Papers by Nicola Anne Ashmore
This thesis demonstrates how social subjects are construed through space. Initially, I give a bac... more This thesis demonstrates how social subjects are construed through space. Initially, I give a background of the ideological and historical divisions of space in apartheid and colonial South Africa. Then I show how theory conceptualises space in numerous discursive fields, and finally demonstrate how literature can provide impetus for these investigations by examining the use of space. The literary component is the dystopian Zoo City (2010) by Lauren Beukes and its inflections of post-apartheid South Africa are exhibited through the mapped spaces of Johannesburg. I introduce the topic of spatial theory in connection with Zoo City, and outline my methodology for the study. In chapter one, I explain contemporary and historical inequality in South Africa, where I also establish the connection between space and inequality. In chapter two, I outline several theoretical concepts including the production of space and the right to the city theorised by Henri Lefebvre; the grid theorised by Zygmunt Bauman; heterotopia and the garden theorised by Michel Foucault; and the genre dystopia and its connections to science and speculative fiction. In chapter three, I apply the theoretical concepts explained in chapter two as headings that organise my analysis of Zoo City. I highlight the polarity between entitled citizens and zoos - criminals who have been supernaturally paired with an animal. Thereafter, I conclude that post-apartheid South Africa bears dystopian elements and that space is a regulator and enforcer of inequality. I further add speculative comments relating space to the current context of a global pandemic.
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Thesis Chapters by Nicola Anne Ashmore
In the Heart of the Country (1977) and Disgrace (1999) by J.M. Coetzee explore power struggles si... more In the Heart of the Country (1977) and Disgrace (1999) by J.M. Coetzee explore power struggles situated in remote South African landscapes. The characters either adhere to or subvert the plaasroman tradition, which sees white Afrikaans males as the head of the household and master of the land. Strong female protagonists disrupt the plaasroman (and other hegemonic) narratives in patriarchal apartheid and post-apartheid South Africa. Rape is inflicted upon white and coloured women (with varying consequences) as a violent act of control. I explore the representations of the unyielding, and at times unforgiving landscape and its relationship to gender violence. The landscape is more than the physical setting for the texts, as it functions as a foil to the characters, plot and theme. I read representations of the landscape in conjunction and in friction with the female body. This reading itself challenges male domination of the land, as I see the earth as female under the duress of South Africa’s corruptive and imbalanced power structures.
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Papers by Nicola Anne Ashmore
Thesis Chapters by Nicola Anne Ashmore