Browsing by Author "Spemba, Spemba Elias"

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    Representation of albinism and persons with albinism in narratives from East and Southern Africa
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2022-03) Spemba, Spemba Elias; Slabbert, Mathilda; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of English.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: This study examines representations of albinism and characters or subjects with albinism in a selection of literary and cultural texts set in, and from, East and Southern Africa. The analysis brings together contemporary fictional, auto/biographical, and short documentary film representations produced between 2009 and 2020, a period marked by an increased production of texts dealing with albinism in the African context. The study considers how characters or actual people with albinism (PWA) and historical, socio-cultural, and medical perceptions or discourses of albinism are narrated, portrayed, and framed to focus on the manner in which issues of agency emerge in the representations. Given the variety of issues that intersect with albinism in the texts studied, my study is a multi-disciplinary and cross-cultural reading of the representations of albinism and individuals with albinism. My research converses with theories and germane criticism from a scope of disciplines and fields such as disability studies, gender studies, (African) philosophy, narrative theory, and life narrative studies. My research establishes that literary and cultural texts are a site where public and private agency of subjects and characters with albinism is (re)configured and where various perceptions describing albinism and persons with albinism are (de)constructed and (re)conceptualized.