Browsing by Author "Boonzaier Floretta"

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    Imagining fear: exploring the psychological impact of a culture of violence on women
    (2015) Gordon, Sarah Frances; Boonzaier Floretta
    Post-apartheid South Africa's current climate of patriarchy, social inequality and culture of violence has created a context in which violence against women is both prevalent and tolerated. Despite the extensive literature documenting the social problem of violence against women in South Africa not enough research has been conducted on how this culture of violence affects the identity construction of women. This qualitative, biographical-interpretive study explores how young women's lives and identities are transformed by living in this culture of violence against women in South Africa, more specifically the psychosocial impact this has on them. It draws on the theory of the psychosocial subject, allowing both a 'social' and 'individual' understanding of identity and the social problem of violence against women. Free-association, narrative interviews were conducted with 27 female, University of Cape Town (UCT) students, between the ages of 18 and 32. An interpretive analysis drawing on discourse analysis, narrative theory and psychoanalysis was used to analyse the interview texts. Findings revealed the overarching theme of the discourse of subordinate femininity, in which women are constructed as subordinate to men and their behaviour is constantly being regulated and disciplined. The study found that the discourse of subordinate femininity is reproduced through participants' narratives of family violence, fear and vulnerability and discourses of feminine self-regulation and transgression. The reproduction and resistance of the discourse of subordinate femininity is central to how these women construct their identity. Identifying the discourses of resistance embedded in participants' talk allows this study to represent both the suffering and resistance of these women, which is not commonly seen in literature surrounding violence against women, offering us a more comprehensive picture of how women construct their identity in a violent and volatile context, such as South Africa. The study also highlighted how the dissemination of discourses of subordinate femininity and feminine transgression contribute to the prevalence of violence against women in society because these discourses position men in a hierarchal corrective relationship to all women, and construct the violence perpetrated against women as a natural response to their transgression. Exploring these narratives and discourses allows us to see how all women, regardless of their experiences of victimisation, are affected by the prevalence of violence against women in society. This study addresses several gaps in the existing literature and is ground-breaking in terms of its unique subject matter, theoretical contributions, methodological approach and social significance to the South African context. It represents an original contribution to the field and is part of an effort to raise consciousness around violence against women and its impact on not only survivors, but all women.
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    Pandemic racism: describing and delegitimising discursive necropolitics on Africa in Danish mainstream media during COVID-19
    (2023) Ravn, Amalie; Kessi, Shose; Boonzaier Floretta
    This is an interdisciplinary study that combines critical psychology with necropolitics, feminist, queer and crip theory, as well as linguistics through discourse theory and media studies through analysis of news articles to examine how everyday discourse contributes to practices of violence that continue to make race real. Its framework The theoretical framework of the study is necropolitics at large, Achille Mbembe's original necropolitical framework reworked through decolonial, queer and feminist critiques to create an eclectic necropolitical lens that is calibrated for the analysis of pandemic discourse. The main argument is discussed through the critical discourse analysis of Danish mainstream media's production of African figures in the context of the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020. The study shows that necropolitical discourse of the black and African body and nation act as a constitutive supplement to the configuration and mapping of white bodies, white supremacy and national identity. These configurations are characterised by productions of ‘Africa' as a death world, marked by suffering, unsafety and disease, which are produced and made comprehensible within white, nationalist formations of Denmark as a world of life marked by health, security and supremacy. This study concludes that the discursive creation of ‘Africa' is co-constructed and intertwined with the creation of Denmark, suggesting that distinctions between mechanisms of exclusion and mechanisms of inclusion dissolve in ways that disrupt key epistemic assumptions of normative psychology.
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    Social representation of violence against women in the media: a South African study
    (2014) Isaacs, Dane Henry; Boonzaier Floretta; Van Niekerk, Taryn
    The South African mass media has been recognised as playing an important role in influencing individual understandings of social issues, including domestic violence against women. However, few research studies have exclusively investigated the way in which messages concerning domestic violence against women have come to emerge within the South African media. Therefore, the purpose of this qualitative study was to explore social representations of domestic violence evident in the Cape Argus, Cape Times, and Daily Voice. Braun and Clarke’s (2006) six step thematic analysis was used to identify social representations of domestic violence evident in 25 articles that reported on men’s perpetration of violence against women. The analysis suggested that the media in the Western Cape largely promoted distorted social representations of domestic violence in South Africa. For example, domestic violence was constructed as a problem of an unjust justice system, and as an uncontrollable outburst ‘provoked’ by women partners. As a result, responsibility assigned to male perpetrators for their act(s) of violence were lessened, and the possible contribution of wider-societal influences and other sectors of society undermined. Recommendations in response to the findings of the study and for future South African domestic violence research in the context of media representations are discussed.