Making otherwise: negotiating the spatial context of Stellenbosch University through situated making

Date
2022-04
Journal Title
Journal ISSN
Volume Title
Publisher
Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University
Abstract
ENGLISH ABSTRACT: Student political activism on South African University campuses during the 2015/16 fallist period highlights not only issues pertaining to Western university curricula, institutional culture, and access to South African higher education, but also foregrounds the material public space/place of the university institution. It is within this space/place that students, material objects, and other environmental components meet in encounters of varying intensities. The affective turn, post-humanism, and new materialism lend insight into this complex terrain in which non-human, organic and inorganic matter hold the potential to affect us. Space/place, from this perspective, is complex and negotiations therein take place between the animate and inanimate and within relational processes. This research aims to make sense of the place of Stellenbosch University (SU) campus in a situated manner by engaging in open, generative arts-based modes of exploring public campus in order to ascertain what insights this may glean into the spatial context of SU. The word ‘otherwise’ in ‘making otherwise’ signals a mode of change, going up against, doing in another manner, and break in the status quo. This thesis concerns speculation, negotiation, and open, ongoing exploration in which participation in making processes shift to interaction with the material. It is this thinking differently, negotiating, learning, doing, making that makes up this practical research experiment.
AFRIKAANSE OPSOMMING: Student-gedrewe politieke aktivisme op Suid-Afrikaanse kampusse gedurende die 2015/2016 fallistiese tydperk beklemtoon nie net die kwessies wat verband hou met Westerse universiteit kurrikulums, institusionele kultuur en toegang tot Suid-Afrikaanse hoer onderwys nie, maar stel ook die materiele openbare ruimte van die universiteitsinstelling op die voorgrond. Dit is binne hierdie ruimte wat studente, materiele voorwerpe en ander omgewingsfaktore in wisselende vlakke van intensiteit ontmoet. Die affektiewe wending, post-humanisme en nuwe materialisme bied insig in hierdie ingewikkelde terrein waarin nie-menslike, organiese en anorganiese materiaal die potensiaal het om ons te beinvloed. Ruimte/plek, vanuit hierdie oogpunt, is kompleks en onderhandelinge daarin vind tussen die lewende en nie-lewende, en binne relasionele prosesse plaas. Hierdie navorsing poog om sin te maak van die plek van Stellenbosch Universiteit (US) kampus op ʼn gesitueerde wyse deur deel te neem aan oop, generatiewe kunsgebaseerde maniere om publieke kampus te verken ten einde vas te stel watter insigte dit in die ruimtelike konteks van die US kan verkry. Die woord ‘otherwise’ in ‘making otherwise’ dui op ʼn manier van verandering, om op te tree teen, om op ʼn ander manier te doen en om die status quo te verbreek. Hierdie tesis handel oor spekulasie, onderhandeling en oop, deurlopende verkenning waarin deelname aan die prosesse van maak verskuif na interaksie met die materiaal. Dit is hierdie anderste dink, onderhandel, leer, doen, maak wat hierdie praktiese navorsingsprojek uitmaak.
Description
Thesis MA (VA)--Stellenbosch University, 2022.
Keywords
Universities and colleges -- Political activity, Technology -- Study and teaching, Humanism, Sustainable development, Space environment, Educational technology, Stellenbosch University, Community development, Computer-assisted instruction, UCTD
Citation