Browsing by Author "Africa, Adelene"

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    'Disabled women must stand up': exploring the leadership experiences of disabled women in disabled people's organisations in Zimbabwe
    (2013) Majiet, Shanaaz; Africa, Adelene; Lorenzo, Theresa
    The aim of this study was to analyse the experiences of disabled women in leadership positions in DPOs in Zimbabwe. The literature review focused on the crosscutting issues of (1) leadership, gender and disability. (2) women and disability in Zimbabwe. and (3) the current structure of DPOs in African countries in relation to gender.
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    Juvenile crimes in Malawi : life-history narratives of male juvenile offenders
    (2007) Silungwe, Ndumanene Devlin; Africa, Adelene
    Juvenile crime is a growing problem in Malawi. International research has focussed on the causes of this type of crime in an attempt to explain and deal with this phenomenon. This study adds to the scholarly knowledge by exploring the life stories of 22 male juvenile offenders currently incarcerated for various crimes in Malawi. Semi-structured life-history interviews were conducted and results are consistent with the existing literature - specifically on risk factors, control theories and life-course theories. This study showed that several factors in childhood and adolescence contributed to the participants' offending behaviour. Participants also made sense of their behaviour by constructing themselves as victims of life circumstances, spiritual and supernatural forces, and an inequitable justice system. Some of these attributional models are uncommon in criminological literature.
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    Motivation in the context of the life history of volunteer counsellors
    (2004) Pio, Lisa; Africa, Adelene
    The ethos behind the psychodynamic approach is that past experiences influence and shape present experiences. The past is seen as playing a pivotal role in life outcomes. This study attempts to trace and explore the factors that shape the current motivations of six volunteer counsellors based at an established counselling organisation. The psychodynamic theory is adopted as the framework to interpret the life stories of the participants. Working within a retrospective and narrative framework the life histories of the volunteers could be explored as the narrative approach emphasises the links that individuals make in describing their life histories. The central focus of the study is on the participants' subjective accounts of their life histories and how they interpret these through their narrative.
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    Power and performativity in prison: exploring male sex workers' experiences and performances of gender and sexuality pre/during/post-incarceration
    (2017) Lewin, Jan-Louise; Africa, Adelene; Nomdo, Gideon John
    This study explores the narratives of men who become male sex workers after being in prison. This study looks at prison as a fluid space for sexual expression and gender performativity, which is ironic given the view of prison as punitive and repressive. Sex within the South African prison system is silenced and taboo particularly within the Number prison gang where sex is heavily regulated, ritualized and fiercely guarded. The research question asks how do men who are or become male sex workers construct and perform their gendered and sexual identities in prison and on the street? This qualitative study employs the organizing metaphor of dramaturgy to explore how prison as a social setting (stage) impacts on the gendered and sexual performances of men (actors) who have been incarcerated. Drawing on Foucault's theories of the repressive hypothesis and peripheral sexualities (1990), Butler's theory of performativity (1990) and Gagnon and Simon's scripting theory (1973) this study illustrates theoretically how prison sex culture and male sex work can be theorized from a feminist standpoint perspective. This feminist study is located in the social constructionist paradigm. It is underpinned by grounded theory and narrative methodology to explore the narratives of men who have been incarcerated and continue into sex work post-release. Biographical interviews were conducted with 15 men who were participants in a male sex work support group. Findings revealed two overarching themes in the narratives that explain how men construct and perform their gendered and sexual identities in prison. Renegotiation was the process where the subject engaged in an internalized monologue with self, constantly exploring and (re)constructing the gendered and sexual self in response to the shifting contexts of prison and the streets. Negotiation was the process where the subject engaged in an external dialogue with others. Through interactions with others, they were able to perform gender and sexuality publicly. By framing it within the discourse of dramaturgy, this study shows an alternative view of prison sex culture. (Re)imagining prison as the 'stage', prisoners as the 'actors', prison rituals as the 'script' and identity performances as the 'act', we can begin to envision an alternative script and narrative of prison unfolding.
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    Sex educator or change agent? Experiences of a sex(uality) peer education programme in an era of HIV and AIDS
    (2014) Wolf, Kimberly; Bennett, Jane; Africa, Adelene
    Despite the popularity of sex(uality) peer education as an HIV prevention strategy within diverse contexts, an understanding of the experiences of those intimately placed within these programmes is limited. Instead, the majority of research in this field relies on hegemonic notions of rational human behaviour that operates under the assumption that knowledge leads to sexual behaviour change. This study explores peer facilitators, peer educators, and NGO staff experiences of a sex(uality) peer education programme in Cape Town, South Africa to understand meaning-making around sex(uality) peer education within the complex power dynamics of donor-NGO interactions. This study provides a critical case study of a schools-based sex(uality) peer education intervention, drawing on individual and focus group interviews. Using a feminist and gender lense, the study highlights a number of features of the programme and implementation, which reinforces gender inequalities and notions of a rational sexual being rather than creating channels for a new understanding of sex(uality) to emerge. These include peer facilitators’ and peer educators’ experience as change agents rather than sex educators, the preference for biomedical and socio-economic content over gender content, and the overall absence of a critical engagement with gender constructions and power dynamics in relationships. The study also points to the limits of donor-funded interventions, which tend to prescribe the content and scope of schools-based programmes, to the detriment of real engagement with issues that face and constrain the target group including the implications of what ‘sex(uality) education’ has come to mean for young men and women engaged in these interventions.
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    Time-use and wellbeing in Onesi, Namibia
    (2016) Musingarabwi, Steffanie; Visser, Martine; Africa, Adelene
    Men's and women's time-use in relation to wellbeing is well-investigated and understood within the context of the developed world. There has been limited research into the gendered experiences of time-use and three dimensional (3D) wellbeing in rural communities of sub-Saharan Africa and particularly so in semi-arid areas. As a result, failure to appreciate how time-use and wellbeing are experienced by the rural population in semi-arid areas impedes a full understanding of how rural inhabitants spend their time and how this makes them worse off or better off in different aspects of their wellbeing. This subsequently challenges the appropriateness of efforts to improve the lived experience of rural inhabitants. The study aimed to make a contribution to the knowledge gap on time-use and wellbeing by assessing how time-use relates to the experiences of material, subjective and relational aspects of wellbeing in a semi-arid area. It hypothesised that if men and women who are household-heads spend their time-use differently this has implications on their experiences of material, subjective and relational wellbeing. The study adopted a quantitative approach to primary data collection, analysis and interpretation of results. A questionnaire survey consisting of 93 randomly selected male and female headed households was conducted using stratified sampling techniques. Data was analysed using Microsoft Excel and SPSS software including regression analysis and statistical tests (Mann Witney U test) from which descriptive and statistical results were presented in tables and graphs following regression analysis. The study yielded several findings including the importance of personal care for improved subjective wellbeing despite the trade-off with material wellbeing; the importance of age and social grants for ensuring a better experience of material wellbeing; the importance of social connections particularly for widows and widowers; as well as the significance of time spent on leisure and work-outside for improving relational wellbeing. In addition, women's disproportionally high time spent on domestic work leaves them feeling subjectively worse-off while the persistence of traditional gender role division seems to have a determining effect on the time-use and wellbeing experiences of household-heads in the study area. Overall, the study highlights time-use related opportunities and constraints for improving the wellbeing of rural inhabitants in Onesi, Namibia.
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    Towards being heard : representations of the child's voice in custody evaluation reports by the Family Advocate's Office
    (2009) Vallabh, Sheetal; Africa, Adelene
    This study outlined the changing social and legal contexts insofar as it relates to children's participation in matters that affect their lives. It set out the debates in the literature on whether not children should participate in family law matters, specifically custody disputes, and if so, how this participation should take place. It also drew upon research studies which have explored directly children's views on the issue. The challenges involved in custody evaluations were scrutinised, specifically in relation to the Family Advocate's Office, and alternative and/or complementary methods of accessing the child's voice were considered. In South Africa, in all access and/or custody disputes, the Family Advocate’s Office is tasked with making recommendations to the court, which are in the child's best interest. The recently promulgated provisions of the Children's Act (2005) also require that the child's views and wishes be taken into consideration. Accordingly, this research study involved a thematic content analysis of 10 Family Counsellor reports, in order to determine how the child's voice is accessed by the Family Advocate's Office. A structural model illustrating how the child's voice was represented in the reports was developed. It showed that the child's voice was represented in three distinct ways, namely: the child's voice is accessed directly; the child's voice is disqualified; and the archetypal child's voice is accessed through a proxy. The findings showed a tendency to rely more on accessing the archetypal child's voice through a proxy, which typically included reporting that was less descriptive and more inferential, interpretive and opinion-laden. A need for more direct, non-disqualified means of accessing and/or reporting on the child's views and wishes was indicated.
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    Towards being heard : representations of the child's voice in custody evaluation reports by the Family Advocate's Office.
    (2009) Vallabh, Sheetal; Africa, Adelene
    This study outlined the changing social and legal contexts insofar as it relates [sic] to children’s participation in matters that affect their lives. It set out the debates in the literature on whether [or] not children should participate in family law matters, specifically custody disputes, and if so, how this participation should take place. It also drew upon research studies which have explored directly children’s views on the issue. The challenges involved in custody evaluations were scrutinised, specifically in relation to the Family Advocate’s Office, and alternative and/or complementary methods of accessing the child’s voice were considered. In South Africa, in all access and/or custody disputes, the Family Advocate’s Office is tasked with making recommendations to the court, which are in the child’s best interest.
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    Voices from the periphery : a narrative study of the experiences of sexuality of disabled women in Zimbabwe
    (2016) Peta, Christine; McKenzie, Judith; Kathard, Harsha; Africa, Adelene
    This thesis is located within a conceptual framework which integrates related theoretical concepts under an overarching critical feminist disability studies lens. The study sought to explore within an African context, the experiences of sexuality of 16 disabled women in Zimbabwe by using a narrative methodology. The Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method was used to generate data and a three phased approach to analysing data was used by employing narrative analysis in the first level to produce whole life stories and analysis of narratives at the second level to produce distinctive themes from the stories. The third level of analysis builds on the second level of analysis and in this study it is embedded in the discussion of findings where it represents a latent and deeper layer of analysis which seeks to further understand the data. The findings that emerged from the narrative analysis illuminate the biographic specificity of the experiences of sexuality of disabled women, albeit drawing belief systems from the wider national context. At the second level, the cross-case analysis generated thematic findings which revealed that all participants dynamically engage in intimate partner relationships, albeit being vulnerable to gender based violence, including in matrimonial relationships, in a setting where contextual silences that surround issues of sexuality are detrimental to the well-being of participants. The third level of analysis illuminates the fact that disabled women are not passive recipients of disability and sexuality stereotypes but they claim their agency and create opportunities for themselves in the area of sexuality. Participants value heterosexual marriage in a context where different sexual orientations are despised by culture and same sex marriages are prohibited by the constitution of Zimbabwe. The complex intersection of culture, disability and normative gender roles and power relations within heteronormative relationships facilitate the vulnerability of disabled women to unsafe sexual practices which exacerbate their vulnerability to HIV infection, in a context which is characterised by a lack of sexuality education.
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    Women offenders' narratives of violent crime
    (2011) Africa, Adelene; Foster, Don
    This study addressed this lacuna in the research literature by examining the subjective accounts of women incarcerated for violent crime. By locating itself within a postructuralist framework, this study investigated the meaning which women attributed to their perpetration. It examined the identities which women posited and analysed how they either took up or rejected stereotypical gendered norms.