Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
closed access
In the past 34 years since independence, Namibia has undergone a process of reconciling the many different people within its borders due to its history of colonialism, genocide and apartheid....Show moreIn the past 34 years since independence, Namibia has undergone a process of reconciling the many different people within its borders due to its history of colonialism, genocide and apartheid. Redistributing land from white owners to previously disadvantaged groups is part of this process. This research is a case study of Krumhuk farm, a commercial farm which is no longer owned by a single family but by a non-profit Section-21 company. Through multimodal methods, I have researched the inhabitants’ sense of belonging to the land and community. As a result, I argue that taking land ownership as the benchmark for reconciliation does not suffice because (1) it remains within the colonial legacy that dictates that land can be owned and (2) it does not always address what people underlyingly long for; a place to belong. Because, as seen at Krumhuk which restructured their legal ownership, people’s sense of belonging to the community and the land can be obstructed by (a) alienation through the underlying anthroposophical philosophy, (b) a disbalance in interdependencies and (c) remaining insecurity concerning future displacement. The research’s relevance is bestowed by its outcome on these factors which can hinder reconciliation.Show less
This thesis establishes the Japanese otome visual novel genre of media as a new, digital type of immersive multimodal reading for women. Otome revives the bygone late 20th-century academic debate...Show moreThis thesis establishes the Japanese otome visual novel genre of media as a new, digital type of immersive multimodal reading for women. Otome revives the bygone late 20th-century academic debate on interactive fiction, as the subgenre challenges the categories of media as we understand them: the otome visual novel format combines romantically-themed prose with visual, audial, and interactive elements. Otome visual novels evoke a feeling of influence over the plot progression through interactivity, yet present walls of text as their method of story-building and therefore require a significant amount of reading, which could preclude their consideration as either literature or games per se. Because of this generic ambiguity, visual novels have long been overlooked in academia. This thesis presents a comprehensive analysis of otome visual novels as part of Japanese (women’s) reading habits using Espen Aarseth’s concept of ‘ergodic literature’, supported by theory from Reading Studies, Literature Studies, and Game Studies. In doing so, this thesis sheds light on the subgenre’s immense popularity in its country of origin and illuminates its unique position to bridge the academic fields of Literature Studies and Game Studies in the digital age.Show less
Master thesis | Cultural Anthropology and Development Sociology (MSc)
open access
In a world where globalization is reshaping the way we understand mobility, communication, and self-identification, the study of migrants learning and using the language of their host community is...Show moreIn a world where globalization is reshaping the way we understand mobility, communication, and self-identification, the study of migrants learning and using the language of their host community is of increasing academic interest. The concept ‘new speaker’ is being used in European minority language communities to study the linguistic niches that these migrants are creating through the use of these languages they learn, questioning traditional concepts such as “native speaker” and “non-native speaker”. In this thesis I explore the challenges that New Speakers of Papiamentu experience learning this creole language on the island of Bonaire (Caribbean Netherlands), and the strategies they develop to make pragmatic use of this cultural capital they acquire. This thesis proposes a methodology that draws from Linguistic Ethnography and Visual Anthropology that results in a multimodal thesis which comprises an ethnographic documentary and this article. The documentary portrays how several individuals from different nationalities who are learning Papiamentu navigate Bonaire’s multilingual environment using this language. The results of this research suggest that new Papiamentu speakers are actors of social change in Bonaire, as they are creating and expanding a ‘contact zone’ between Papiamentu first language speakers and new Papiamentu speakers, stimulating new forms of identification, belonging and intercultural communication in the context of a creole language communityShow less
