Preferred Name
Thandwa S. Maphalala
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License
Date of Graduation
5-15-2025
Semester of Graduation
Spring
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
School of Communication Studies
First Advisor
Taylor Johnson
Second Advisor
Melissa Alemán
Third Advisor
Peter Bsumek
Abstract
Age-disparate relationships are causing a public health threat in South Africa and the region at large. However, these relationships and their effects are not unique to South Africa. There has been substantial research conducted to explore the social, cultural or economic meaning of this relationship type, its causes and effects in sub-Saharan Africa or in the interest of individual countries in the region. However, South Africa presents a special case for further study because the older men that adolescent girls and young women (AGYW) date and have sex with are commonly referred to as blessers.
The purpose of this study is to examine how the blesser-blessee phenomenon is constructed by what I term Bantu Rhetoric of Survivance. I do this by conducting rhetorical criticism of discursive practices on selected South African social media texts. I interrogate how the themes of survival, resistance, and endurance manifest in the discourses surrounding blesser-blessee relationships; I theorize how we might understand survivance rhetoric in an African context through Bantu Rhetoric of Survivance; and ultimately argue that rest must be a central pillar of decolonial and postcolonial advocacy.
The study contributes to the discipline in two ways. Firstly, it unpacks the rhetoric that constructs the blesser-blessee phenomenon to develop a deeper understanding of the complex postcolonial condition in a context such as South Africa. Secondly, although the move to study rhetoric through a postcolonial and decolonial lens is important, the vast majority of this literature focuses on North- and South-American contexts. Thus, this project foregrounds Afrocentric epistemology, ontology and axiology, specifically in the realms of communication and advocacy.
Included in
Critical and Cultural Studies Commons, Gender, Race, Sexuality, and Ethnicity in Communication Commons, Speech and Rhetorical Studies Commons
