Browsing by Author "Vale, Beth"

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    From manual to makeshift: the practice of community health work in Wallacedene and Bloekombos informal settlements
    (2012) Vale, Beth; Posel, Deborah; Hodes, Rebecca
    This thesis investigates community health workers' negotiation between the prescribed 'manual' for care and the lived realities of their field, exploring how prescriptions of public health are reappropriated through the micro-politics of everyday practice. What inventiveness, agency and tactical manoeuvres are woven between abstract ideals and situational demands? And how are these shaping the content of care? Community health work has been established as the model for health service delivery in resource-poor settings, particularly those hard-hit by AIDS. While its outcomes are widely celebrated, what this success looks like in practice remains under-explored. This dissertation investigates the messy application of this abstract model of care within a specific social context, exploring the place of care in the lives of carers, and how circumstantial pressures shape care delivery in unintended ways.