Browsing by Author "Masuku, Michelle Paidamwoyo"

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    Empowering young people in advocacy for transformation: A photovoice exploration of safe and unsafe spaces on a university campus
    (UNISA, 2015) Ngabaza, Sisa; Bojarczuk, Erika; Masuku, Michelle Paidamwoyo; Roelfse, Rudolf
    Globally and locally, research conducted with young people about safety on university campuses focuses primarily on risk and danger, particularly sexual danger. In this body of scholarship, the voices of young people are often elided. Our study intends to address both of these concerns, firstly by foregrounding the voices of students themselves through a photovoice method, and secondly by emphasising the ways in which safe and unsafe spaces are mediated by group and social identities. The aim of the study was to explore how students' perceptions of safe and unsafe places are mediated by group and social identities. A group of third-year students at an urban South African university used photovoice, a methodology that encourages participation and empowerment of young people in transforming their communities, to conduct a study identifying and photographing spaces they perceived safe and unsafe in and around campus. Narratives explained these photographs. The paper draws from this project, whose findings show that the construction of safety on campus is mediated by different factors of marginality within the student body including gender, class, citizenship and race among others. These findings are not only significant in raising concern about issues of safety on campus, but they also draw the attention of university stakeholders to these concerns, giving students a voice to be agents of transformation.
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    Migration as a climate change adaptation strategy in rural Zimbabwe: an analysis of the experiences of female climate migrants in Goromonzi district
    (University of the Western Cape, 2018) Masuku, Michelle Paidamwoyo; Karriem, Abdulrazak
    Climate change has induced a number of environmental issues that have affected people's lives beyond the scope of ecology; these effects have touched on the social, cultural and economic dimensions of life as well. In light of this, migration has increasingly been used as a climate adaptation strategy particularly in rural areas. This has not only changed migration patterns, it has also reconstructed the gender dynamics within the migration discourse through the ‘feminization of migration.’ Hence it has become important to analyse, understand and unpack the various ways in which women experience climate change and climate-induced migration, and how this has affected their lives. Additionally, women's position as active agents in climate migration and knowledge production has increasingly been acknowledged in climate and migration discourse This study focused on the effects of climate change on female migration patterns in Goromonzi District, Zimbabwe; and took place in Hiya village. The main research question aimed to find out if using migration as an adaptation strategy to climate change had positively changed the lives of women in rural Zimbabwe? With a focus on Hiya village in Goromonzi, Zimbabwe the research question was answered through identifying migration push factors for women, climate resistant livelihoods and the benefits of migration in light of climate induced environmental disasters. A mixed methods research approach was used however the research is largely qualitative.