Browsing by Author "Peters, Liesl"

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    A biographical inquiry into the occupational participation of men who drop out of school
    (2011) Peters, Liesl; Galvaan, Roshan; Kathard, Harsha
    This qualitative interpretive biographical inquiry describes the nature of the occupational participation of men in Lavender Hill who drop out of school. School dropout was constructed as an occupational transition for the purposes of this study and the occupational participation of men who drop out of school was considered in relation to this. Study participants were selected using purposive, maximum variation sampling. Achieving a sense of fidelity in the research process was critically considered, because of its complexities in relation to the use of biography. Ethical principles were rigorously applied...
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    Exploring how young women with visual impairments navigate their participation in recreational sport
    (2021) De Vos, Dellicia; Peters, Liesl; Lorenzo, Theresa
    Regular physical activity is important to improve overall quality of life (WHO, 2011). Improving the physical activity levels of persons with disabilities, however, has not received enough attention. Current global research has focused on identifying barriers that prevent persons with disabilities from participating in recreational sport, but few of these studies were conducted in Africa and even fewer focused on the experiences of women with vision impairments specifically. Further, none of them foregrounded a focus on how participation in recreational sports might be facilitated. This study therefore aimed to explore how women with vision impairments navigate their participation in recreational sports. Narrative inquiry was employed as the study design. Three young women with vision impairments from different communities in the Western Cape, South Africa, were purposely selected. Data was generated in the form of topical life stories and subjected to a rigorous, multi-layered analytic process. This involved ‘narrative analysis' and ‘analysis of narratives' to generate a single overarching theme: “Sport and life as interconnecting circles”. This theme revealed a reciprocal influence between sport and life. Here, ‘life' refers to participation across the broad spectrum of everyday life. The findings revealed that the socialisation of women with vision impairments in their early childhood influenced their ability to navigate their participation in recreational sports. The presence of people as social champions in these women's lives contributed to facilitating the participants' participation in sports and highlighted the importance of the social inclusion of women with vision impairments. The findings call for an embedded way of thinking about the social inclusion of women with vision impairments which allows for an organic evolution of participation in recreational sports. The implication is that sports participation for women with vision impairments would occur naturally and spontaneously if they were included in other spheres of life.
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    An occupatiobnal perspectice on the journey of recovery from substance abuse among young Zimbabwean men
    (2014) Nhunzvi, Clement; Galvaan, Roshan; Peters, Liesl
    Substance abuse is a rising global health and social problem that is associated with serious medical, psychiatric, family, occupational, legal, financial and spiritual problems. While recovery from substance abuse is possible, it is a subjective and contested process. To date, the recovery process has not been explored from an occupational perspective in Zimbabwe, where as many as 60% of all readmissions at Zimbabwe’s psychiatric referral centre during the period from January 2010 to December 2011 were secondary to substance-induced disorders, and less than three percent of these patients moved into long-term recovery or sustained sobriety with rehabilitation follow-up. This qualitative narrative inquiry explores the journey of recovery from substance abuse among young adult Zimbabwean men. The aim of the study was to investigate how occupations played a role in the recovery journeys of each of these men. Three young adult men identified as former substance abusers were purposively selected for the study. Data generation occurred through in-depth narrative interviews with each participant. Principles of trustworthiness and validation emphasising the persuasiveness, coherence and pragmatic use of the narratives were applied throughout the research process, and ethical issues in narrative research were upheld. Ethical clearance was applied for and granted by the University of Cape Town’s Human Ethics Research Committee and permission to do the research was sought and given by the Medical Research Council of Zimbabwe. The findings of the study — explanatory stories — were produced through narrative analysis. These stories revealed substance abuse to be an occupation associated with both positive and negative consequences. Recovery from such abuse emerged as an ongoing occupational transition negotiated through participation in other occupations, and influenced by both personal and environmental factors. The way in which occupations were abandoned, modified and newly adopted during the process of this occupational transition is discussed. The construction and reconstruction of a positive occupational identity was seen as central to the process of occupational transition. The study concluded that engagement and participation in ‘engaging occupations’ was an intricate contributor to the recovery journey for young adult Zimbabwean men, and that narrative interviews should be used in generating data to explore the occupational nature of life and its events.
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    Occupation-based Community Development Framework
    (2014-08-21) Galvaan, Roshan; Peters, Liesl
    This is a free guide to practice for occupational therapists intending to apply critical occupational therapy. It provides an outline for occupational therapists to practice in community development from an occupational and development perspective. This resource provides an introductory framework for occupation-based community development for occupational therapy students and practitioners. It outlines the iterative phases of intervention and illustrates how this is applied by means of a case study. Since the resource is based on on-going research by the authors, further detail will be added in the form of articles that detail how the occupational constructs have been re-conceptualised and strategies applied to ensure contextually relevant practice.
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    Pathways, through opportunity, towards social inclusion: a multiple case study of young womxn in marginalising contexts in post-apartheid South Africa
    (2024) Peters, Liesl; Galvaan, Roshan; Soudien, Crain
    Background Post-apartheid South Africa promised a born-free generation, but young people are not always able to participate in ways that allow them to live freely. Race, class and gender continue to be designated markers of particular life trajectories as young people operate from historically oppressed race, class and gender positions. Young womxn from and in such marginalising contexts experience an array of challenges that place them at risk of an experience of waithood and social exclusion. Various iterations of South African youth policies have suggested that certain kinds of opportunities could play a pivotal role in contributing to more prosperous futures for young people. Previous research concurs. However, the solutions offered through these policies have not resulted in an experience of different futures for young womxn at risk of social exclusion. An exploration of relevant literature on key concepts and related studies in occupational science, and other aligned disciplines, revealed the fragmented and static understanding that existed at the inception of this study about opportunity as a phenomenon that contributes to just and equitable outcomes. As such, critical and socially transformative occupational therapy and occupational science, as the broad grounds for the scholarly work presented in this thesis, have not contributed sizeable solutions to the problems of exclusion facing young people in South Africa. Notwithstanding, young womxn from and in marginalising contexts are capable of agency, demonstrating a responsiveness to social conditions that defies a victory of structure in 1 conclusively predetermining their experiences of everyday life. Examples exist of young womxn who have opened and walked their own pathways towards social inclusion. The need to learn from and with these young womxn was the focus of this research study. The aim of this study was therefore: To explore and describe how young womxn from and in marginalising contexts move towards experiences of social inclusion, through opportunity, in post-apartheid South Africa. Methods A merged theoretical perspective, including decoloniality as a form of critical social theory and the theory of structuration, oriented the understanding of the praxis of living for young womxn from and in marginalising contexts in South Africa. Such a perspective was central for apprehending the relational aspects of agency and structure in young womxn's lives, and how these played out in a context heavily shaped by apartheid and coloniality. The phenomenon explored in this study was defined as the movement of young womxn towards an experience of social inclusion, through opportunities. A qualitative, multiple case study design was applied, drawing on narrative inquiry as a key approach. Using purposive sampling and guided by selection advisors, three young womxn from different communities in the Western Cape Province of South Africa - who believed they were experiencing a more prosperous life that they likened to an experience of social inclusion - were selected to participate in the study. These womxn were willing to offer up their life histories as individual cases that we could explore and learn from. An array of data sources and data generation methods were used to construct each individual case narrative, utilising multiple perspectives. These included life history interviews, in-depth interviews and focus groups with people who were part of each young womxn's life, document analysis and observation. Participants also introduced artifacts which complimented and developed the understanding of their life trajectories. A narrative analytic approach supported the interpretive process to develop within-case inferences about the phenomenon, as it had manifested within the unique circumstances of each case. Following this, a cross-case analysis was conducted to develop an explanation of 2 the phenomenon. Trustworthiness was assured through a range of methods, the most important of which included multiple triangulation approaches, reflexive journaling, and a process of member checking that ensured the veracity of the individual case narratives. Further, data was generated over a prolonged period. These methods provided the foundation for a credible cross-case analysis. The study received ethical approval from the Faculty of Health Sciences Human Research Ethics Committee at the University of Cape Town. Strategies that ensured the ethical conduct of the study were applied throughout, with minimal risk to participants. Of central importance was the maintenance of confidentiality, since intricate and in-depth details were part of participants' life histories. This risk was mitigated by changing minor details that did not adversely affect the credibility of the data and protected the anonymity of participants. All participants expressed the benefits associated with having been able to share their experiences through the data generation processes in the study. Findings and Discussion The analytic process led to the development of an overarching intuition, comprised of a set of inferences, that illustrated that the way young womxn from and in marginalising contexts move towards social inclusion, through opportunity, is through the process of making-a-life. Making-a-life was understood as a uniquely crafted political praxis that is given impetus through a meshwork of lifelines, co-creating the likelihood of young womxn reaching towards social inclusion. Theorising this notion generated the key thesis in this study: that making-a-life is an ontogenetic praxis of correspondences that is routed within the meshwork. Making-a-life improvises with opportunities as possibilities-in-the-making, that must cohere within the context of young womxns' everyday lives to contribute valuably to this praxis. The cumulative result is the evolution of transgressive and generative agencies that operationalise a different social positioning for young womxn from and in marginalising contexts, making it possible to subvert the intentions of the modern/colonial post-apartheid context. Taking up these insights within the disciplines of occupational science and occupational therapy will require us to think relationally about agency, structure, opportunity and 3 occupation in ways that are acentred from the individual. The idea of making-a-life calls for a more explicit grasp of the relational and co-creational flows of doing over time. Conclusion and Implications The conceptualisation of pathways towards social inclusion, as acentred from young womxn as individuals, offers a new way to think about the focal point in youth interventions and policy options. This creates a space to reorient our practices towards understanding how to protect the integrity of the meshwork and create the coherence between opportunities and young womxn's everyday lives. Such actions/approaches have the potential to generate new vistas for the social inclusion of young womxn from and in marginalising contexts.