  
Language Proficiency ◽  
English Language ◽  
Education Institution ◽  
Ministry Of Education ◽  
Language Curriculum ◽  
English Curriculum ◽  
The Common ◽  
The University

The Common European Framework of Reference for Language (CEFR) has become the standard used to describe and evaluate students’ command of a second or foreign language. It is an internationally acknowledged standard language proficiency framework which many countries have adopted such as China, Thailand, Japan and Taiwan. Malaysia Ministry of Education is aware and realise the need for the current English language curriculum to be validated as to reach the international standard as prescribed by the CEFR. The implementation of CEFR has begun at primary and secondary level since 2017 and now higher education institutions are urged to align their English Language Curriculum to CEFR as part of preparation in receiving students who have been taught using CEFR-aligned curriculum at schools by year 2022. This critical reflection article elucidates the meticulous processes that we have embarked on in re-aligning our English Language Curriculum to the standard and requirements of CEFR. The paper concludes with a remark that the alignment of the English curriculum at the university needs full support from the management in ensuring that all the stakeholders are fully prepared, informed and familiar with the framework.

Brothers in Arms: The Role of Broederbond Rectors in the Exercise of Hegemony at the University of Fort Hare, 1960–1981

Politeia ◽  
2018 ◽  
Vol 37 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Black Students ◽  
The State ◽  
University Administration ◽  
Independent States ◽  
University Of Fort Hare ◽  
The University

As members of the secret Afrikaner organisation, the Broederbond, two of the apartheid-era rectors at the University of Fort Hare were responsible for leading an institution that was supposed to spearhead the modernisation of ethnically defined homelands and their transition to independent states, whilst disseminating apartheid values among the black students. Based on unsorted and unarchived documents located in the personal files of the apartheid-era rectors, which included secret correspondence and memoranda of clandestine meetings, this paper illustrates the attempted exercise of hegemony by the apartheid state through its linked network with the university administration during the period 1960 to 1990. This is achieved by demonstrating the interaction between the state, Broederbond rectors and the black students at Fort Hare, who were subjected to persuasion and coercion as dictated by the state’s apartheid vision of a racially defined and separated society.

Double Thoughts

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrew Dean
Keyword(s):  
Literary Criticism ◽  
Jacques Derrida ◽  
Postcolonial Theory ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Literary Texts ◽  
Paul De Man ◽  
Literature And Philosophy ◽  
De Man ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

Coetzee’s interest in destabilizing the boundaries of literature and philosophy is most evident in later fictions such as Elizabeth Costello. But as Andrew Dean argues in this chapter, this interest in moving across boundaries in fact originates much earlier, in Coetzee’s quarrel with the institutions and procedures of literary criticism. Coetzee used the occasion of his inaugural professorial lecture at the University of Cape Town (Truth and Autobiography) to criticize the assumption that literary criticism can reveal truths about literature to which literary texts are themselves blind. Influenced in part by such figures as Jacques Derrida and Paul de Man, Coetzee posed a series of challenging questions about the desires at stake in the enterprise of literary criticism. Developing these thoughts, Dean explores the way in which Coetzee’s earlier fiction, including such texts as Foe (1986), is energized by its quarrelsome relationship with literary criticism and theory, especially postcolonial theory.

Decolonizing Science, Digitizing the Occult: Theory from the Virtual South

2021 ◽  
Vol 64 (1) ◽  
pp. 86-104
Author(s):  
Sasha Newell
Keyword(s):  
Social Media ◽  
Intimate Relationships ◽  
Digital Technology ◽  
World Wide ◽  
Western Science ◽  
The World ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University ◽  
Second World ◽  
Forms Of Knowledge

AbstractIn this article Newell uses two case studies to explore one of the central threads of Mbembe’s Abiola lecture, the idea that there is a relationship between the plasticity of digital technology and African cosmologies of the deuxième monde. One case concerns the viral YouTube video #sciencemustfall, in which students at the University of Cape Town criticize “Western” science and demand that African forms of knowledge such as witchcraft be incorporated into the meaning of science. The second case considers fieldwork among the brouteurs of Côte d’Ivoire, internet scammers who build intimate relationships on false premises using social media. They acquire shocking amounts of wealth in this way which they display on their own social media accounts. However, they are said to use occult means to seduce and persuade their virtual lovers, trapping their prey in the sticky allure of the world wide web. Newell uses both examples to highlight the overlaps between the transformational efficacies embedded in both occult ontologies and digital worldings, calling for the possibility of using African cosmologies of the second world to produce a ‘theory from the south’ of virtual sociality.

Recontextualising the teaching of commercial transactions law for an African university

Acta Juridica ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 2021 ◽  
pp. 275-296
Author(s):  
A Hutchison
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Life Experiences ◽  
First Century ◽  
Student Life ◽  
South African Council ◽  
Protest Movements ◽  
African Higher Education ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University ◽  
South African Higher Education

This article reflects on the changing political environment in South African higher education and offers one potential view of the future of contract law teaching in the twenty-first century. Specifically, the author discusses changes made to the final-level LLB course, Commercial Transactions Law, at the University of Cape Town. These changes were inspired by the #MustFall protest movements and also incorporated the requirements of the South African Council on Higher Education’s 2018 report on the LLB degree. In essence, this involved a recontextualisation of the component topics to speak to a broader range of student life experiences, as well as an attempt to incorporate more materials focused on social justice or which are characteristically ‘African’.

The Many Racial Effigies of Sara Baartman

2017 ◽  
Vol 58 (3) ◽  
pp. 275-299 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kellen Hoxworth
Keyword(s):  
South African ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
Racial Oppression ◽  
Black Paint ◽  
African Students ◽  
The Many ◽  
University Of Cape Town ◽  
The University

Six African students enact a somber, silent dance. They stage a series of striking images at the base of South African artist Willie Bester's sculptureSara Baartman, in the Chancellor Oppenheimer Library at the University of Cape Town (UCT). Their faces and bodies smeared with black paint, the students articulate their protest ofSara Baartmanin explicitly racial terms, aligning their critiques of economic, colonial, and racial oppression under the sign of blackness.

scholarly journals Thomas Aquinas’ influences inInfanteD. Pedro’ “Virtuosa Benfeitoria”: Scholastic tradition in History and History of Education

2016 ◽  
Vol 39 (1) ◽  
pp. 9
Author(s):  
Terezinha Oliveira
Keyword(s):  
Common Good ◽  
Thomas Aquinas ◽  
Human Relationships ◽  
The Common Good ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Common ◽  
Social Project ◽  
Methodological Principles ◽  
The One ◽  
The University

The considerations on the book “VirtuosaBenfeitoria” aim atevaluating the relevance of a social project to guide the actions of the ruler and theindividuals, with a view to practical actions that converge to the common good. The infant D. Pedro, also known as the Duke of Coimbra, wrote the work. The central focus of the book is to address the sense of improvement and how the prince should practice and bestow it and how the subjects would receive and practice it. The arguments of D. Pedro to deal with the good and the society are strongly influenced by classical authorities and authors of scholasticism, especially Thomas Aquinas. In this sense, on the one hand our study seeks to show that such knowledge was essential for him to understand the plots that build human relationships, whose premises, to him, should be the ones leading society towards the common good;on the other hand, the goal is to analyze the work we regard as essential theoretical and methodological principles of history that allow us to recover, through memory, historical events that potentially guide us through paths that show the relevance of the Master of the University, as a vector in the organization of a given society. 

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