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Oblique figures : representations of Islam in South African media and culture

Includes bibliographical references.

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Main Author: Baderoon, Gabeba
Other Authors: Higgins, John
Format: Thesis
Language:English
Published: Department of English Language and Literature 2014
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access_status_str Open Access
author Baderoon, Gabeba
author2 Higgins, John
author_browse Baderoon, Gabeba
Higgins, John
author_facet Higgins, John
Baderoon, Gabeba
author_sort Baderoon, Gabeba
collection Thesis
description Includes bibliographical references.
format Thesis
id oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/7965
institution University of Cape Town (South Africa)
language eng
last_indexed 2026-06-10T12:43:27.674Z
license_str Not specified — see source repository
provenance_str_mv Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
publishDate 2014
publishDateRange 2014
publishDateSort 2014
publisher Department of English Language and Literature
publisherStr Department of English Language and Literature
record_format dspace
source_str UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository
spelling oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/7965 Oblique figures : representations of Islam in South African media and culture Baderoon, Gabeba Higgins, John Erasmus, Zimitri Steadman-Jones, Richard English Language and Literature Includes bibliographical references. In 1996 stories in South African newspapers about the group Pagad articulated a new vision of Islam. In this thesis I conduct a long reading of the ways in which Islam has been represented in South Africa to provide a context for analysing the Pagad stories. Drawing on Edward Said's Orientalism and later elaborations that emphasise gender, the thesis is attentive to the latent weight of fantasies of 'race' on non-fictional representations. In the introduction I look at the use of the offensive word 'kaffir' in colonial South Africa and contend that, in the context of slavery and the displacement of indigenous people, the proliferating use of the term functioned to recast indigeneity as misplaced and unfit, facilitating settler claims to the land. Through the example of this deformation of a word originally drawn from Islam, I show how the meanings and experiences of Islam are transformed by specific circumstances and histories. Islam arrived in South Africa when Dutch colonists brought slaves and servants to the Cape from 1658. The context of slavery and colonial settlement is crucial to the way Islam has been represented in South Africa. Muslim slaves were characterized as industrious, placid and picturesque. I contend in analyses of nineteenth century landscape paintings that the figure of the 'Malay' played a role in discursively securing a settler identity in the Cape Colony. This occurred through their 'oblique' positioning near the edge of the frame, where they appear to certify the boundaries of the settled space of the colony. I follow these readings of the picturesque vision of Islam by exploring instances of its underside - the discourse of oriental fanaticism. 2014-10-02T13:16:02Z 2014-10-02T13:16:02Z 2004 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7965 eng application/pdf Department of English Language and Literature Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town
spellingShingle English Language and Literature
Baderoon, Gabeba
Oblique figures : representations of Islam in South African media and culture
thesis_degree_str Doctoral
title Oblique figures : representations of Islam in South African media and culture
title_full Oblique figures : representations of Islam in South African media and culture
title_fullStr Oblique figures : representations of Islam in South African media and culture
title_full_unstemmed Oblique figures : representations of Islam in South African media and culture
title_short Oblique figures : representations of Islam in South African media and culture
title_sort oblique figures representations of islam in south african media and culture
topic English Language and Literature
url http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7965
work_keys_str_mv AT baderoongabeba obliquefiguresrepresentationsofislaminsouthafricanmediaandculture