Browsing by Author "Head, Judith"

Now showing 1 - 16 of 16
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    Considering alternatives to the predomination model of volentary councelling and testing practiced in South Africa
    (2009) Brown, Sean; Head, Judith
    Testing is widely acknowledged to be a useful and necessary secondary tool of Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) prevention. It is the method by which to identify people who are living with the virus, so that their behaviour may be modified and medical condition treated in order to prevent further infection. Unfortunately, many persons in South Africa (SA) remain undiagnosed and therefore unaware of their HIV-positive status. This thesis explores why it is necessary to test for HIV in SA, where the incidence of the virus remains the highest in the world. Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT) or the âopt-inâ approach has been adopted as the norm or âsine qua nonâ. The efficacy of this method will be interrogated and shortcomings identified. The most notable is that few people in SA undergo an HIV test in order to learn their status. When they do, it is often late in the progression of opportunistic infections, requiring hospitalisation that increases pressure on an already over-stretched healthcare system. Reasons for the poor uptake of VCT are explained, including pervasive stigma and deficiencies in leadership of SAâs HIV and AIDS response. The expansion of testing is a proposed response to the challenge of persons remaining undiagnosed, and includes the acceleration of âopt-outâ or routine HIV testing (RHT) among SAâs high prevalence population. This model offers an HIV test routinely to persons attending government healthcare settings with an illness or for a routine check-up. Although the provider initiates the test, consent is necessary in order to proceed and there is an option to decline. While the key focus of this thesis is routine HIV testing, other approaches are explored in brief, including mandatory testing, mobile clinics and wellness screening. The thesis argues that if SA is to achieve the HIV and AIDS and STI National Strategic Plan (NSP) target of increasing the number of adults who have ever had a test to 70 percent by 2011, new approaches to testing, and especially opt-out, will need to be explored and more widely adopted. Key words: HIV/AIDS; Voluntary Counselling and Testing (VCT); Routine HIV Testing (RHT); Routinely Recommended Testing (RRT); Opt-out Testing; Provider-Initiated Testing and Counselling (PITC).
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    Gender dimensions of land policy in contemporary Mozambique : a case study of Ndixe village, Marracuene District, southern Mozambique
    (2001) Waterhouse, Rachel; Head, Judith
    In this thesis, I set out to investigate women's rights to the land and how these are shaped by gender relations. I investigate the meaning and significance of 'customary' tenure in the present day context, some 25 years after Independence and after the end of 16 years of armed conflict in the countryside. I ask to what extent customary norms are still practised and whether or not they disadvantage women? I also challenge the premises of neo-liberal theory underwriting the current land policy and on-going proposals for land reform: namely that increased tenure security can be guaranteed by formal law, that this will encourage investment and thus 'alleviate' rural poverty. These assumptions are explicit in the National Land Policy, which ostensibly aims to 'alleviate poverty' and 'promote growth with equity' through ensuring land tenure security for family and private sector investors, whilst liberalising transactions in land. My investigation sets out from the premise that land tenure arrangements in any society are deeply embedded in the existing socio-economic context [Peters 1987; Bassett 1993] and that these inform and are informed by gender relations. Gender roles and identities are seen here as learned and negotiated, but they are negotiated from different positions of power by women and men [Archer l992; Agarwal 1994; Kandiyoti 1998]. I further assume that custom is not a static edifice but a changing and flexible social institution that is shaped by historical events and individual interpretations [Hobsbawm & Ranger 1983]. Based on these assumptions, I take a theoretical approach which draws on the work of social scientists such as Anthony Giddens [1979, 1982, 1984] and Ernesto Laclau [Laclau & Moulfe 1985; Laclau 1990], as well as recent feminist literature (see Chapter Two), in seeking to resolve the tension between structure and agency in sociological analysis. My research involves an exploration of the competing theories underlying land policy changes, from colonial time to the present. l argue that, despite radically different strategies, the current neo-liberal as well as the former colonial and then socialist approaches to rural development in Mozambique adhere to a modernisation paradigm that privileges material accumulation. By the same token, it devalues the reproductive and subsistence labour predominantly performed by women. I argue that an analysis of gendered power relations has been largely missing from analyses of land tenure and agrarian policy. This has negative implications for the likely achievement of the Governments current policy goals, namely those of achieving 'growth with equity'. Against this background, the principal focus of my research is a case study in one rural village, Ndixe, in Marracuene District of southern Mozambique. Through the case study, I seek to understand the gender dimensions of land access and control in the current period.
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    Herstory : Maidei Chivi, an HIV positive Zimbabwean woman
    (2006) Mphisa, Abigael; Head, Judith
    The thesis is based on the story of a 36 year old HIV positive middle class black Zimbabwean woman, Maidei Chivi (pseudonym). Maidei is well educated, financially secure and wields enormous power both within her family and at her workplace. She therefore, unlike many women, does not fall into the typical HIV victim category, characterised by poverty, coerced sex and desperation. Maidei's story demonstrates that economic security does not necessarily result in women taking decision making roles during sex.
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    HIV/AIDS in South Africa : Towards a New Paradigm
    (2004) Smith, Howard G; Head, Judith
    The HIV/AIDS epidemic in South Africa is more severe than almost anywhere else in the world and continues to grow. Here, and elsewhere in southern Africa, it is now a generalized epidemic, largely heterosexually spread. This is very different from the more limited epidemic in the United States of America and other developed countries. It was in the USA in the five years after the first cases of AIDS that the understandings and explanations of HIV/AIDS were constructed. HIVIAIDS was defined as a transmittable infection causing a progressive deterioration of the immune system, leaving it vulnerable to opportunistic infections and disease of increasing severity resulting in inevitable death. Virology identified the virus that is the infectious agent and provided explanations of how it had its effect on the host, reproduced and was transmitted. Influenced by the early association of AIDS with homosexuals, the social construction of HIVIAIDS has focused on risk groups and risk behaviours. These are now central components of a dominant paradigm that has informed but also limited research. This paradigm also informs and limits responses to and strategies to prevent the spread of the virus.
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    An HIV/AIDS intervention programme in the workplace: a case study of a medium-sized construction company in the Western Cape.
    (2006) Griffiths, Roger; Head, Judith
    Government and other NGOs want private sector companies to assist in countering the effects of HIV/AIDS by introducing interventions which follow generic outlined developed by the State and other institutions. The programmes are mainly aimed at the Human Rights of those who are HIV+, and do not have a commercial element. The assumption is that these programmes provide a cost benefit which outweighs the costs of a programme.
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    A public health conflict : traditional medicinal practise and the bio-medical health norms and values at a time of HIV and AIDS in Swaziland
    (2010) Dlamini, Gcinekile G; Head, Judith
    Medical pluralism and the co-existence of a variety of different medical systems within a chosen context are common features in southern Africa as in the rest of the developing world. How do the different systems or practices interact? How does the dual systems of healing impact on the HIV and AIDS national mitigation programmes. The study assumes that the existence of different kinds of medical practices in the same community over a long period of time is an indication of the reality of medical pluralism in Swaziland. It questions its conflicting impact on the public health messages for managing the epidemic. The existence of different healers e.g. faith healers, medical doctors and traditional healers and herbalists is a significant aspect of health seeking behaviours among the larger population in Swaziland (only 22% of Swaziland is urbanized). The people‟s attitude towards and reception of the states public health policies and public health messages are heavily interpreted along and in view of the highly respected traditional medical health care systems. This phenomena also covers the people‟s spiritual and emotional health care systems and points of references and health seeking behaviours. The study also reflects upon the bias by a number of postcolonial writing towards traditional healing driven by colonialists‟ impressions and local rulers left in charge thereafter. The study also refers to the bias of a number of African leaders and governments who readily give support to bio-medical doctors and are not equally supportive to the structures that support traditional healing and yet a bigger size of the population is mostly reliant upon traditional medical care. In southern Africa self-medication is documented as an integral part of the health care system. This research project reflects extensively on the attitude of traditional and developing communities towards ARVs, ART and biomedical interventions at a time of HIV and AIDS in southern Africa. The study concludes that there are no cultural barriers for the traditional healers to collaborate with the bio-medicine practitioners; however there seems to be a lot of „public health‟ constraints for the medical doctor to working collaboratively with the traditional healer. Is this a one sided conflict, tension, bias?
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    Responding to multi-dimensional forms of poverty in the context of HIV/AIDS: experiences of mothers in Khayelitsha
    (2008) Kane, Dianna; Head, Judith
    South Africa is a highly unequal society, comprised of a small, wealthy elite class and a large population living in deep, chronic poverty plagued with unemployment. Those suffering from the greatest poverty are unemployed women caring for children. In the context of a distinct underclass that has been historically marginalized from the labour market and a welfare system does not provide assistance for the unemployed, these women are left to cope with their own poverty. Additionally, the HIV/AIDS epidemic exacerbates existing vulnerabilities and compromises the capabilities of these women and children. Guided by a livelihood framework and based on a multi-dimensional definition of poverty, the study explored how women navigate within their difficult environment to respond to the poverty of their children.
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    The response of the Christian churches to HIV/AIDS prevention - a developmental challenge: The example of Hout Bay
    (2008) Mojapelo, Sazini; Head, Judith
    Although the churches are engaged in efforts of relief, care and welfare their intervention attempts, do not deal with the fundamental causes. According to Korten their interventions are classified as first generation interventions. They help alleviate the symptoms of a problem; however, they do not deal with the causes. HIV/AIDS is spread in the midst of ubiquitous poverty and deepens poverty by depriving poor families of income and redirecting scarce resources to care for the sick. HIV/AIDS prevention is thus an important development agenda. Development, understood as an improvement in the human condition, therefore implies prevention of HIV/AIDS and tackling poverty. This dissertation will argue that, unable to make a significant contribution to behaviour change at an individual level, churches should seek to play a more effective role in poverty eradication at the structural level. This, it is argued, will contribute indirectly to preventing HIV/AIDS.
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    Situating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in a historical context : a case study of orphans in Nguludi Mission Community, Malawi
    (2003) Croke, Rhian G; Head, Judith
    This thesis is based on a series of interviews with key informants and a census of orphan households in Nguludi Mission Community, Southern Malawi, in 2000. The thesis argues that although HIV/AIDS is a relatively recent phenomenon, any contemporary understanding of the epidemic must be informed by an understanding of the past. The impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the "orphan problem" at the local level, is, therefore, situated within the broader socio-economic context of the history of the region.
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    Situating the HIV/AIDS epidemic in a historical context : a case study of orphans in Nguludi Mission Community, Malawi
    (2003) Croke, Rhian G; Head, Judith
    This thesis is based on a series of interviews with key informants and a census of orphan households in Nguludi Mission Community, Southern Malawi, in 2000. The thesis argues that although HIV/AIDS is a relatively recent phenomenon, any contemporary understanding of the epidemic must be informed by an understanding of the past. The impact of the HIV/AIDS epidemic and the "orphan problem" at the local level, is, therefore, situated within the broader socio-economic context of the history of the region.
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    Towards a health promoting University: an exploratory study of the University of Cape Town
    (1999) Mukoma, Wanjiru; Head, Judith
    Drawing on developments in the public health field, this exploratory study applies the ideas of Health Promotion (HP) to the University of Cape Town (UCT). It defines UCT as a setting within which HP can and should take place. Following the World Health Organisation (WHO), health is seen as encompassing physical, mental, social, and other environmental factors (WHO, 1978). Sociological perspectives that acknowledge the relationship between social action/behaviour and the social context, hence the relationship between students' wellbeing and the UCT environment are employed. Data and information for this study were collected through focus group discussions, in-depth interviews, participant observation, and a sample of information gathered by first year sociology students. The fear of failure, housing problems, limited social integration, and availability of cigarettes and junk food on campus were found to be some of the factors that influence and constrain students' weIIbeing. It was also found wellbeing is not an explicit consideration in the university plans and policies, even though implicitly these are meant to enhance wellbeing. Strategies to promote health in UCT need to be guided by a commitment to wellbeing in the university's policies. This thesis recommends that the university be required to pass a 'wellbeing test'.
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    Using the Child Support Grant to advance the socio-economic rights of children affected by HIV/AIDS in South Africa : a critical reflection
    (2005) Fleming, Samantha; Head, Judith
    Includes bibliographical references (leaves 95-102).
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    Welfare policy and the family in post-apartheid South Africa: Care for orphans and vulnerable children in the context of HIV/AIDS and widespread poverty in Kopanong Municipality, Free State
    (2009) Tamasane, Tsillso; Head, Judith
    Despite the lack of evidence, a huge body of literature continues to suggest that there is a crisis of care for children who are orphaned by AIDS. Based on a study of Kopanong Municipality in Free State, this study investigated extended family care for orphans and other vulnerable children in the context of ubiquitous poverty and the high prevalence of HIV/AIDS. It asked whether the application of current welfare policies recognises or facilitates extended family care for orphans. The care for orphans has been conceptualised in terms of the lack of adequate number of members of extended family who would provide care for orphans and the quality of care which orphans receive from their carers. To address questions of care for orphans and implications for welfare policies, this study employed both quantitative and qualitative research techniques to gather information on the prevalence of orphans, their living conditions, and types of care and support available, available welfare services and access thereto.