Doctoral Degrees (Centre for Africa Studies)
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Browsing Doctoral Degrees (Centre for Africa Studies) by Author "Cawood, S."
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Item Open Access Navigating between the sacred and the profane: Mohokare sacred sites, spiritual tourism and the challenges in the formal heritage sector(University of the Free State, 2022) Ntlhabo, Makashane Archibald; Cawood, S.English: After the democratic election of 1994 in South Africa, many Basotho who were dispossessed of their ancestral land west of the Mohokare River in the Free State Province of South Africa in the late 19th century returned to reclaim the land through spiritual journeys to sacred sites of Mantsopa, Mautse, Motouleng and Witsie's Cave. This was the beginning of the contestation between farm owners and pilgrims, even between pilgrims themselves, thus creating complexities that came to characterise Mohokare Valley sacred sites as sites of ownership contestation, criminality, and hybridity. This study attempted to find empirical solutions to the sacred and profane tensions created by the inheritance of a colonial approach to heritage and land administration in South Africa that displaced Afrocentric customs, values, and experiences. The study integrated Afrocentricity and Decoloniality with elements from Postcolonialism to develop the Afrikana-Decolonial Theoretical Framework. The theoretical framework was further enhanced by Afrikana-Participatory Action Research (APAR) as research methodology that encompassed Afrocentric Research Methods and Participatory Action Research chosen because of their liberating and emancipatory potential to bring about change in the lives of local communities. This approach borrows spirituality and communalism from Afrocentricity, places Africa as the locus of engagement, takes hybridity from Postcolonialism as the condition that characterises sacred sites and pilgrimage, and approaches the process of decolonisation of African gnoseology from a decolonial perspective. This is interpreted from a broader perspective, extending back to the Atlantic Slave Trade and making local communities partners in this project. Given the nature of APAR, the research culminated in an Integrated Management Plan (IMP) designed to institutionalise Mohokare Valley sacred sites as spiritual tourism sites with beneficiation intended for all participants. The IMP was first tested on the Witsie's Cave Provincial Heritage Site as the action case study. It was adapted for the rest of the Mohokare sacred sites as part of an ongoing process in line with APAR.Item Open Access People, nature and resources: Managing land-use conflicts in Ngamiland, Botswana(University of the Free State, 2022) Seleka, Malatsi L.; Segobye, A. K.; Cawood, S.English: Land-use conflicts between communities and protected-area management authorities are recurrent in African countries. These are attributed to opposing needs, interests and preferences regarding land utilisation. If such conflicts are left unchecked or ineffective strategies are adopted, they can lead to negative social, economic and ecological consequences. This study sought to investigate the source and causes of conflicts regarding land use in Ngamiland or North-West District in Botswana.The study focused on the Mababe community and sought to critically evaluate the effectiveness of strategies employed by the DWNP to manage land-use conflicts in Mababe in the Ngamiland District of Botswana. Methodologically, the study adopted a qualitative case study approach and a post-positivist lens. Data was collected through in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, participant observation and documentary analysis. Purposive sampling was used to select respondents for in-depth interviews and snowball sampling for focus group discussion participants. The majority of the respondents were aged between 45-64, with more males (64%) compared to females (36%). Findings of the study highlight that land-use conflicts between the Department of Wildlife and National Parks and the community of Mababe are caused by a range of factors, such as restricted access to and utilisation of land in protected areas by the community, tenure insecurity and non-participatory land management processes implemented by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks. The study also revealed that the Community-Based Natural Resources Management Programme (CBNRMP) adopted by the Department of Wildlife and National Parks has not always been effective, resulting in escalating land-use conflicts. The Community-Based Natural Resources Management Programme has not been able to address several issues at the core of community development needs. As a result, perceptions of its benefits are low in the community. The programme has unclear objectives and skewed power dynamics in managing land and other resources. The use of deceptive processes and neglect of community culture and values by Community-Based Natural Resources Management authorities from the Department of Wildlife and National Parks regarding land utilisation renders the programme ineffective in managing land-use conflicts. Based on the findings and consistent with the broader literature, the recommendation is that the Community-Based Natural Resources Management Programme be revised to incorporate issues of land tenure, harmonisation with other existing land and conservation frameworks, community values and culture, collegiate participation and peace education to improve its effectiveness in managing land-use conflicts. The study also proposes a participatory evaluation framework to improve the programme significantly.Item Open Access Posthuman security and landmines: Gendered meaning-making and materialities in the North-Eastern border area of Zimbabwe(University of the Free State, 2022) Tagarirofa, Jacob; Hudson, H.; Cawood, S.English: This empirical study of landmines, gendered meaning-making and matter in the border area of Mukumbura, Northern Zimbabwe, was inspired by the everyday experiences of men and women as a consequence of their living together with landmines; the prevalence of a conspicuous gap in the human security literature on gendered discourses and human-object relationalities in relation to human security; and the inadequacy of grand security theories on how to overcome this deficiency by means of a feminist posthuman security perspective as analytical tool to study the gendered implications of Explosive Remnants of War (ERW) in a post-war setting. These informed the objectives of the study which include, among others, to account for the theoretical shift from Human Security to a feminist posthuman security approach and to develop a theoretical framework supporting the latter; to critically analyse how landmines influence the construction of masculinities, femininities and victimhood in the discourse of peace and security; to critically analyse the role of landmines in gendering socio-economic (in)security in postconflict communities; and to assess how coping mechanisms become gendered through humanlandmine co-existence. The study used a qualitative feminist posthumanist methodology which was ethnographic and reflexive in orientation. Data gathering tools included key-participant interviews, life history narratives and overt participant observation. These data collection tools were strategically chosen as they befit the feminist qualitative methodology that recognises reflexivity in the context of fluid identities. As such, the participants were men and women whose lives were shaped and reshaped by their co-existence with landmines during and after the war of liberation in the border area. Drawing on three key theoretical pillars – the agency of all genders, the agency of objects, as well as taking the African context of intangible objects/spiritualities seriously – the study has shown that human (in)security ought to be understood as a complex, fluid and contextualised phenomenon. The focus of the study on everyday micro-level (in)security has challenged the theoretical prejudices of grand security theories such as Realism, Human Security, Critical Security Studies and Feminist Security Studies, as well as their negation of alternative analytical constructs that (re)frame (in)security at the community level. These included gender, context (Afrocentrism), and the agency of non-human things (tangible/landmines and intangible/spiritualities). Despite the fact that livelihoods, identities and victimhood have all been shown to be gendered in many contexts, the subsequent agency exercised by men and women in their constrained ecologies shows that physical and socio-economic insecurity (vulnerability) transcends gender binaries as both men and women are equally embroiled in the becoming of (in)security in these contexts. Thus, theoretically and empirically, the thesis has demonstrated that it is only through a feminist posthuman approach that we can comprehensively understand that (in)security is a function of the human-object intra-action, since both humans and nonhuman things are co-constituted in co-producing gendered (in)security spaces and practices in post-conflict communities where ERW are still present.Item Open Access Whiteness and destitution: Deconstructing whiteness and white privilege in postcolonial Zimbabwe(University of the Free State, 2022) Bvirindi, Tawanda Ray; Cawood, S.; Hughes, D. M.; Mushonga, M.𝑬𝒏𝒈𝒍𝒊𝒔𝒉 This research entailed an ethnographic and netnographic study of white destitution to establish how white destitution is understood and framed differently in the changing material and political contexts of Zimbabwe. This research documented and analysed the narratives of those facing destitution at the Braeside Salvation Army Centre, including those in the streets of the Northern suburbs of Harare. It also explored the manifestations of destitution among these people as well as the attitudes and beliefs of members of dedicated expatriate Facebook groups regarding the issue of white destitution. Furthermore, using these narratives, the research explored how destitution is understood in ways that (re)produce white nationalism, white supremacy, racism and, in some extreme cases, anti-blackness. This study also examined the mechanisms in which white solidarity, white racial iconoclasm and escapism manifest through philanthropic help given to white people facing destitution through engaging with these narratives. The analysis was guided by a postcolonial intersectional whiteness lens combining key concepts from postcolonial theory such as notions of difference and hybridity by Homi Bhabha, an array of concepts associated with whiteness studies, intersectionality theory borrowed from feminist theory cross-fertilised with the works of Frantz Fanon, and Michel Foucault’s notion of heterotopia. This lens offered a useful approach to studying the phenomenon of white destitution within a qualitative research methodology. The conceptually rich theoretical framework facilitated the in-depth understanding of the empirical data and allowed for the problematising of the notion of ‘whiteness’ beyond the limits of the current theoretical boundaries in whiteness studies. The study contributed to examining the making of national racial history through transnational and global linkages, practices, philosophies, and professional and personal associations. The major contribution of this research can be described as problematising white social identity through intersectionality, which revealed that ‘whiteness’ functions as a complicated continuum of privilege and dependency rather than a static and homogenous bloc. ___________________________________________________________________