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Demographic correlates of indices of psychological well-being and COVID-19 related distress among South African university students

- Coetzee, Bronwyn, Booysen, Duane D, Padmanabhanunni, Anita, Kagee, Ashraf

  • Authors: Coetzee, Bronwyn , Booysen, Duane D , Padmanabhanunni, Anita , Kagee, Ashraf
  • Date: 2024
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/454082 , vital:75308 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00207411.2024.2324403"
  • Description: Following the COVID-19 pandemic we sought to determine the relationships between anxiety, hopelessness, alcohol use, perceived vulnerability to infection, resilience, traumatic stress, and satisfaction with life amongst university students at three tertiary higher education institutions in South Africa. Our participants were a convenience sample (N = 803) of South African students attending three universities. Participants completed an online survey that contained a battery of psychological measures that measured fear of COVID-19, Perceived Vulnerability to Disease, Resilience, Satisfaction with Life Scale, Hopelessness, Anxiety, PTSD, Alcohol Use, Traumatic Stress, and worry about infection with COVID-19. The mean age of participants was 25 (SD = 8.22), most of whom were female (51%). An increase in age amongst respondents was significantly positively correlated with hopelessness and life satisfaction, but also significantly negatively associated with symptoms of anxiety, PTSD, and alcohol use. Multivariate analysis showed that women reported significantly higher levels of fear of COVID-19, perceived vulnerability to disease, PTSD, and COVID-19 related worries compared to men and those identifying as “other.” Students at the urban university reported higher levels of fear of COVID-19, perceived vulnerability to disease, and COVID-19 related worries but lower levels of anxiety compared to those at the peri-urban and rural university. Students at the rural institution reported greater levels of alcohol use compared to those at the other institutions. Psychological distress among students was exacerbated during the pandemic. It may be useful to identify students in the first term who are struggling academically and to direct them to both academic and counseling support services.
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  • Date Issued: 2024

Comparative situational analysis of comprehensive abortion care in four Southern African countries

- Macleod, Catriona I, Reuvers, Megan, Reynolds, John H, Lavelanet, Antonella, Delate, Richard

  • Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Reuvers, Megan , Reynolds, John H , Lavelanet, Antonella , Delate, Richard
  • Date: 2023
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/441199 , vital:73865 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2023.2217442"
  • Description: We report on a comparative situational analysis of comprehensive abortion care (CAC) in Botswana, Eswatini, Lesotho and Namibia. We conducted systematic literature searches and country consultations and used a reparative health justice approach (with four dimensions) for the analysis. The following findings pertain to all four countries, except where indicated. Individual material dimension: pervasive gender-based violence (GBV); unmet need for contraception (15−17%); high HIV prevalence; poor abortion access for rape survivors; fees for sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services (Eswatini). Collective material dimension: no clear national budgeting for SRH; over-reliance on donor funding (Eswatini; Lesotho); no national CAC guidelines or guidance on legal abortion access; poor data collection and management systems; shortage and inequitable distribution of staff; few facilities providing abortion care. Individual symbolic dimension: gender norms justify GBV; stigma attached to both abortion and unwed or early pregnancies. Collective symbolic dimension: policy commitments to reducing unsafe abortion and to post-abortion care, but not to increasing access to legal abortion; inadequate research; contradictions in abortion legislation (Botswana); inadequate staff training in CAC. Political will to ensure CAC within the country’s legislation is required. Reparative health.
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  • Date Issued: 2023

Governing pregnancy in the Global South: the case of post-apartheid South Africa

- du Plessis, Ulandi, Macleod, Catriona I

  • Authors: du Plessis, Ulandi , Macleod, Catriona I
  • Date: 2023
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/441212 , vital:73867 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13698575.2023.2249943"
  • Description: Women who sell sex (WSS) are vulnerable to violence. We present a scoping review of the last decade of research on the prevalence and incidence of, factors associated with, and services regarding violence against WSS in Eastern and Southern African (ESA). A systematic search of various databases resulted in 20 papers being reviewed. Inclusion criteria, applied by the first two authors, were as follows: empirical papers, key research problem is violence against WSS, and conducted in ESA countries. The lifetime prevalence of violence revealed in the studies ranged from 21% to 82%. A pattern of generalized violence against WSS from paying clients, male partners, strangers, family members, friends/acquaintances, and the authorities emerged. Factors associated with violence included the context within which the sex work occurs, alcohol use, type of sex exchange interactions, and personal factors (low education, low income, marriage, youth, high client volume, time in sex work, forced sexual debut, and internalized sex work stigma). WSS seldom access services after violence. Evaluations of two programs, a woman-focused HIV intervention, and the Diagonal Interventions to Fast-Forward Reproductive Health project, showed improvements in gender-based violence services. Findings suggest that targeted programmes should be paired with improving general health services and focus on promoting collective agency among WSS.
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  • Date Issued: 2023

Grandmothers of the sea: Stories and lessons from five Xhosa ocean elders

- Francis, Buhle, McGarry Dylan K

  • Authors: Francis, Buhle , McGarry Dylan K
  • Date: 2023
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , book chapter
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/433926 , vital:73010 , ISBN 9781003355199 , https://www.taylorfrancis.com/chapters/edit/10.4324/9781003355199-12/grandmothers-sea-buhle-francis-dylan-mcgarry
  • Description: We surface a historical, political, spiritual, economic and cultural analysis made by five Xhosa Grandmothers based in the Eastern Cape, regarding their entangled relationship with the Ocean. A nuanced, complex relationship with the ocean and the politics of natural resource management in South Africa emerged from our interviews, as scholar-activists, with these Grandmothers, and this chapter attempts to explore how a gendered upbringing, with its associated roles and responsibilities, have created a unique relationship with the ocean that must be understood in all its nuanced and complex facets. We explore how the identities and values of these Xhosa Grandmothers are relationally entangled with the ocean and politics of South Africa, and explore the deep ecological knowledge that they hold, yet is shamelessly ignored. Through their own renderings, we unpack the rich understanding of marine species, customary rights, ocean policy and governance practices that impact, impede and complicate their lives. Working with first-hand accounts (stories translated from Xhosa), the Grandmothers provide a nuanced and brazen analysis of the status quo of ocean governance, ocean literacy and policy. They unpack what interventions are needed, and call for a response that recognises Grandmothers as central to South Africa’s wellbeing, a health that sits precariously with the complex realities of older women’s entangled and diverse vulnerabilities. Finally, the firsthand accounts and analyses made by the Grandmothers, offer a politically rigorous contribution to the field of hydrofeminism, one told in their own way, using their own idiomatic rendering, with their own metaphors and figurations.
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  • Date Issued: 2023

Local peoples’ knowledge and perceptions of Australian wattle (Acacia) species invasion, ecosystem services and disservices in grassland landscapes, South Africa

- Yapi, Thozamile S, Shackleton, Charlie M, Le Maitre, David C, Dziba, Luthando E

  • Authors: Yapi, Thozamile S , Shackleton, Charlie M , Le Maitre, David C , Dziba, Luthando E
  • Date: 2023
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/399791 , vital:69559 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2023.2177495"
  • Description: Many alien tree species were introduced into grassland ecosystems in South Africa by the commercial forestry industry for paper and timber for furniture. Over decades some of these introduced species escaped into neighbouring farms and community land. Adult trees from these alien species now provide other ecosystem services, notably fuelwood. Depending on the spatio-temporal context, many of these species can also negatively affect ecosystem services. We collected interview data from commercial and communal farmers in the upper Umzimvubu catchment in South Africa to compare farmers’ knowledge and perceptions of invasive wattle species invasion and their associated ecosystem services and disservices. Fuelwood and fencing poles were the most common uses of wattle by commercial (83%; 67%) and communal (99%; 49%) farmers. On the other hand, the reduction of grass cover and loss of grazing land were the most commonly mentioned negative impacts of wattles by commercial (83%; 75%) and communal (92%; 80%) farmers. Although both groups recognise the importance of wattles in providing ecosystem services, most communal farmers perceived wattles to have more negative effects than benefits. The findings demonstrate that both farmer groups highly depend on ecosystem services and are affected by disservices of wattles. However, while large-scale commercial households favour the presence of wattles in the landscape, communal households prefer complete removal of the wattles from the landscape. This may be due to lack of locally available alternative options or inability to replace or purchase ecosystem services affected by wattles from other sources or markets like commercial farmers.
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  • Date Issued: 2023

Male peer talk about menstruation: Discursively bolstering hegemonic masculinities among young men in South Africa

- Macleod, Catriona I, Glover, Jonathan M, Makuse, Manase, Kelland, Lindsay, Paphitis, Sharli A

  • Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Glover, Jonathan M , Makuse, Manase , Kelland, Lindsay , Paphitis, Sharli A
  • Date: 2023
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/441253 , vital:73870 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23293691.2022.2057830"
  • Description: In this paper, we show how male peer talk about menstruating women may be used to discursively bolster hegemonic masculinities and denigrate women. Focus group discussions among 37 young isiXhosa-speaking men from two South African schools were facilitated by two young men; statements garnered from a sexuality education class about menstruation conducted in the same schools were used as cues. Data were analyzed using discourse analysis. The interactive talk constructed a bifurcation: “disgusting” menstruating women versus “reasonable” non-menstruating women who abide by idealized feminine behavior and are available sexually. We argue that as the non-menstruating woman cyclically become the other (menstruating woman) in women of particular ages, the trace of disgust inhabits the signifier “woman” for these men. Menstruation also disrupted a core identity strategy of local hegemonic masculinities: virile (hetero)sexuality. Given this, discursive distancing of the self from the very topic of menstruation is necessary. Small moments of resistance to these constructions were quickly closed down, and caring masculinity emerged only in the context of negotiating sex during menstruation. Involving men in menstrual hygiene management programs may provide spaces for resistance to denigrating discourses about menstruation.
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  • Date Issued: 2023

The binary order of things: A discursive study of nursing students’ talk on providing, and learning about, LGBT patient care

- Pinto, Pedro, Macleod, Catriona I, Nhamo-Murire, Mercy

  • Authors: Pinto, Pedro , Macleod, Catriona I , Nhamo-Murire, Mercy
  • Date: 2023
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/441343 , vital:73878 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00918369.2022.2048163"
  • Description: Against the backdrop of the healthcare inequities and maltreatment facing LGBT patients, recommendations have been made for the inclusion of LGBT health topics in nursing curricula. Based on data collected in focus group discussions with South African nursing students, we complicate the assumption that training focused on health-specific knowledge will effectively reform providers’ prejudicial practices. Findings reveal ambivalence: silence and discrimination versus inclusive humanism. Participants drew on discourses of ignorance, religion, and egalitarian treatment to justify their inadequacy regarding LGBT patients; while doing so, however, they deployed othering discourses in which homophobic and transphobic disregard is rendered acceptable, and “scientifically” supported through binary, deterministic views of sexuality and gender. Such “expert” views accord with Foucault’s notion of “grotesque discourse.” We conclude with a discussion of the findings’ implications for nursing education; we call for the recognition and teaching of binary ideology as a form of discursive violence over LGBT lives.
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  • Date Issued: 2023

The prevalence, uses and cultural assimilation of shrub and tree invasive alien plants in a biodiversity hotspot along the Wild Coast, South Africa

- Wootton, Oscar, Shackleton, Charlie M

  • Authors: Wootton, Oscar , Shackleton, Charlie M
  • Date: 2023
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/401314 , vital:69725 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2023.2216804"
  • Description: Invasive alien plant species (IAPS) frequently offer both ecosystem services and disservices to rural communities with high livelihood dependency on local landscapes. However, biocultural relationships with IAPS may go deeper than just provisioning uses, as they may be assimilated into local belief systems manifest in them becoming embedded in cultural constructions such as naming, stories, songs and ceremonies. It is likely that IAPS that are culturally assimilated will represent a greater conflict of interest in the face of proposed controls of IAPS in biodiversity hotspots where conservation priorities are frequently deemed paramount by external agencies. Using a mixed-methods approach we undertook roadside surveys of 17 selected IAPS along the 250 km Wild Coast section of the Maputaland-Pondoland-Albany biodiversity hotspot, accompanied by questionnaire interviews with 48 local people. The mean number of IAPS per site was four, ranging from zero (only one site) to ten, and local inhabitants deemed the abundance of all but one of the species to be increasing. All species had been in the region for decades, had a vernacular name, and all but one had direct consumptive uses. Species with multiple uses were more widely recognised. However, there was only marginal incorporation of the IAPS into stories, songs and ceremonies, although medicinal uses of some IAPS were for cultural/spiritual needs rather than physical ailments per se. These results show that despite widespread use, there was as yet relatively limited cultural assimilation of the IAPS in the Wild Coast region.
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  • Date Issued: 2023

The Southern African Program on Ecosystem Change and Society: an emergent community of practice

- Biggs, Reinette, Reyers, Belinda, Blanchard, Ryan, Clements, Hayley S, Cockburn, Jessica J, Cumming, Graeme S, Cundill, Georgina, de Vos, Alta, Dziba, Luthando E, Esler, Karen J, Fabricius, Christo, Hamann, Maike, Henriksson, Rebecka, Kotschy, Karen, Lindborg, Regina, Luvuno, Linda, Masterson, Vanessa A, Nel, Jeanne L, O'Farrell, Patrick, Palmer, Carolyn G, Pereira, Laura, Pollard, Sharon, Preiser, Rika, Roux, Dirk J, Scholes, Robert J, Selomane, Odirlwe, Shackleton, Charlie M, Shackleton, Sheona E, Sitas, Nadia, Slingsby, Jasper A, Spierenburg, Marja, Tengö, Maria

Women farmers leading and co-learning in an agroecology movement at the intersections of gender and climate

- Chanyau, Ludwig, Rosenberg, Eureta

  • Authors: Chanyau, Ludwig , Rosenberg, Eureta
  • Date: 2023
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/373873 , vital:66730 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/10130950.2023.2239313"
  • Description: This study, carried out in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa, was particularly interested in women farmers’ access to social learning spaces for expanding their knowledge about farming in the context of climate change. Small-scale women and peasant farmers face historical intersectional inequalities as a result of the colonial and apartheid past which has continued to disadvantage women in the present through exclusion, limited or no access to finance, insecure or no land tenure, little bargaining power and unequal access to water. The gender prejudices and unequal access to resources experienced by women is brought into sharp relief by climate change. The article provides a case study of an agroecology movement led by women farmers that promotes climate-appropriate, low-cost farming practices using community and home gardens. The practices are tried out and further developed by women farmers themselves, relying on agroecology-informed extension services, open dialogue and the support of communities of practice. Unlike traditional top-down approaches to farmer learning common in public extension services, extension officers in the movement participate in creating conditions for co-learning and co-construction of new knowledge − that is, social learning − thus responding directly to their needs as farmers. The lead researcher joined in and observed farming and learning activities following an ethnographic approach. Farmers and other movement members were engaged in semi-structured interviews which explored the value derived from social learning (Wenger-Trayner and Wenger-Trayner Citation2020). The article concludes that the movement is responding to many of the intersectional challenges that women farmers in the Eastern Cape face. Further, its social learning approach holds potential for expanding women farmers’ ability to provide for themselves and their communities and inform their climate change adaptation.
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  • Date Issued: 2023

An assessment of the medium-term reproductive success of an extralimital white rhinoceros population

- Truter, Anja, Mgqatsa, Nokubonga, Parker, Daniel M

  • Authors: Truter, Anja , Mgqatsa, Nokubonga , Parker, Daniel M
  • Date: 2022
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/462570 , vital:76315 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/15627020.2022.2132120"
  • Description: The white rhinoceros (Ceratotherium simum) is threatened primarily due to continued poaching for its horns. In South Africa, partly to promote the conservation of the species, white rhinos have been introduced into areas where they did not occur historically (i.e. where they are considered extralimital). Few studies have investigated the conservation contribution of extralimital white rhinos to the overall national herd. We aimed to determine whether the white rhinos introduced to a private game reserve in the Eastern Cape province have been successful from a reproductive perspective. We calculated inter-calving intervals, age at first calving, sex ratios of calves, and recruitment rates for white rhinos at a single site between 1992 and 2019. The average net annual population growth rate for the population was 10%, which is higher than the recommended 5% by the Biodiversity Management Plan for white rhinos. Trends in density-dependent parameters such as age at first calving and inter-calving intervals also indicated that the study population is still well below the density at which ecological constraints may manifest. We demonstrate that an extralimital white rhino population in the Eastern Cape can be successful from a reproductive perspective.
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  • Date Issued: 2022

Beyond epistemology: the challenge of reconceptualising knowledge in higher education

- Luckett, Kathy, Blackie, Margaret A L

  • Authors: Luckett, Kathy , Blackie, Margaret A L
  • Date: 2022
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426598 , vital:72371 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2022.2111206"
  • Description: In this Point of Departure, we build on the scholarship of Suellen Shay. Shay explored the nature of higher education, examining assessment and the relation between curriculum and knowledge structures across several disciplines. She drew on the work of Bernstein and in her later work responded to the calls for decolonisation. We first contextualise the work of Basil Bernstein and explain its attraction for scholars of education development in the South African HE context. We then provide a brief summary of recent decolonial scholarship. On this basis, we speculate what a critique and caricature of the Bernsteinian tradition by the decolonial school might look like. In turn we offer a caricatured rebuttal by the Bernsteinian school to the decolonial critique. Finally, we pull our argument together and, by drawing on Bhaskar’s critical realism, assert the importance of an adequate theorisation of ontology.
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  • Date Issued: 2022

From affirmative to transformative approaches to academic development

- McKenna, Sioux, Hlengwa, Amanda, Quinn, Lyn, Vorster, Jo-Anne E

  • Authors: McKenna, Sioux , Hlengwa, Amanda , Quinn, Lyn , Vorster, Jo-Anne E
  • Date: 2022
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426651 , vital:72375 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2022.2119077"
  • Description: Much academic development work, whether it be student, academic staff, institutional or curriculum development, is undertaken from an affirmative rather than a transformative approach (Luckett, L., and S. Shay. 2020.“Reframing the Curriculum: A Transformative Approach.” Critical Studies in Education61 (1): 50–65). To be transformative, academic development has to reframe the problem beyond one of poor student retention and throughput. We need to make sense of the conditions from which issues such as poor retention and throughput rates emerge, rather than focusing on mitigating the effects of such conditions within the status quo. Drawing on Fraser’s concept of parity of participation, we suggest that if academic development is to engage in transformative approaches, it needs to adjust the scale of the problem and challenge underpinning assumptions, and thereby review the fitness of universities, curricula and academic development practices for a pluralist society. In sum, a transformative approach to academic development work will entail conceptualising academic development as a political knowledge project.
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  • Date Issued: 2022

Interdisciplinarity requires careful stewardship of powerful knowledge

- McKenna, Sioux, de Bie G J

  • Authors: McKenna, Sioux , de Bie G J
  • Date: 2022
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , book chapter
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/434487 , vital:73068 , ISBN 9780367518707 , https://www.routledge.com/Enhancing-Science-Education-Exploring-Knowledge-Practices-with-Legitimation/Blackie-Adendorff-Mouton/p/book/9780367518707#:~:text=The%20book%20introduces%20Legitimation%20Code,grasp%20difficult%20and%20dense%20concepts
  • Description: This book helps meet an urgent need for theorized, accessible and discipline-sensitive publications to assist science, technology, engineering and mathematics educators. The book introduces Legitimation Code Theory (LCT) and demonstrates how it can be used to improve teaching and learning in tertiary courses across the sciences. LCT provides a suite of tools which science educators can employ in order to help their students grasp difficult and dense concepts. The chapters cover a broad range of subjects, including biology, physics, chemistry and mathematics, as well as different curriculum, pedagogy and assessment practices. This is a crucial resource for any science educator who wants to better understand and improve their teaching.
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  • Date Issued: 2022

Livestock ecosystem services and disservices in a medium-sized South African town

- Thondhlana, Gladman, Papama, Yose, Cockburn, Jessica J, Shackleton, Charlie M

  • Authors: Thondhlana, Gladman , Papama, Yose , Cockburn, Jessica J , Shackleton, Charlie M
  • Date: 2022
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/403241 , vital:69937 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/26395916.2021.2019833"
  • Description: Production of livestock in urban spaces is a common phenomenon globally, particularly in the Global South. Livestock provides multiple benefits to society yet its production in urban spaces can result in adverse impacts to residents that can trigger conflicts. Understanding of the ecosystem services and disservices of livestock from the perspectives of residents can inform inclusive local management plans. Using household surveys and key informant interviews, this study sought to examine the contribution of livestock to owners, and perceptions of livestock services and disservices among non-livestock owners and key informants in Makhanda, a medium-sized South African town. Livestock owners derived multiple benefits from their livestock, including provisioning services such as meat, milk, skins and draught, and use livestock and livestock products in cultural activities such as rituals, bride price payments and funerals that are key elements of local identity. Among residents, there were marked differences in perceptions on the services and disservices of livestock which points to potential conflicts over urban land use and the need for addressing trade-offs. A key trade-off for local municipal authorities is addressing hunger and poverty by supporting well-regulated urban livestock production versus managing potential livestock disservices such as injuries to humans, livestock-vehicle collisions, health hazards and damage to urban green infrastructure. The trade-offs should be understood and considered by local authorities and residents as a basis for collectively developing strategies that can integrate livelihoods and cultural realities to balance competing demands for urban spaces including livestock production and other uses.
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  • Date Issued: 2022

Male Peer Talk About Menstruation: Discursively Bolstering Hegemonic Masculinities Among Young Men in South Africa

- Macleod, Catriona I, Glover, Jonathan M, Makusem, Manase, Kelland, Lindsay, Paphitis, Sharli A

  • Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Glover, Jonathan M , Makusem, Manase , Kelland, Lindsay , Paphitis, Sharli A
  • Date: 2022
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426502 , vital:72358 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/23293691.2022.2057830"
  • Description: In this paper, we show how male peer talk about menstruating women may be used to discursively bolster hegemonic masculinities and denigrate women. Focus group discussions among 37 young isiXhosa-speaking men from two South African schools were facilitated by two young men; statements garnered from a sexuality education class about menstruation conducted in the same schools were used as cues. Data were analyzed using discourse analysis. The interactive talk constructed a bifurcation: “disgusting” menstruating women versus “reasonable” non-menstruating women who abide by idealized feminine behavior and are available sexually. We argue that as the non-menstruating woman cyclically become the other (menstruating woman) in women of particular ages, the trace of disgust inhabits the signifier “woman” for these men. Menstruation also disrupted a core identity strategy of local hegemonic masculinities: virile (hetero)sexuality. Given this, discursive distancing of the self from the very topic of menstruation is necessary. Small moments of resistance to these constructions were quickly closed down, and caring masculinity emerged only in the context of negotiating sex during menstruation. Involving men in menstrual hygiene management programs may provide spaces for resistance to denigrating discourses about menstruation.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2022

Neoliberalism’s conditioning effects on the university and the example of proctoring during COVID-19 and since

- McKenna, Sioux

  • Authors: McKenna, Sioux
  • Date: 2022
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426929 , vital:72401 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/14767430.2022.2100612"
  • Description: Neoliberalism has shaped the academy in ways that constrain its potential as a public good. Neoliberalism is based on the assumption that, by submitting to the so-called neutral forces of the market, wealth can be created alongside the achievement of equality and efficiency. Although this assumption is demonstrably false, neoliberalism remains politically powerful. As an example, this article discusses how neoliberalism has enabled the rapid uptake of proctoring software during the covid pandemic and since. ‘Proctoring' is the online monitoring of students’ behaviour as they sit for exams. Many within the academy consider proctoring software to be dehumanizing – essentially legalized spyware. They argue that the software invades privacy and is inherently racist and ableist, amongst other things. It is hoped that by understanding how structural forces such as neoliberalism affect both our agency and university activities, frequently against the common good, strategies can be developed to change these structures.
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  • Date Issued: 2022

Not there yet: knowledge building in educational development ten years on

- Boughey, Chrissie

  • Authors: Boughey, Chrissie
  • Date: 2022
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/426954 , vital:72403 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/13562517.2022.2121158"
  • Description: This paper responds to a question posed by [Shay, Suellen. 2012. “Educational Development as a Field: Are We There Yet?” Higher Education Research and Development 31 (3): 311–323. doii:10.1080/07294360.2011.631520] about the status of knowledge building in the field of Educational Development. In her paper, Shay critiques knowledge produced in the field arguing that it is ‘codified practice’ [Gamble, Jeanne. 2001. “Modelling the Invisible: The Pedagogy of Craft Apprenticeship.” Studies in Continuing Education 23 (2): 185–200. doii:10.1080/01580370120101957; Gamble, Jeanne. 2004. “Retrieving the General from the Particular: The Structure of Craft Knowledge.” In Reading Bernstein, Researching Bernstein, edited by J. Muller, B. Davies, and A. Morais, 189–203. Abingdon: Routledge; Gamble, Jeanne. 2006. “Theory and Practice in the Vocational Curriculum.” In Knowledge, Curriculum and Qualifications in South African Further Education, edited by M. Young and J. Gamble, 87–103. Pretoria: HSRC Press] rather than applied theory which could succeed in reconceptualising problems rather than simply trying to address them. This paper draws on a review of research produced in the field in recent years in South Africa to argue that, although some work does result in the reconceptualision of problems the higher education, it is limited in that (i) it has been produced by a relatively small group of practitioners located at a few universities and (ii) draws on theory developed in the Global North. The paper then proceeds to offer some tentative suggestions for the way future work aimed at knowledge building could proceed.
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  • Date Issued: 2022

Regioselectivity, chemical bonding and physical nature of the interaction between imidazole and XAHs (X= H, F, Cl, Br, CH3, and A= S, Se, Te)

- Isamura, Bienfait K, Lobb, Kevin A, Muya, Jules T

  • Authors: Isamura, Bienfait K , Lobb, Kevin A , Muya, Jules T
  • Date: 2022
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/453183 , vital:75229 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/00268976.2022.2026511"
  • Description: Theambidentreactivityofsmall-sizedXAHs(X=H,F,Cl,Br,CH3,andA=S,Se,Te)moleculestowardsthe imidazole molecule (IMZ) has been investigated using wave function (MP2) and Density Func-tional Theory (B3LYP, B3LYP-D3). Molecular electrostatic potentials (MEPs) and frontier molecularorbitals of monomers are computed to rationalise the regioselectivity of IMZ towards XAHs. Thechemical bonding of each complex is described in the framework of the quantum theory of atomsin molecules (QTAIM) and natural bond orbital (NBO) paradigms. The symmetry-adapted pertur-bation theory (SAPT) is employed to assess the physical nature of the interactions. Our findingssuggest that XAHs mainly bind to IMZ through H-bonding and chalcogen-bonding interactionsof weak to moderate strength, with binding energies ranging from−3.1 to−17.6 kcal/mol at theMP2/aug-cc-pVDZ(-PP) level. Topological QTAIM descriptors reveal all H-bonds between IMZ andXAHs to be purely noncovalent contacts, while chalcogen bonds of halogenated XAHs (X=F, Cl, Br) show a partial covalent character. SAPT2 calculations indicate that both H-bonded and chalcogen-bonded complexes are mainly stabilised by electrostatic interactions. Insights drawn from this studyare expected to constitute the bedrock for further investigations about noncovalent interactionbetween middle to big-sized chalcogen-containing molecules and imidazole derivatives.
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  • Date Issued: 2022

Reproductive health systems analyses and the reparative reproductive justice approach: a case study of unsafe abortion in Lesotho

- Macleod, Catriona I, Reynolds, John H

  • Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Reynolds, John H
  • Date: 2022
  • Subjects: To be catalogued
  • Language: English
  • Type: text , article
  • Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/441288 , vital:73874 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/17441692.2021.1887317"
  • Description: Health systems analyses are touted as mechanisms through which health policy and planning may be implemented. An example is the WHO health systems approach that connects people (needs, rights, perspectives) with services and technologies (equitable access, quality of care, mix of interventions) and with policies and institutional capacities (laws, regulations, human/physical resources, management and financing). The approach is comprehensive and multi-faceted, which is a strength. We argue, however, that health systems analyses should be supplemented with a focus on reproductive justice. Using the WHO health systems approach as an exemplar, we show how the reparative reproductive justice approach outlined by the first author and colleagues assists with outlining comprehensive remedies to the inequities identified in the systems analysis. We argue for attention to remedies at individual and collective, material and symbolic levels. We illustrate our argument using unsafe abortion, legal abortion services and post-abortion care in Lesotho as a case study. We outline the policies, services and people components of abortion in Lesotho using the WHO systems model, followed by a reparative justice analysis of remedies.
  • Full Text:
  • Date Issued: 2022
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