Nyasha Mboti
Biographic Data
| ID | 813817 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Nyasha Mboti |
| GIVEN NAMES | Nyasha |
| FAMILY NAME | Mboti |
| SIGNATURE | MBOTI N |
| AFFILIATIONS | Russian State Agrarian Correspondence University |
| ORCID | 0000-0003-3925-9960 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 13 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 19 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 13 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2010 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2017 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Media racism: Beyond modernity and postmodernity
Is racism changing form or character as modernity fades away and a footloose postmodernity takes its place? We consider a wide range of definitions and understandings of racism, modernity and postmodernity, and, while changes in appearance, methods, and mechanisms as well as prevention of racist communication in the media seem undeniable, the question is raised whether the distinctions between ‘modernity’ and ‘postmodernity’ and the applications …
The Zimbabwean Film Industry
This article explores the state of affairs in Zimbabwe’s film industry. It addresses the question: does a Zimbabwean film industry exist? The complex answer depends on at least two parameters. The first is one’s chosen definition of a film industry. The second is the extent of one’s knowledge of realities on the ground. The article argues that the Zimbabwean film industry, like most in Africa, is necessarily a work in progress. That is, it is con…
Soetwyn: Visuality, Cultural Tourism, Desire Paths and the ≠Khomani
Witdraai is home to a few hundred ≠Khomani who resettled there after the successful land claim of 1999. In all, the first phase of their claim granted them ownership of six farms totaling about 40,000 hectares of land. Before this restitution, the Bushmen had been an “Other-diaspora” dispersed by the forces of apartheid and colonialism. Being a small settlement in the vast Kalahari in Northern Cape Province, close to the Botswana border, Witdraai…
New political economies of film distribution for South Africa's townships? A critical survey of the ReaGilè concept
ReaGilès are pre-fabricated, self-contained, education and entertainment complexes situated on 400m2 sites at local schools or public open spaces consisting of a 60-seat cinema, 30- seat computer and Internet facility, community care and policing centre. These complexes are intended to service historically underserviced peri-urban black dormitory townships of South Africa and to help create jobs, especially amongst the youth, women and the disabl…
Heteroglossia in G.H. Musengezi's The Honourable MP (1984)
This article illustrates how heteroglossia functions in G.H. Musengezi's (1984) satirical play, The Honourable MP. Heteroglossia describes the coexistence, as well as the clashing, of distinct voices within a text. It can be shown that while the playwright has a distinct (and seemingly dominant) voice operating in the play – expressed mainly via the sets of characters he creates and the roles he creates for them, as well as through the play's gen…
Questions of Adaptation: Bessie Head's A Question of Power and Ingrid Sinclair's Riches
Riches (2001) is a short film directed by Zimbabwean filmmaker Ingrid Sinclair. The film is about a fiercely independent coloured woman, Molly McBride. She is a single-mother who is exiled from South Africa on an exit permit, with her young son Peter, at the height of apartheid in the mid-1980s. Hoping to find peace and a sense of ‘home’ in neighbouring Zimbabwe, Molly settles and finds a job as a primary school teacher in the country side. Befor…
Violence in Postcolonial African Film
Different forms of violence surround Africans. These forms of violence go by different names, but all are built into and sustained by the fabric of everyday life. Contemporary African film delves into the subject of violence in a variety of ways. Some films show violence in its Fanonian sense, as liberatory and creative; others treat violence as a perpetually destructive force; and others still are ambivalent about the meaning of violence. Ultima…
To exhibit or be exhibited: The visual art of Vetkat Regopstaan Boesman Kruiper
This article examines the visual art of the late San â Bushmanâ artist Vetkat Regopstaan Kruiper. The significance of Kruiperâ s artistic work is explored in order to call into question two problematic assumptions: first, that visual art amongst the San ended with rock art, turning the â Bushmanâ artist into a vanished specimen, and, second, that what is found amongst the San today is not, strictly speaking, art. Anchoring these assumptions is th…
Nollywood’s aporias part 1: Gatemen
Nigerian video films are distinct for the way in which they have apparently revolutionized – and then standardized – the portrayal of everyday social worlds. Many scripts routinely place ordinary men and women at the centre of the unfolding of everyday-world stories. However, the character of the gateman – as that of the okada rider and the market woman, among others – in ‘generic’ Nigerian movies is surprisingly underdeveloped. Gatemen in Nigeri…
Doing cultural studies: What is literacy in the age of the post
Literacy in the context of cultural studies (CS) in Africa concerns less the ability to read and write than the quotidian practice of doing. This intervention argues that CS as taught and as its texts are imagined, in general terms, is the source of a continuing institutionalized limitation. CS for Africans is first and foremost a lived practice, before it is a discipline or ready-for-study academic subject. We discuss the notion of lived CS to c…
South–North perspectives: The development of cultural and media studies in Southern Africa
Song and genocide: Investigating the function of Yvonne Chaka Chaka's ‘Umqombothi’ in Hotel Rwanda
This article investigates how, in the film Hotel Rwanda (George 2004), singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka's pop song ‘Umqombothi’ is used in ways that are less than festive. In fact, the soundtrack is used to celebrate genocide. Though one will probably never know whether or not the director intended the song to function in this way, it can be proven that using certain songs in specific ways produces specific meanings. The author proposes that, in the ope…
To show the world as it is, or as it is not: The gaze of Hollywood films about Africa
This paper discusses the nature of Hollywood's ‘gaze’ on Africa. The focus is on the import of the claim that the film Hotel Rwanda (Terry George 2004) is based on a true story – and therefore is somehow ‘true’. Indeed, the film appears to be based on a mode of seeing that is constructed to show the 1994 Rwandan genocide as it is supposed to have happened. I argue that the attempt to make ‘truthful’ films is illogical. It is illogical because it …
Doing cultural studies: What is literacy in the age of the post
Literacy in the context of cultural studies (CS) in Africa concerns less the ability to read and write than the quotidian practice of doing. This intervention argues that CS as taught and as its texts are imagined, in general terms, is the source of a continuing institutionalized limitation. CS for Africans is first and foremost a lived practice, before it is a discipline or ready-for-study academic subject. We discuss the notion of lived CS to c…
To exhibit or be exhibited: The visual art of Vetkat Regopstaan Boesman Kruiper
This article examines the visual art of the late San â Bushmanâ artist Vetkat Regopstaan Kruiper. The significance of Kruiperâ s artistic work is explored in order to call into question two problematic assumptions: first, that visual art amongst the San ended with rock art, turning the â Bushmanâ artist into a vanished specimen, and, second, that what is found amongst the San today is not, strictly speaking, art. Anchoring these assumptions is th…
South–North perspectives: The development of cultural and media studies in Southern Africa
Soetwyn: Visuality, Cultural Tourism, Desire Paths and the ≠Khomani
Witdraai is home to a few hundred ≠Khomani who resettled there after the successful land claim of 1999. In all, the first phase of their claim granted them ownership of six farms totaling about 40,000 hectares of land. Before this restitution, the Bushmen had been an “Other-diaspora” dispersed by the forces of apartheid and colonialism. Being a small settlement in the vast Kalahari in Northern Cape Province, close to the Botswana border, Witdraai…
Violence in Postcolonial African Film
Different forms of violence surround Africans. These forms of violence go by different names, but all are built into and sustained by the fabric of everyday life. Contemporary African film delves into the subject of violence in a variety of ways. Some films show violence in its Fanonian sense, as liberatory and creative; others treat violence as a perpetually destructive force; and others still are ambivalent about the meaning of violence. Ultima…
Song and genocide: Investigating the function of Yvonne Chaka Chaka's ‘Umqombothi’ in Hotel Rwanda
This article investigates how, in the film Hotel Rwanda (George 2004), singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka's pop song ‘Umqombothi’ is used in ways that are less than festive. In fact, the soundtrack is used to celebrate genocide. Though one will probably never know whether or not the director intended the song to function in this way, it can be proven that using certain songs in specific ways produces specific meanings. The author proposes that, in the ope…
To show the world as it is, or as it is not: The gaze of Hollywood films about Africa
This paper discusses the nature of Hollywood's ‘gaze’ on Africa. The focus is on the import of the claim that the film Hotel Rwanda (Terry George 2004) is based on a true story – and therefore is somehow ‘true’. Indeed, the film appears to be based on a mode of seeing that is constructed to show the 1994 Rwandan genocide as it is supposed to have happened. I argue that the attempt to make ‘truthful’ films is illogical. It is illogical because it …
To show the world as it is, or as it is not: The gaze of Hollywood films about Africa
This paper discusses the nature of Hollywood's ‘gaze’ on Africa. The focus is on the import of the claim that the film Hotel Rwanda (Terry George 2004) is based on a true story – and therefore is somehow ‘true’. Indeed, the film appears to be based on a mode of seeing that is constructed to show the 1994 Rwandan genocide as it is supposed to have happened. I argue that the attempt to make ‘truthful’ films is illogical. It is illogical because it …
Song and genocide: Investigating the function of Yvonne Chaka Chaka's ‘Umqombothi’ in Hotel Rwanda
This article investigates how, in the film Hotel Rwanda (George 2004), singer Yvonne Chaka Chaka's pop song ‘Umqombothi’ is used in ways that are less than festive. In fact, the soundtrack is used to celebrate genocide. Though one will probably never know whether or not the director intended the song to function in this way, it can be proven that using certain songs in specific ways produces specific meanings. The author proposes that, in the ope…
Doing cultural studies: What is literacy in the age of the post
Literacy in the context of cultural studies (CS) in Africa concerns less the ability to read and write than the quotidian practice of doing. This intervention argues that CS as taught and as its texts are imagined, in general terms, is the source of a continuing institutionalized limitation. CS for Africans is first and foremost a lived practice, before it is a discipline or ready-for-study academic subject. We discuss the notion of lived CS to c…
South–North perspectives: The development of cultural and media studies in Southern Africa
Heteroglossia in G.H. Musengezi's The Honourable MP (1984)
This article illustrates how heteroglossia functions in G.H. Musengezi's (1984) satirical play, The Honourable MP. Heteroglossia describes the coexistence, as well as the clashing, of distinct voices within a text. It can be shown that while the playwright has a distinct (and seemingly dominant) voice operating in the play – expressed mainly via the sets of characters he creates and the roles he creates for them, as well as through the play's gen…
Questions of Adaptation: Bessie Head's A Question of Power and Ingrid Sinclair's Riches
Riches (2001) is a short film directed by Zimbabwean filmmaker Ingrid Sinclair. The film is about a fiercely independent coloured woman, Molly McBride. She is a single-mother who is exiled from South Africa on an exit permit, with her young son Peter, at the height of apartheid in the mid-1980s. Hoping to find peace and a sense of ‘home’ in neighbouring Zimbabwe, Molly settles and finds a job as a primary school teacher in the country side. Befor…
Violence in Postcolonial African Film
Different forms of violence surround Africans. These forms of violence go by different names, but all are built into and sustained by the fabric of everyday life. Contemporary African film delves into the subject of violence in a variety of ways. Some films show violence in its Fanonian sense, as liberatory and creative; others treat violence as a perpetually destructive force; and others still are ambivalent about the meaning of violence. Ultima…
To exhibit or be exhibited: The visual art of Vetkat Regopstaan Boesman Kruiper
This article examines the visual art of the late San â Bushmanâ artist Vetkat Regopstaan Kruiper. The significance of Kruiperâ s artistic work is explored in order to call into question two problematic assumptions: first, that visual art amongst the San ended with rock art, turning the â Bushmanâ artist into a vanished specimen, and, second, that what is found amongst the San today is not, strictly speaking, art. Anchoring these assumptions is th…
Nollywood’s aporias part 1: Gatemen
Nigerian video films are distinct for the way in which they have apparently revolutionized – and then standardized – the portrayal of everyday social worlds. Many scripts routinely place ordinary men and women at the centre of the unfolding of everyday-world stories. However, the character of the gateman – as that of the okada rider and the market woman, among others – in ‘generic’ Nigerian movies is surprisingly underdeveloped. Gatemen in Nigeri…
New political economies of film distribution for South Africa's townships? A critical survey of the ReaGilè concept
ReaGilès are pre-fabricated, self-contained, education and entertainment complexes situated on 400m2 sites at local schools or public open spaces consisting of a 60-seat cinema, 30- seat computer and Internet facility, community care and policing centre. These complexes are intended to service historically underserviced peri-urban black dormitory townships of South Africa and to help create jobs, especially amongst the youth, women and the disabl…
Media racism: Beyond modernity and postmodernity
Is racism changing form or character as modernity fades away and a footloose postmodernity takes its place? We consider a wide range of definitions and understandings of racism, modernity and postmodernity, and, while changes in appearance, methods, and mechanisms as well as prevention of racist communication in the media seem undeniable, the question is raised whether the distinctions between ‘modernity’ and ‘postmodernity’ and the applications …
The Zimbabwean Film Industry
This article explores the state of affairs in Zimbabwe’s film industry. It addresses the question: does a Zimbabwean film industry exist? The complex answer depends on at least two parameters. The first is one’s chosen definition of a film industry. The second is the extent of one’s knowledge of realities on the ground. The article argues that the Zimbabwean film industry, like most in Africa, is necessarily a work in progress. That is, it is con…
Soetwyn: Visuality, Cultural Tourism, Desire Paths and the ≠Khomani
Witdraai is home to a few hundred ≠Khomani who resettled there after the successful land claim of 1999. In all, the first phase of their claim granted them ownership of six farms totaling about 40,000 hectares of land. Before this restitution, the Bushmen had been an “Other-diaspora” dispersed by the forces of apartheid and colonialism. Being a small settlement in the vast Kalahari in Northern Cape Province, close to the Botswana border, Witdraai…
Sociology (12 works) · Political science (8 works) · Art (7 works) · Law (7 works) · Aesthetics (6 works) · African history and culture studies (6 works) · Media studies (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · History (5 works) · Law (5 works)