Browsing by Author "Tjijoro, Alfeus Kaporise Uaundjomuinjo"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Examining the portrayal of the subaltern in three southern African novels
    (Namibia University of Science and Technology (NUST), 2020-01) Tjijoro, Alfeus Kaporise Uaundjomuinjo
    The research presents a decolonial critical analysis of three Southern African novels written between 1971 and 2002. The three authors namely, Bessie Head, Zakes Mda and Wally Serote provide an unflinching gaze at inferiorised characters in the heyday of apartheid and beyond. All three authors depict the different characters in the crucible of one of the most horrid systems of government known to humanity as it gave preferential treatment to certain section of society while allowing others to wallow in poverty, marginalisation and a general lack of hope for the future. The thesis employed an Afrocentric analysis of the novels emanating from decoloniality which encourages the browbeaten to question their alienation, disillusionment brought about by Western conceptualisation of reality, which in turn produced hierarchies based on race, language, culture and social standing and locality. These hierarchies created binaries which placed people from the global South at the lowest rank, hence the advocacy for an emancipatory framework that will permit the peripherised to defy the unjust world order through a commitment to sovereignty by embracing a decolonial epistemology which inter alia encourages them to abandon the West’s myth of disembodied knowledge and opt for truths in parenthesis which has unmatched potential to cater for their diverse and plurally based needs. The thesis proved that it is possible to shift the traditional centre to the periphery and empower the marginalised through epistemic decolonisation, decolonisation of human reality (the blindfolded way some view existence emanating from the erroneous conception of reality paraded by the North, since they have accepted the fallaciousness of their “God’s eye view” as the truth) and being able to shift the geography of reason, since western epistemology’s falsehoods can no longer be tolerated. Finally, the thesis proved that the relentless quest for alternative truths has the potential to liberate these characters, which are the fictional representatives of the “wretched of the earth” and allow all people of the global South to live in harmony and gentility after their liberation from the manacles of the North’s oppressive falsehoods and indoctrination has been accomplished.