UWCScholar :: Browsing by Author "Shefer, Tamara"

Browsing by Author "Shefer, Tamara"

Now showing 1 - 20 of 68

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.
An exploratory study of experiences of parenting among a group of school-going adolescent mothers in a South African township
(University of the Western Cape, 2010) Ngabaza, Sisa; Shefer, Tamara; Women and Gender Studies; Faculty of Arts
This study explored adolescent girls' subjective experiences of being young mothers in school, focusing on their personal and interpersonal relationships within their social contexts. Participants included 15 young black mothers aged between 16 and 19 years from three high schools in Khayelitsha, Cape Town. Conducted within a feminist social constructionist framework, the study adopted an exploratory qualitative structure. Data were collected through life histories that were analysed within a thematic narrative framework. The narratives revealed that the young mothers found motherhood challenging and overly disruptive of school. Although contexts of childcare emerged as pivotal in how young mothers balanced motherhood and schoolwork, these were also presented as characterised by notions of power and control. Because of the gendered nature of care work, the women who supported the young mothers with childcare dominated the mothering spheres. The schools were also experienced as controlled and regulated by authorities in ways that constrained the young mothers balancing of school and parenting. Equally constraining to a number of adolescent mothers were structural challenges, for example, parenting in spaces that lacked resources. These challenges were compounded by the immense stigma attached to adolescent motherhood. The study recommended that the Department of Education work closely with all the parties concerned in ensuring that pregnant learners benefit from the policy. It is necessary that educators are encouraged to shift attitudes so that communication with adolescent mothers is improved.
'And I have been told that there is nothing fun about having sex while you are still in high school': Dominant discourses on women's sexual practices and desires in Life Orientation programmes at school
(University of the Free State, 2015) Shefer, Tamara; Ngabaza, Sisa
Young women's sexuality is a contested terrain in multiple ways in contemporary South Africa. A growing body of work in the context of HIV and gender-based violence illustrates how young women find it challenging to negotiate safe and equitable sexual relationships with men, and are often the victims of coercive sex, unwanted early pregnancies and HIV. On the other hand, young women's sexuality is also stigmatised and responded to in punitive terms in school or community contexts, as is evident in research on teenage pregnancy and parenting in schools. Within both these bodies of work, women's own narratives are missing, as well as their agency and a positive discourse on female sexuality. Female desires are absent in heteronormative practices and ideologies, as pointed out by feminist researchers internationally. A body of work on young women who parent at school has shown that a key component of the moralistic response to women's sexuality hinges on the way in which childhood, adolescence and adulthood are popularly understood, together with dominant notions of masculinity and femininity within heteronormative and middle-class notions of family. Such discourses are also salient in the responses and understandings of sexuality education in Life Orientation, particularly the way in which young women are represented. This paper draws from qualitative research conducted with teachers, school authorities and young people on sexuality education in the Life Orientation programme at schools in the Western and Eastern Cape. Key findings reiterate disciplinary responses to young women's sexuality, often framed within 'danger' and 'damage' discourses that foreground the denial of young women's sexual desire and practices within a framework of protection, regulation and discipline in order to avoid promised punishments of being sexually active.
Art as accessible knowledge for challenging intersectional gender binarisms
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Msebenzi, Thandiwe T.; Shefer, Tamara
Arts-based research struggles to find validation within the norms of rigid Eurocentric and androcentric academic norms. The Rhodes Must Fall movement, that started at the University of Cape Town in 2015, and the creative demonstrations/interventions that have occurred since then, as a tool for mass mobilisation and knowledge dissemination, were crucial in illustrating that art is an accessible form of pedagogy and scholarship in engaging with social issues. In this study, I centre creative practice to lead the research on an enquiry into alternative forms of gender, what I term �soft masculinities� and �tough femininities,� through memories of my experience, community and family, which I capture as nuanced expressions through photography. For the study, I use the visual body of artwork I created to formulate my research question.
�Because they are me�: Dress and the making of gender
(Taylor & Francis, 2018) Shefer, Tamara; Ratele, Kopano; Clowes, Lindsay
Young people in contemporary South Africa inhabit a multiplicity of diverse, often contradictory, economic and socio-cultural contexts. These contexts offer a range of possibilities and opportunities for the affirmation of certain identities and positionalities alongside the disavowal of others. Dress � clothes, accessories and body styling � is one of the key components through which, within specific social conditions, people perform these identities. In making statements about themselves in terms of these multiple and intersecting group (or social) historical identities, the meanings soaked into people�s dress simultaneously speak to the present and their aspirations for the future. This article reports on a study that explored how a group of third year students at a South African university use dress to negotiate the multiple and intersecting identities available to them in a context characterised by neoliberal democracy and market ideologies that continue to be mediated by the racialised legacies of apartheid. The study employed a qualitative feminist discourse analysis to consider 53 semi-structured in-depth interviews conducted by third year students with other students on campus as part of an ongoing project exploring gender productions and performance. The discussion focuses on student understandings of ways in which contemporary clothes and dress signal gender. The research suggests that while there are moments in which clothes are acknowledged as expressions that can reinforce or challenge inequalities structured around gender, participants are also strongly invested in neoliberal consumerist understandings of clothes as accessories to an individualised self in ways that reinforce neoliberal market ideologies and reinstate hegemonic performances of gender.
Coercive sexual practices and gender-based violence on a university campus
(Taylor & Francis, co-published with Unisa Press, 2009) Clowes, Lindsay; Shefer, Tamara; Fouten, Elron; Vergnani, Tania; Jacobs, Joachim
When a 22-year-old University of the Western Cape (UWC) female student was stabbed to death by her boyfriend (another student) in her room in the university residence on 25 August 2008, the entire campus was left reeling. Bringing the stark reality of gender-based violence (GBV) so close to home, the tragedy was a powerful reminder of the limits of more than a decade of legislative change, concerted activism, education, consciousness-raising and knowledge production aimed at challenging gender-based power inequalities. This article reflects on the relationships between violence, coercion and heterosexuality on a specific campus by drawing on data generated by a qualitative study at UWC that explored student constructions of heterosexual relationships in the light of national imperatives around HIV/AIDS and GBV. Involving 20 focus groups with male and female students over the course of 2008 and 2009, the study revealed that unequal and coercive practices are common in heterosexual relationships on this campus. The study underlined the necessity of understanding these relationships as produced through power inequalities inherent in normative gender roles, and also drew attention to ways in which gender power inequalities intersect in complex and sometimes contradictory ways with other forms of inequality on campus � in particular, class, age and geographical origin. While both men and women students appeared to experience pressure (linked to peer acceptance and material gain) to engage in (hetero)sexual relationships, it seems that first-year female students from poor, rural backgrounds are particularly vulnerable to the transactional and unequal relationships associated with coercive and sometimes even violent sexual practices. Alcohol and substance abuse also appear to be linked to unsafe and abusive sexual practices, and again it is young female students new to campus life who are most vulnerable. This article draws on the data from this larger study to explore experiences and understandings of the most vulnerable � young female students � in unpacking connections between (hetero)sexuality and violent and coercive sex in an educational institution.
The construction of masculinity and risk-taking behaviour among adolescent boys in seven schools in the Western Cape
(University of the Western Cape, 2006) Jeftha, Alethea; Shefer, Tamara; Women and Gender Studies; Faculty of Arts
The term, risk-taking, has often been used to describe some of the behaviours and their associated negative outcomes occurring during adloscence. Statistics have shown that South Africa has one of the highest rates of HIV/AIDS infection in the world, with most infections occurring during adolescence. The central aim in this study was to explore the relationship between current constructions of masculinity and risk-taking behaviours among a group of young South African men. It was an exploratory study, focused on exploring how young men construct their masculinities, and how this intersects with or impacts on adolescent male risk-taking behaviours. A key conclusion drawn at the end of this project was that some traditional notions of manhood still held sway, and these tied in strongly with how these participants constructed their masculinity.
The contemporary construction of the causality of HIV/AIDS :a discourse analysis and its implications for understanding national policy statements on the epidemic in South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2005) Judge, Melanie; Shefer, Tamara; Institute for Social Development; Faculty of Arts
This study was concerned with the social construction of HIV/AIDS at the policy level in contemporary South Africa, and how such constructions shape the manner in which the epidemic is understood in popular discourse.
Creating 'space' for publication: challenges faced by women academic staff members at historically Black South African universities
(University of the Western Cape, 2003) Maurtin-Cairncross, Anita; Shefer, Tamara; Women and Gender Studies; Faculty of Arts
In this study an attempt was made to explore the challenges with regard to publications experienced by academic women at three selected Historically Black Universities (HBUs). Although based predominantly within a feminist qualitative metholodogical framework, both qualitative and quantitative research methods were used in this study. Based on the findings of the study, the recommendations illustrated participants' responses. Some of the recommendations illustrated participants' expressed need of staff development with a specific focus on training in publication skills; mentoring and support networks; assistance and support for their publishing venture at both institutional and departmental level and the development of strategies that would assist academic women in 'juggling' their personal and academic roles.
A critical review of practices of inclusion and exclusion in the psychology curriculum in higher education
(Psychology in Society, 2015) Carolissen, Ronelle; Shefer, Tamara; Smit, Estian
Much of South African psychology has pursued the national imperative of critical engagement and reconstruction since 1994, in spite of collusion with Apartheid ideologies before 1994. Critical psychologists who mobilised against apartheid were also active post-1994 in reshaping the discipline and profession. Many of these efforts were directed towards curriculum development to attempt to challenge the dominance of western and northern scholarship in psychology by developing multiple texts that represented local experiences and challenged traditional asocial and ahistorical thinking in psychology. This paper presents critical thoughts on contemporary psychology in higher education, with a particular focus on progress made in curriculum transformation and demographic representativity, to interrogate the extent to which the profession continues to reproduce existing patterns of privilege and inclusion/exclusion. We suggest that considering curriculum as discourse which acts to reproduce larger power relations in society, may be a useful approach to think about inclusion and transformation of the curriculum in psychology.
Deconstructing the 'sugar daddy': A critical review of the constructions of men in intergenerational sexual relationships in South Africa
(Routledge, 2013) Shefer, Tamara; Strebel, Anna
Since a recent Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) prevalence study highlighted the relationship between intergenerational sex and risk of HIV infection, a range of studies in Southern Africa have documented the commonality of sexual relations between older men and young women. For the most part, these studies have focused on the material and status benefits for the young women, and on their vulnerability to HIV, violence and unwanted pregnancies, within the context of gender power inequalities to negotiate safe and equitable sex. In this Focus we review this literature and argue that there is a relative absence of focus on attempting to understand the older men's positions. We suggest the need for research that offers a more nuanced account of the complexities of men's performances of sexuality, which will move beyond depicting older men as inevitable perpetrators of unequal sexual relationships with younger women. In order to better understand and address the complexities of intergenerational sexual relationships, men's constructions of their sexuality and their gains and investments in such relationships require more critical analysis.
Discourses of heterosexual subjectivity and negotiation
(University of the Western Cape, 1999) Shefer, Tamara; Strebel, Ann Marie; Foster, Don; Dept. of Psychology; Faculty of Community and Health Sciences
It is widely acknowledged that there are problems with the way in which heterosexual relationships are negotiated. A critical focus on heterosexuality has been particularly stimulated by feminist discourse on gender power relations and the global imperative to challenge HIV infection. In the South African contextthere has been a growing on researching and education about (hetero)sexuality, particularly in the wake of the continued increase in HIV prevalence rates which are highest among young black, South Africans.
Discourses of heterosexual subjectivity and negotiation
(University of the Western Cape, 1999) Shefer, Tamara; Strebel, Ann-Marie
It is widely acknowledged that there are problems with the way in which heterosexual relationships are negotiated. A critical focus on heterosexuality has been particularly stimulated by feminist discourse on gender power relations and the global imperative to challenge HIV infection. In the South African context there has been a growing emphasis on researching and educating about (hetero)sexuality, particularly in the wake of the continued increase in HIV prevalence rates which are highest among young, black South Africans. A handful of South African studies point to the widespread nature of coercive sexuality characterised by male dominance and female submission and a lack of negotiation in respect of safe sex and sexual pleasure. This study addresses the realm of the negotiation of heterosexuality among black South African students at the University of the Western Cape (UWC), Cape Town. In the study, negotiation refers to two interrelated aspects: the negotiation of heterosexual subjectivity; and the negotiation of heterosexual sexuality (heterosex). The study is underpinned by a feminist poststructuralist conceptual framework and discourse analytic methodology which draws on qualitative methodologies, feminist approaches to research and discourse analysis. Three different methods were utilised to gather data: focus groups, a free-association questionnaire and written autobiographical essays. Participants of the study included psychology second and third year students at the UWC who were predominantly young (mean age of 23.3 years), black, of Christianity-related religious affiliation and non-English first language speakers. A discourse analysis together with an ethnographic analysis was carried out on the data which yielded a wide range of discursive themes on gender and heterosex. In looking at the negotiation of heterosexual subjectivities, there are vast differences in the experiences of'becoming' women and men: notably, puberty and menstruation are central in the construction of femininity and female sexuality, which are interwoven with each other in the construction of women as vulnerable, passive and restrained; on the other hand, boy's/men's subjectivities are centred about sexual agency and activity, competition and physical and mental 'hardness'. Nonetheless these rigidly divergent experiences of gendered heterosexualisation are also punctuated by resistance, ambivalence and contradiction, particularly in women's accounts. It is suggested that the difficulties involved in 'achieving' femininity for women may be implicated in their continued investment in these subjectivities in their contemporary contexts. In talk on negotiating heterosex, two central clusters of discourse emerge: discourses of difference, in which inevitable, essential (either biological or cultural) and incommensurable differences are assumed, Jr rationalised and reproduced by participants; discourses of power, resistance and change which draw on alternative discourses such as the feminist critique of male power, and also speak of and call for change. Central within all of these discourses is the virtual invisibility of a positive language to speak of women's sexuality and desires, which has as its underside a lack of alternative discourses on masculinity and male sexuality, in particular the absence of a positive discourse on men's vulnerability, non-sexual intimate desires, lack of sexual desire and resisting of power. The thesis suggests, on the basis of poststructuralist theories of change, that given the presence of challenging and contradictory discourses, subversive subjectivities and silences, there is potential for change. It is argued that educational and political interventions need to acknowledge and work with these spaces for change within the broader framework of challenging the underlying hierarchical binarism of sexual difference, upon which the problematic and unequal negotiation of heterosex is founded.
The dynamics of intimate partner violence during pregnancy and linkages with HIV infection and disclosure in Zimbabwe
(University of Western Cape, 2013) Shamu, Simukai; Zarowsky, Christina; Temmerman, Marleen; Abrahams, Naeemah; Shefer, Tamara
The study assessed the linkages between HIV infection and intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy and after HIV status disclosure in a context where HIV testing has become almost mandatory through the provider-initiated counselling and testing approach and non-disclosure of HIV status to sexual partners has been criminalised in many countries including Zimbabwe. The study also explored women’s experiences of and health workers’ perceptions of IPV during pregnancy.
Editorial: reflections on men, masculinities and meaning in South Africa
(Psychology in Society, 2008) Shefer, Tamara; Bowman, Brett; Duncan, Norman
This special issue embodies a contribution to what we consider to be a critical academic and political debate on the contours and expressions of masculinities in South Africa and how these intersect with the lived realities of South Africans.
Embodied pedagogies: performative activism and transgressive pedagogies in the sexual and gender justice project in higher education in contemporary South Africa
(Bloomsbury Academic, 2018) Shefer, Tamara
In this chapter, responding to the call to rethink "the fundamental concepts that support such binary thinking" and to recognise "the agential possibilities and responsibilities for reconfiguring the material-social relations of the world" (Barad, 2007: p.35), I explore a number of performative and activist events that have been part of the contemporary student decolonialisation movement in South Africa to think about the disruption and disturbance of 'business as usual' in the patriarchal, colonial and neoliberal project of the academy. Three inspiring occasions of performative activism of feminist and queer activists are shared here as providing powerful pedagogical interventions through the deployment of particular bodies in particular spaces. I argue the importance of acknowledging and "intra-acting" (Barad, 2007) with such 'disturbances' within a critical post-humanist social justice pedagogical project.
An encounter with the structural and spiritual violence of coloniality: Intersectional understanding of black students� experiences of exclusion in higher education
(University of the Western Cape, 2022) Albert, Geraldin Wanelisa; Shefer, Tamara
Since the fall of Apartheid, the new mandate of the democratic South African government has been to provide equal quality education for all and to desegregate the education system. However, the national government�s refusal to decolonise the country, the colonial stronghold of the university, structural racism, and systemic violences strategically remove Black students from the university space. This study examines the structural and spiritual violences experienced by Black South African students in higher education that resulted in their inability to graduate. First, this study gives a historical account of the origins of the identity �Black� in colonial discourse, then it traces how the historical construction of Black as inferior justified the exclusion of Black people in education while coloniality destroyed indigenous ways of knowing.
Experiences and coping strategies of women living with HIV/AIDS: case study of Khomas region, Namibia
(University of the Western Cape, 2002) Nashandi, Johanna Christa Ndilimeke; Shefer, Tamara; Institute for Social Development; Faculty of Arts
This study focuses on the impact of HIV/AIDS on women in Namibia. Namibia, with a population of only 1.7 million people, is ranked as the seventh highest country in the world in terms of HIV/AIDS infections. The percentage of women living with HIV/AIDS in Namibia accounts for 54% of the total of 68 196 people in the country living with the virus. Women are also diagnosed with the disease at a younger age (30) in comparison to their male counterparts (35 years). Desoite their needs, women living with HIV/AIDS bear a triple burden of caring for those living with HIV/AIDS, caring for themselves and coping with the responses to their infection. There are few focused intervention strategies to support and care for women living with HIV/AIDS in Namibia.
Experiences of gender and power relations among a group of black women holding leadership positions: a case study of six government departments in the Western Cape
(University of the Western Cape, 2013) Mgcotyelwa, Nwabisa Bernice; Shefer, Tamara; Women and Gender Studies
In this study, I explored the experiences of gender and power relations among a group of black women holding leadership positions in six government departments in the Western Cape. South Africa is in a process of transition and, to create a departure from the past, key objectives focus around the transformation of gender disparities and the eradication of racism and other forms of inequality and discrimination in all spheres of this society. There are many methods utilized to increase the number of women in leadership positions in the private and public sectors. However, there is a lack of research regarding the social environment for women once they have entered into these structures (Angevine, 2006). This study made use of a feminist qualitative methodology which guided the research. Six semi-structured, open-ended interviews were conducted in order to carry out an in-depth exploration of participants� experiences. After the participants had given consent, the interviews were audio-recorded, then transcribed verbatim. Data was analyzed in accordance with qualitative thematic analysis. All standard ethical considerations to protect the participants and the researcher were taken into account and practised throughout the research. The findings show evidence that black African women leaders in government departments have internalized learnt subservient characteristics; and that this serves to undermine their authority as leaders. Specifically, larger social power relations and traditional forms of authority undermine their capacity to express authority in work environments. They also experience both subtle and blatant racist and sexist prejudice in the form of stereotypes and hostility in the workplace. A minority of women managers actively oppose the gendered notions that undermine their leadership. Ultimately, black African women managers are not accepted or supported as legitimate leaders in the workplace. Women leaders are perceived to be incapable of performing effectively as leaders because of gender and racial stereotypes that serve as hindrances to their expression of leadership. The study found that some participants conform to the socially constructed notion of maintaining a work-life balance and this poses a challenge for such leaders. Those who are married attempt to balance career and life by maximizing on their management of their time. A number of women had made the personal decision to remain single in order to focus explicitly on their careers.
Experiences of mentorship with academic staff doctoral candidates at a South African university
(Taylor & Francis, 2016) Strebel, Anna; Shefer, Tamara
Given the growing emphasis on academic research output and the challenges encountered in expediting completion of doctoral studies especially, mentorship is increasingly being utilised as a capacity development strategy for supporting scholars to complete post-graduate studies. This article reports on a mentorship project aimed at academic staff enrolled for doctoral studies in a health sciences faculty at a South African university, based on reflections drawn from annual feedback from the mentees and the annual report of the mentor, as well as a focus group conducted with mentees by an independent researcher. Participants found the mentorship, with its combination of individual and group meetings, as well as regular residential writing retreats, to be extremely helpful. A number of key features that enable the mentorship process emerged, and issues relating to supervision and mentorship were highlighted, especially regarding power dynamics.

Browsing by Author "Shefer, Tamara"

Results Per Page

Sort Options