Browsing by Author "Bawa, Umesh"

Now showing 1 - 5 of 5
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    African youth constructions of safety: A multi-country photovoice study
    (University of the Western Cape, 2024) Bawa, Umesh; Shefer, Tamara
    In this doctoral dissertation, I examined Mozambican, South African, and Zambian youth explanations of safety, the lack of safety, and danger. I was particularly focused on resisting epistemic violence and supporting youth epistemic agency in this project. The study is situated within a multi-African country Photovoice project and underscores the importance of considering youth constructions of safety within their socio-political contexts and their everyday lived realities, often shaped by unequal globalised power relations, colonial legacies, and contemporary socio-economic dynamics. Through a presentation and analysis of both the unmediated and mediated youth accounts of safety and danger, I highlight how youth may enact epistemic agency and the complexities and fluidity evident in youth knowledge-making processes. Aligned with the tenets of critical psychology, liberatory psychology, and decolonial community psychology, as well as positive youth development and social justice approaches, I represent youth in the study as competent and conscious social and epistemic agents, challenging the view that academia is the singular site of legitimate knowledge production, and that policymaking is the domain solely of adult politicians and decision-makers.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Clinical psychology training in South Africa: a call to action
    (Sage Publications, 2013) Pillay, Anthony; Ahmed, Rashid; Bawa, Umesh
    With the profession of clinical psychology and its formal training programmes less than 40 years old in South Africa, it is important that efforts are made to critically examine its challenges and the extent to which it is meeting the prevailing mental health needs. The profession has gone through a chequered history in South Africa and needs to look at how it realigns its goals and practices, to be in tune with the imperatives of democracy, and to ensure that mental health benefits accrue to all of the country’s people, rather than a minority. To this end, the authors examine training issues, such as recruitment, curricula, and future directions. We assert that a clinical psychology that draws from current resources and foregrounds a primary health-care orientation can start to address some of the challenges facing training in South Africa.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    The experiences of transgender female sex workers within their families, occupation and the health care system
    (University of the Western Cape, 2018) Vickerman, Shelley Ann; Bawa, Umesh; van Wyk, Brian Eduard
    There is a dearth of scholarly literature surrounding transgender female sex workers (TFSW) within South Africa. Their voices are often marginalised and not adequately heard in the literature and in a society that generally views gender as a fundamental element of the self, determining their subject positions against binaried heteronormative gender ideals. This process of the ‘othering’ of TFSW, is exacerbated by the moralistic judging of their occupation of sex work. This has left many TFSWs vulnerable to emotional abuse such as being socially stigmatised, discriminated against and socially isolated. The literature further echoes vulnerability to physical violence, such as hate crimes, rape, heightened HIV infection, homelessness, police brutality and murder. The current study aimed to explore the subjective experiences of TFSW within their families, occupations and the healthcare system within the Cape Town metropole, South Africa. The study was framed within an intersectional feminist epistemological position, highlighting intersecting identities that marginalise groups of people. Informant driven sampling was used in the case of this study where a total of eleven participants were individually interviewed using a semi-structed approach – interviews ranged from 35-90 minutes. The data collected was subsequently analysed using thematic analysis and the three themes that emerged were: transgender female (TGF), Sex work and HIV. Family rejection and abuse based on participants non-conforming gender identity was expressed by participants. Repressive home circumstances led to many opting to live on the street. Participants described being introduced to sex work through a network of other homeless TFSW, also described as ‘Sisters’ (who fulfil the role of family) as a means of survival. Sex work for TGFs is a particularly dangerous job, as sex workers run the risk of being exposed as TGFs, often resulting in severe physical harm for some. To cope with their severe realities of violence and homelessness, many reported turning to substances, such as alcohol and methamphetamine. A total of ten participants described being HIV positive and adherence was very poor among the group. This could be attributed to stigmatisation from health workers, substance use and homelessness. This group of women, though vulnerable and structurally oppressed, displayed exceptional resilience. It is suggested that further research should be conducted on this group in the South African context for a clearer understanding of their needs and improved policy, as well as interventions for TFSW.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Gender patterns in the contribution of different types of violence to posttraumatic stress symptoms among South African urban youth
    (Elsevier, 2013) Kaminer, Debra; Hardy, Anneli; Heath, Katherine; Mosdell, Jill; Bawa, Umesh
    OBJECTIVE: Identifying the comparative contributions of different forms of violence exposure to trauma sequelae can help to prioritize interventions for polyvictimized youth living in contexts of limited mental health resources. This study aimed to establish gender patterns in the independent and comparative contributions of five types of violence exposure to the severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms among Xhosa-speaking South African adolescents. METHOD: Xhosa-speaking adolescents (n = 230) attending a high school in a low-income urban community in South Africa completed measures of violence exposure and posttraumatic stress symptoms. RESULTS: While witnessing of community violence was by far the most common form of violence exposure, for the sample as a whole only sexual victimization and being a direct victim of community violence, together with gender, contributed independently to the severity of posttraumatic stress symptoms. When the contribution of different forms of violence was examined separately for each gender, only increased exposure to community and sexual victimization were associated with symptom severity among girls, while increased exposure to direct victimization in both the community and domestic settings were associated with greater symptom severity in boys. CONCLUSIONS: The findings provide some preliminary motivation for focusing trauma intervention initiatives in this community on girls who have experienced sexual abuse compounded by victimization in the community, and boys who have been direct victims of either domestic or community violence. Further research is required to establish whether the risk factors for posttraumatic stress symptoms identified among adolescents in this study are consistent across different communities in South Africa, as well as across other resource-constrained contexts.
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    Visually negotiating hegemonic discourse through Photovoice: Understanding youth representations of safety
    (SAGE Publications, 2018) Malherbe, Nick; Suffla, Shahnaaz; Seedat, Mohamed; Bawa, Umesh
    Despite the immense communicative potential of visual methodologies, surprisingly few community-based research studies have meaningfully considered participants’ visual meaning-making processes. When working with youth participants from contexts with which researchers are unfamiliar, the use of visual methodologies and analyses is able to transcend much of the developmental and cultural barriers to communication that are inherent in many linguistically focused research methods. By employing a visual discourse analysis on six photographs captured by Ethiopian youth in a Multi-Country Photovoice Project on youth representations of safety, this study aims to showcase the value of analysing participants’ use of ‘alternative’ visual discourses. It was found that participants drew predominantly on two discourses, Humanising Capital and Unity, both of which resisted a number of Western hegemonic discourses surrounding youth constructions of safety. Participants’ visual constructions served as a meaningful mode of communication, as well as a relevant approach to facilitating youth ownership of meaning-making processes within community-based research.