Ethics of Freedom, Pragmatics of Constraint: Theatre in a Post-Mandela South Africa

dc.contributor.advisorFaubion, James Den_US
dc.creatorVlachos, Nathanael Martinen_US
dc.date.accessioned2017-08-02T14:37:14Zen_US
dc.date.available2017-08-02T14:37:14Zen_US
dc.date.created2017-05en_US
dc.date.issued2017-04-21en_US
dc.date.submittedMay 2017en_US
dc.date.updated2017-08-02T14:37:14Zen_US
dc.description.abstractThis dissertation, an ethnography of South African theatre artists, traces the moral and ethical contours of a “post-Mandela” South Africa. While “post-apartheid” South Africa is marked by ethical nation-building projects like racial reconciliation and the push for a nonracial “rainbow nation,” post-Mandela South Africa is characterized by a growing skepticism of these projects and a sense that many South Africans have yet to enjoy the freedoms promised by Mandela and others. In dialogue with the anthropology of ethics and Foucauldian ethical frameworks in particular, I examine the implications of a post-Mandela South Africa with regard to processes of shaping and forming self and community. What moral and ethical resources are available for imagining and enacting a good life when moral nation-building projects collapse? What new moral exemplars and pedagogues emerge from a context where former icons of struggle are now seen as collaborators with a colonial past and an insidious neoliberal present? How has this moment mutated those things most integral to understandings of self, like race, class, kinship, and politics? What forms do freedom and constraint currently take in this context? These questions and others are answered through an ethnographic study of South African theatre, drawing on fieldwork from Johannesburg, Soweto, and Grahamstown. Rather than undertaking a study of audience reception or conducting close readings of plays, I focus on the artists themselves, contextualizing their aesthetic sensibilities, the ethical journey of becoming and being an artist, and the inescapable historical entanglements with which they grapple. As I explore the freedoms and constraints at the heart of South African ethical life, I engage their implications for classic and contemporary conversations in anthropology, including kinship, political economy, epistemology, pedagogy, and whiteness. At the same time, the dissertation contributes new conversations to the landscape of South African anthropology, charting emergent ethical subjectivities, diverse understandings of freedom, and the shifting significance of race in South Africa and beyond.en_US
dc.format.mimetypeapplication/pdfen_US
dc.identifier.citationVlachos, Nathanael Martin. "Ethics of Freedom, Pragmatics of Constraint: Theatre in a Post-Mandela South Africa." (2017) Diss., Rice University. <a href="https://hdl.handle.net/1911/96147">https://hdl.handle.net/1911/96147</a>.en_US
dc.identifier.urihttps://hdl.handle.net/1911/96147en_US
dc.language.isoengen_US
dc.rightsCopyright is held by the author, unless otherwise indicated. Permission to reuse, publish, or reproduce the work beyond the bounds of fair use or other exemptions to copyright law must be obtained from the copyright holder.en_US
dc.subjectSouth Africaen_US
dc.subjecttheatreen_US
dc.subjectethicsen_US
dc.subjectanthropologyen_US
dc.titleEthics of Freedom, Pragmatics of Constraint: Theatre in a Post-Mandela South Africaen_US
dc.typeThesisen_US
dc.type.materialTexten_US
thesis.degree.departmentAnthropologyen_US
thesis.degree.disciplineSocial Sciencesen_US
thesis.degree.grantorRice Universityen_US
thesis.degree.levelDoctoralen_US
thesis.degree.majorSocial/cultural Anthropologyen_US
thesis.degree.nameDoctor of Philosophyen_US
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