Relationship Management in All-Boys’ Fee-paying Public Schools in the Eastern Cape, South Africa : Experiences and Perspectives of LGBTQ Alumni
- Authors: Mahlangu, Nhlakanipho
- Date: 2024-04
- Subjects: Gay men , Teenage boys , Public schools -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10948/62237 , vital:72364
- Description: This study explores the perspectives and experiences of LGBTQ alumni of all-boys’ schools in the Eastern Cape. The context of increased competition between schools in the education sector and the importance of inclusion within the sector necessitated a study to investigate the extent to which relationship management is conducted with an orientation towards LGBTQ inclusion in all-boys’ schools in the Eastern Cape. Student protests in South Africa over the past 10 years have expanded concerns about student belonging beyond the widely studied lenses of race and class. A growing body of literature and wider discourse emphasises student belonging as a challenge in the South African education sector. Marginalised students continue to experience educational spaces negatively. LGBTQ student experiences in the South Africa are characterised by violence and ostracisation, thus warranting further investigation and inquiry. The study locates itself in the intersections between gender and sexual diversity and economic citizenship in the broader discourse of school inclusivity. A qualitative research approach was employed, making use of semi-structured, in-depth individual interviews. The sample was derived from alumni of all-boys’ schools in the Eastern Cape through snowball sampling. Ten LGBTQ-identifying alumni of boys’ schools in the Eastern Cape were interviewed. The findings reveal the need to question the extent to which LGBTQ alumni can enjoy the fullness of the value proposition of all-boys’ schools, and what can be done to ensure LGBTQ belonging. The findings of this study concur with existing literature about LGBTQ experiences. Participants defined their school experiences as exclusionary and characterised by fear of failing to assert themselves in a hypermasculine school environment. LGBTQ alumni of all-boys’ schools in the Eastern Cape view relationship management as under-utilised as a tool to facilitate LGBTQ belonging. Instead, relationship management is used to affirm those who fit the mould of the quintessential ‘old boy’ network, by defining the masculine behaviours that learners in all-boys’ schools are compelled to aspire towards. v ABSTRACT The findings illustrate that the culture of silence around non-confirming sexuality is sustained in the post-schooling relationship management life-cycle and results in the absence of the LGBTQ customer voice in the drafting of school strategy and policy. LGBTQ alumni who speak out about controversial issues often face admonition from their former teachers and peers. LGBTQ alumni criticise the relationship management of their former schools for the over-emphasis on fundraising and the complete absence of discussions on diversity. LGBTQ alumni are therefore marginalised in the process of value co-creation, as LGBTQ alumni feel they will never be viewed as legitimate collaborators by their former schools. The suggested recommendations emerging from this study include the need to codify school policies that speak specifically to LGBTQ marginalisation. Furthermore, schools must endeavour to make specific enquiries into LGBTQ student experiences and include LGBTQ concerns in wider school discourse. , Thesis (Ma) -- Faculty of Business and Economic Sciences, 2024
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2024-04
I want him to hold me, but I’m afraid to ask: the objective correlative and the souvenir as representational narrative devices of queer male intimacy
- Authors: Ferreira, Evaan Jason
- Date: 2022-04
- Subjects: Sexual minorities in art , Sexual minority culture , Intimacy (Psychology) , Sexual minorities in motion pictures , Intimacy (Psychology) in motion pictures , Homosexuality and motion pictures , Motion pictures Study and teaching , New media art , Nostalgia , Souvenirs (Keepsakes) , Gay men , Queer male intimacy , Objective correlative
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232556 , vital:50002
- Description: This thesis centres itself around an investigation into the representations of the relationship between intimacies and ideas of romance, love, desire, and vulnerability in male relationships. The premise for this body of work was sparked by my own observations on the conflation of sex and intimacy in representations of queer male love—particularly (but not exclusively) in mainstream film and media. Whilst intimacy and sex are not unrelated, the over-emphasis on the physical when trying to represent the connection between two men led me to consider other ways in which a relationship or special connection could be gestured towards — through other kinds of signifiers that last longer than physical contact and point to the importance of a particular connection. In the introduction, I consider my own experiences as a closeted queer teen when contemplating representations of queer relationships in mainstream media. I explore several studies by gender and film theorists who consider reasons and modes in which the representations of queer intimacies on-screen are distorted to favour a presumed heterosexual audience. In the first chapter, I discuss two potential means by which to relay a more complex emotional state via the use of narrative signifiers. I examine T.S. Eliot's (1919) theory on the objective correlative in narratives as a means to explore the emotional state of a character through metaphors which open up the reading rather than illustrating it through dialogue or direct speech. I then explore Susan Stewart's (1992) ideas on souvenirs of personal experience. In Chapter Two, I conduct a close reading of three mainstream films, which employ such signifiers in the attempt to share more complex representations of queer male intimacies through well-developed storylines and characters. The films Brokeback Mountain (2006), Moonlight (2016), and Call Me by Your Name (2017) have been selected based on their use of the objective correlative and souvenirs as plot devices (rather than exclusively physical intimacy) to demonstrate the emotional resonance between characters. The third and final chapter explores my own use of objective correlatives and souvenirs as symbolic, narrative devices in my practical body of work: an online garden of remembrance. My practical work focuses largely on the process of creation of these intimacy objects (the objective correlative or the souvenir) through an investigation into my own poetry, which details my experiences of intimacies with other men, specifically where vulnerability and secrecy played a large role. , Thesis (MFA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Fine Arts, 2022
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2022-04