Theatre as Inclusive Arts-based Research: A Key to Political Art in the Post-democracy?

2021 ◽  
pp. 65-86
Author(s):  
Petro Janse van Vuuren ◽  
Bjørn Rasmussen
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Political Art ◽  
Arts Based Research ◽  
Inclusive Practice ◽  
The Arts ◽  
Applied Theatre ◽  
Artistic Research

In this chapter we investigate different approaches to art as research (arts-based) in relation to applied theatre practice and research from a cultural democratic perspective. In particular, we discuss theatre as “inclusive” practice and research and how this relates to different traditions of arts-based research. Based on literature analyses and experiences from Centres of Applied Theatre Research in South Africa and Norway, we unveil some different and dominant traditions of arts-based research that are currently voiced and familiar in Norway and South Africa. We explore four notions of exclusiveness within European notions of “artistic research”: The alternative epistemology, Knowing for the sake of the arts only, The limited artistic context, and Only qualified artists do artistic research. Seen from a different cultural angle, the South African, we find that tendencies of exclusiveness are challenged by different notions of inclusiveness: The role of the arts and its embeddedness in social life, Inter disciplinarity, The extended political and historical context, Embracing intersectionality. As answers to potential accusations of applied theatre art running errands for the liberalist post-democracy, this chapter discusses inclusive arts-based research as a form of cultural praxis that may negotiate paradoxes of post-democracy

“Experience that Generates Experience”: The Influence of the Comedy in three South African Writings

2021 ◽  
pp. 131-142
Author(s):  
Marco Medugno
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Comparative Analysis ◽  
Creative Writing ◽  
South African ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Divine Comedy ◽  
The South ◽  
Literary Context ◽  
Divine Justice

This article aims to explore the intertextual relationships between Dante’s Divine Comedy and three pieces of creative writing: Chariklia Martalas’ “A Mad Flight into Inferno Once Again”, Thalén Rogers’ “The Loadstone” and Helena van Urk’s “The Storm”. By employing a comparative analysis, I argue that, even though decontextualised, the Comedy still represents a fruitful aesthetic source for representing particularly war-torn and violent contexts such as South Africa during apartheid and colonialism. I explore how the authors, through intertextual references and parodic rewriting, both re-configure the poem and challenge some of the Comedy’s moral assumptions and the idea of (divine) justice. I aim to show how Dantean Hell, far from being an otherworldly realm, is in fact transfigured and adapted to effectively represent (and make sense of) a historical context. In other words, through an intertextual analysis, this analysis tries to understand why and how the Comedy resonates with the South African socio-political (and literary) context.

PALESTINE, APARTHEID, AND THE RIGHTS DISCOURSE

2004 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 68-80 ◽  
Author(s):  
Raef Zreik
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
The South ◽  
Occupied Territories ◽  
Rights Discourse ◽  
Apartheid Regime ◽  
Main Components

Since the fall of the apartheid regime in South Africa, the oft-made analogy between the South African and Israeli cases has been extended to suggest the applicability to the Palestinian quest for justice through the rights discourse, arguably the most effective mobilizing tool in the anti-apartheid struggle. This essay explores the suitability of the rights approach by examining the South Africa––Israel analogy itself and the relevance of the anti-apartheid model to the three main components of the Palestinian situation: the refugees, the Palestinians of the occupied territories, and the Palestinian citizens of Israel. It concludes that while the rights discourse has many advantages, it cannot by its very nature——the focus on law at the expense of historical context——address the complexity of the Palestinian problem.

scholarly journals MARIKANA, A PAST NEVER TRULY ESCAPED: A CRITIQUE ON THE COMMODIFICATION OF THE LEGAL SYSTEM AND THE LAW AS AN INSTRUMENT OF JUSTICE IN POST-APARTHEID SOUTH AFRICA

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Vaughn Rajah
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Legal System ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
African Society ◽  
The Rule Of Law ◽  
South African Society ◽  
South Africans ◽  
Black South Africans ◽  
History Of

This article demonstrates that the Marikana tragedy was not a departure from the norm, but a continuation of state and corporate behaviour that has oppressed black South Africans for hundreds of years. This will be done through an analysis of the historically discriminatory socio-economic patterns of South African society, and how they subjugate the poor by limiting their access to legal and physical protection. These trends portray a history of commodification of the legal system. I discuss a notable documentary on the massacre, Miners Shot Down, and examine its depiction of the causes and effects of the events. The film provides no mention of the historical context of the killings, nor does it comment on many of the factors contributing to the massacre. Despite this, it succeeded in bringing the events to the attention of the broader public. I analyse the notions of justice, the rule of law and their application in South Africa as well as norms in the nation’s legal culture. Additionally, I examine the Farlam Commission, and how its procedures and conclusions hindered the course of justice in the context of our democracy. Ultimately, I demonstrate how the Marikana massacre was not a change in dynamic, but a reminder of a past we have never truly escaped.

Violences in the South African Student Movement

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Buhle Khanyile
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Lived Experiences ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Student Movement ◽  
Student Experiences ◽  
African Student ◽  
Qualitative Exploration ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Current Experience

This essay draws attention to the complexities of understanding violence as a phenomenon and experience that almost always involves multiple parties, and contestations about violence itself and its use. It does so as both a theoretical and qualitative exploration of the concept and its lived experiences. The essay begins by puzzling over the intelligibility of violence and its definitional issues. Drawing on disciplinary approaches to violence (e.g., biological, sociological and political) as well as violence as spectacle, symbolic, embodied, systemic or implicit, it shows how violence has been and is mobilized to bring attention to sociopolitical and economic challenges currently and historically. Next it examines student experiences of violence during the recent student movement events in South Africa, and locates this event within the historical context of South Africa’s past and current experience of violence. Ultimately, the essay attempts to offer a way of thinking about violence less as an aberration to our peaceful existence but rather argues that violence might shape our very existence. It concludes by offering “existential violence” as a concept to help think through the relationship between existence and violence in a more nuanced way.

The Bloody Horse

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Katie Tanigawa
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Political Discourse ◽  
Cape Town ◽  
The Arts ◽  
The Creation

The Bloody Horse: Writing and the Arts was a Johannesburg-based magazine that published six issues between 1980 and 1981. The idea for the periodical developed from a conversation among Patrick Cullinan (1933–2011), Lionel Abrahams (1928–2004) and Chris Hope (1944–) during the 1974 Poetry Conference in Cape Town. Although the initial conversation led to the creation of Bateleur Press, the trio, alongside Lawrence Herber, began work on The Bloody Horse in 1979 (Cullinan 86). The founders created the magazine to support the increase in ‘writers willing to stick their necks out and say what has to be said’ (Cullinan 86) amid the growing climate of censorship in South Africa. Many of the contributions were politically charged, reflecting Cullinan’s vision that the magazine would reflect ‘the ways in which the writers of this country are reacting to their society’ (Essa 271). The title, The Bloody Horse, is an allusion to South African poet Roy Campbell’s poem ‘On Some South African Novelists’ and highlights the founders’ belief that literature could play a role in South African political discourse. The first issue of The Bloody Horse was published in 1980, and Ampie Coetzee (1939–) served as the magazine’s editor for the duration of its run.

scholarly journals Vox Populi? Vox Humbug! – Rising Tension between the South African Executive and Judiciary Considered in Historical Context – Part One

2017 ◽  
Vol 15 (5) ◽  
pp. 15
Author(s):  
David Hulme ◽  
Stephen Peté
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Seventeenth Century ◽  
South African ◽  
Historical Context ◽  
Constitutional Court ◽  
South African Government ◽  
The South ◽  
African Government ◽  
James I ◽  
Starting Point

This article takes as its starting point a controversy which has arisen around a proposed assessment by the South African government of the decisions of the Constitutional Court, giving rise to concerns that this will constitute undue interference with the independence of the judiciary. Part One of this article traces and analyses the developing controversy. It then compares the current clash between the South African Executive and Judiciary to a similar clash which took place in seventeenth century England, between King James I and Chief Justice Edward Coke. Such clashes appear to be fairly common, particularly in young democracies in which democratic institutions are yet to be properly consolidated. Although not immediately apparent, the similarities between the situation which existed in seventeenth England at the time of James I and that in present-day South Africa are instructive. In tracing the development of these two clashes between the executive and judiciary, Part One of this article lays the foundation for a more in-depth comparison in Part Two.

In the Blood: The Consequences of Naturalising Microsegregation in Workplace Social Networks

2020 ◽  
Vol 45 (5) ◽  
pp. 674-708
Author(s):  
Hugo Canham ◽  
Christoph Maier
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Networks ◽  
Cultural Differences ◽  
South African ◽  
Intergroup Relations ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Power Relations ◽  
Group Discussion ◽  
Capitalist Class ◽  
Marginalised Groups

This study explored workplace social networks in order to understand practices of inclusion and exclusion in the context of an increasingly diverse workplace in post-apartheid South Africa. We found that the ways in which space is occupied shows marked continuities with the era of formalised segregation during the preceding periods of colonialism and apartheid. We contend that intergroup relations theory and homophily assist in providing a partial understanding of the pervasive microsegregation observed within a South African organisation. We offer that a historied account of the continuing race-based accounts of microsegregation is more productive for understanding this phenomenon in a country with a past that formalised segregation across all areas of social life. We explore the meanings that people assign to segregation patterns within the workplace based on data emerging out of 54 interviews, nine naturalistic observations and a group discussion conducted within the headquarters of a major bank in Johannesburg. Discourses of linguistic and cultural differences were used to rationalise segregation and naturalise racialised differences. The material effects of segregation were noted to be particularly onerous for Black bankers. As a capitalist class, we however found that Black bankers resist, adapt, subvert and reinscribe power relations in ways that simultaneously serve their interests while also potentially limiting their opportunities. We point to the agentic aspects of social networks for marginalised groups and contend that representation is not sufficient to ensure inclusion.

scholarly journals Towards a fusion of horizons: Thematic contours for an urban public theological praxis-agenda in South Africa

2014 ◽  
Vol 70 (3) ◽  
Author(s):  
Stephan De Beer ◽  
Ignatius Swart
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Social Life ◽  
Right To The City ◽  
Public Theology ◽  
Urban Migration ◽  
Fusion Of Horizons ◽  
The Commons ◽  
African Context ◽  
The City

This article proposes a ‘fusion of horizons’ in constructing urban public theologies in South Africa. This is done through the introduction of five interrelated themes that have emerged from the on-going knowledge and idea production by a distinguishable counterpoint in contemporary scholarly, intellectual and activist engagement with the urban, in the authors’ own South African context but also wider internationally. In advancing a praxis-agenda for urban public theology, the authors subsequently identify the following, albeit not exhaustive, themes: southern urbanisms and the factor of unprecedented urban migration; ‘right to the city’ and urbanisation from below; a reclaiming of the commons; the making of ‘good cities’; and actors of faith in relation to urban social life.

scholarly journals The Constitutional Court’s contribution to sustainable development in South Africa

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 (2) ◽  
pp. 80
Author(s):  
Irma J Kroeze
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
South African ◽  
Social Life ◽  
The Other ◽  
Political Freedom ◽  
Personal Freedom ◽  
Government Power ◽  
Self Rule ◽  
South African Constitution ◽  
The Right

 Freedom is central to most constitutions.  In the constitutional context, freedom usually means both personal freedom and political freedom.  Personal freedom can be described as the right to decide for oneself the terms of one's life, both individually and communally.  It is what Frank Michelman calls self-rule: it "demands the people's determination for themselves of the norms that are to govern their social life".3  Political freedom, on the other hand, implies the protection against arbitrary government power.  This is what Michelman calls law-rule.  In most constitutional dispensations both these types of freedom are implicated and the South African constitution is no exception.4  But, it is ironic that in most constitutional democracies these two types of freedom are also frequently in conflict with one another.  In fact, it is not far-fetched to suggest that they are conceptually contradictory.

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