Philosophiae Doctor - PhD (Anthropology/Sociology)

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'n Psigo-Sosiale Studie van Tienerswangerskappe in die Noordelike Stadsgebiede van die Kaapse Skiereiland
(University of Western Cape, 1990) Todt, Aletta Elizabeth; du Toit, J.B.
Die verskynsel van tienerswangerskap kom in alle samelewingsvorme voor en toon 'n steeds stygende toename in alle w�relddele sodat dit deur sommige outeurs as epidemies beskou word (Chelala, 1988: 22). Dit vorm deel van die toename in bevolkingsgetalle en die sogenaamde bevolkingsontploffing. Gevolglik word die demografiese tendense be�nvloed en so vorm tienergeboortes 'n belangrike bydrae tot bevol_kingsgroei Die studie van tienerswangerskappe kan egter nie in isolasie benader word nie. Dit vorm deel van 'n kringloop van verwante samelewingsverskynsels wat oorsaaklik of gevolglik mag wees, byvoorbeeld bevolkingstoename en ander demografiese tendense, armoede, swak behuisingstoestande, drankmisbruik en dwelmverslawing, gebrekkige voeding en onderwys, om maar net 'n paar te noem. In hierdie studie sal daar gepoog word om aan te dui dat tienerswangerskap in verband gebring moet word met die interaksie van 'n verskeidenheid van dinamies interafhanklike psigo-sosiale verskynsels. Verder sal daar ondersoek ingestel word om te bepaal watter psigo-sosiale faktore spesifiek by die voorkoms van tienerswangerskap betrokke is.
Aid to Lesotho: dilemmas of state survival and development
(University of the Western Cape, 1995) MATLOSA, KHABELE TEBOHO; VALE, PETER
This thesis discusses the triangular relationship of aid, state and development since Lesotho's independence. It builds on three key hypotheses. First, during the preadj ustment period aid entrenched bureaucratic state power, but this changed with the adoption of the adjustment programme which only facilitates state survival. Secondly, hemmed in by external developemts and internal political and economic crisis, the state is caught between survival and shrinking resources. Thirdly, given the above, development has remained elusive inspite of the infusion of aid at highly preferential terms. Since the Cold War, aid issues have undergone three phases. Until the 1960s, donor concerns focussed primarily on economic growth. Growth with redistribution or the basic needs approach dominated aid disbursement up to the late 1970s. Since the 1980s, aid has been influenced predominantly by the IMF/World Bank orthodoxy of adjustment. Much of the debate on aid to Africa generally and to Lesotho specifically has revolved around whether aid develops or underdevelops recipient countries. The view that aid bolsters state power is not new. This study argues, however, that this may not be the case under adjustment conditions. Aid facilitates state survival in the context whereby donors mount a systematic offensive agianst dirigisme and economic nationalism. As they do that, the locus of economic production and interaction is shifted to private agents and autonomous social movements and the role of the state is cut back. Donor confidence, therefore; shifts from states to markets. The implications of these processes for the Lesotho state and prospects for development form the central thrust of this study. Non-probability purposive sampling was used for data collection. This approach rests on qualitative research methodology. Respondents were chosen on the basis of their position and influence on decion-making processes that impinge on the interface amongst aid, state and development. Primary data sources are clustered into three categories: Government; Donor agencies and embassies; and Non-governmental Organisations.
The politics of UMOYA: Variation in the interpretation and management of diarrheal illnesses among mothers, professional nurses, and indigenous health practitioners in Khayelitsha, South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 1997) Guma, Mthobeli Phillip; Farquhar, Judy
This study deals with the social interpretation of childhood diarrhea among the Xhosa speaking people of the Western Cape in South Africa. It highlights how in the Western Cape political consciousness and moralist discourses strongly influence relationships between different health care systems and the production of continuing conflicts around problems of health care delivery. It is argued that if meaningful relationships could be found between socially based health-seeking strategies and biomedical classifications of enteric and other diseases of women and children, they could facilitate the provision of more equitable, effective and widely acceptable health care. Furthermore, it compares the etiological explanations of childhood illness signs and symptoms of mothers and health practitioners of two kinds, i.e., professional nurses trained in biomedicine and indigenous African health practitioners (IHPs). The comparison focuses particularly on the interpretation of stool quality and associated symptoms. For stool quality the study refers to the color and texture of children's feces that mothers and health practitioners identify and associate with distinctive conditions of affliction. The study found these descriptive categories do not exhaust the variety of interpretations known to Nguni people in the area. There is variation, even ambiguity, in the interpretation of commonly understood illness categories and with respect to diarrheal illnesses, knowledge remains contested between mothers and professional nurses. Moreover, the availability of a wide range of therapeutic options m Khayelitsha diversifies the mother's causal explanations. It was found this diversity in causality and management of illnesses is manifested in the quality of children's stools, "green" feces in particular. Here too, different hues are not separable from the media in which they appear. Their interpretations draw on senses of value, ideas, social histories, different forms of power, systematic knowledge, and a great variety of other forms of significance that are embedded in the concrete domains of everyday life. In addition to the notion of isuntu,(that is humaneness) the study more importantly reveals that among Nguni of the Western Cape a tripartite relationship of umoya,(vital force) inyongo,(gallbladder) and ithongo (ancetral dream) is the dynamic philosophical component that describes Nguni experiences of health and illness. vi https://etd.
The body in hospitalization. a study of doctors, nurses and patients in a Cape Town teaching hospital
(University of the Western Cape, 1999) Gibson, Diana Mari; Humphreys, A.J. B
South Africa's health transformation blueprint is designed to replace apartheid's inequities and instill instead a new utilitarian approach by the health care sector. This study gives attention to the medical gaze and the body in hospitalisation. At macropolitical level the study focuses on the ways in which the new health policy impacted on power relations and multi-levelled subject positions of medical and nursing staff, as well as on patients in a hierarchy of spaces such as in the wards, in the institution and at a national level, in terms of policy implementation and the reconstruction of the health care services. It shows that policy and institutional discourses and arrangements were embedded in a regime of visuality which discursively homogenised people from different cultural realities. Yet, at the same time biases related to constructions of bodies in relation to class, age, gender and 'value' continued to exist. At the level of hospital protocols and structure the thesis examines the social, political and conceptual frameworks that conveyed, allowed or disallowed particular meaning to the institution. It describes the formal, dominant discourses and processes in the wards and show how these impacted on everyday interaction and relations of power, autonomy, authority, conflict and resistance. The study shows that for patients there often was a disjuncture between policy and practice, as biomedical practitioners and policy makers struggled to define the scope and implementation of health care services in response to pressures for change and concomitant fluctuation. By problematising the notion of the medical gaze and by giving attention to discourses and practices, which were not legitimated by it, the study draws attention to realities that were deemed largely irrelevant by western medical epistemology, such as subjective experiences and knowledge, which, though lacking the same legitimation as the gaze, did not disappear but only become less visible. In this way the study widens the social context in which medical practice can be perceived and understood within a transforming South African health care system.
Respectable Mothers, Tough Men and Good Daughters Producing Persons in Manenberg Township South Africa.
(University of the Western Cape, 2004) Salo, Elaine Rosa; Kratz, Corinne A.
This ethno a h explores the mean in s of personhood and agency in Maneberg a township located on the Cape Flats, in Cape Town South Africa. The township was a site of relocation for people who were classified coloured during the apartheid era and who were forcibly removed from newly declared white areas in the city in the 1960s I argue that despite the old apartheid state's attempts to reify the meaning of colouredness through racial legislation,\the residents of Manenberg created their own meanings of personhood, agency and community within the bureaucratic, social and economic interstices of the apartheid systems Yet at the same time they also reinstated the very structural processes at the heart of their racial and gendered subjugation. I indicate how the cohesiveness of the Rio Street community in Manenberg, the survival of its residents and their validation as respectable mothers, tough men and good daughters hinged on and effloresced from a moral economy that articulated with the structural location of coloured women in the apartheid economy and racial bureaucracy. I draw upon the writings of Fortes (1969), Giddens (1984) and Karp (1995) to elaborate upon the concept personhood in Manenberg. I show how the local understandings of personhood provide residents with agency, whilst connecting the latter to township history and apartheid social structure, thereby illustrating its limits. The concept personhood captures the duality of existence of Manenberg residents and maps out their negotiation and contestation about personhood and agency. I use Hobart (1990) and Kratz (2000) to indicate that lagency in Manenberg is complex and is situationally determined~Finally I utilise the theoretical insights of Donham (1999) to indicate that Manenberg's social, economic and historical location in the South African context allows for several notions of personhood to prevail in the township. These notions are grounded in the multiple, interconnected, hierarchically ordered, competing cultural and economic systems of production at the local, national and global levels. This complex location of Manenberg residents generates multiple constructs of inequality, power and agency that impinge upon each other and that are reflected in the contestations about personhood in diverse township spaces.
Respectable mothers, tough men and good daughters. producing persons in Manenberg township South Africa.
(University of Western Cape, 2004) Salo, Elaine Rosa; Kratz, Corinne A.
This ethnography explores the meanings ofpersonhood and agency in Manen�berg, a township located on the Cape Flats, in Cape Town South Africa. The township was a site of relocation for people who were classified coloured during the apartheid era and who were forcibly removed from newly declared white areas in the city in the 1960s. I argue that despite the old apartheid state's attempts to reify the meaning of colouredness through racial legislation, the residents ofManenberg created their own meanings of personhood, agency and community within the bureaucratic, social and economic interstices of the apartheid system. Yet at the same time they also reinstated the very structural processes at the heart of their racial and gendered subjugation. I indicate how the cohesiveness of the Rio Street community in Manenberg, the survival of its residents and their validation as respectable mothers, tough men and good daughters hinged on and effioresced from a moral economy that articulated with the structural location of coloured women in the apartheid economy and racial bureaucracy.
The formation of 'national culture' in post- apartheid Namibia: a focus on state sponsored cultural festivals in Kavango region
(University of the Western Cape, 2011) Akuupa, Michael Uusiku; Becker, Heike
This dissertation investigates colonial and postcolonial practices of cultural representations in Namibia. The state sponsored Annual National Culture Festival in Namibia was studied with a specific focus on the Kavango Region in northeastern Namibia. I was particularly interested in how cultural representations are produced by the nation-state and local people in a post-colonial African context of nation-building and national reconciliation, by bringing visions of cosmopolitanism and modernity into critical dialogue with its colonial past. During the apartheid era, the South African administration encouraged the inhabitants of its Native Homelands to engage in cultural activities aimed at preserving their traditional cultures and fostering a sense of distinct cultural identity among each of Namibia officially recognized ;ethnic groups. This policy was in line with the logic of South African colonial apartheid rule of Namibia, which relied upon the emphasis of ethnic differences, in order to support the idea that the territory was inhabited by a collection of requiring a central white government to oversee their development. The colonial administration resorted to concepts of traditional and cultural heritage in order to construct Africans as members of distinct, bounded communities attached to specific localities or homelands. My central argument is that since Namibian independence in 1990, the postcolonial nation-state has placed emphasis on cultural pride in new ways, and identifying characteristics of Namibian-nessa. This has led to the institution of cultural festivals, which have since 1995 held all over the country with an expressed emphasis on the notion of Unity in Diversity. These cultural festivals are largely performances and cultural competitions that range from lang-arm dance, and traditional dances, displays of traditional foodstuffs and dramatized representations. The ethnographic study shows that while the performers represent diversity through dance and other forms of cultural exhibition, the importance of belonging to the nation and a larger constituency is simultaneously highlighted. However, as the study demonstrates, the festivals are also spaces where local populations engage in negotiations with the nation-state and contest regional forms of belonging. The study shows how a practice which was considered to be a colonial representation of the other has been reinvented with new meanings in postcolonial Namibia. The study demonstrates through an analysis of cultural representations such as song, dances and drama that the festival creates a space in which social interaction takes place between participants, spectators and officials who organize the event as social capital of associational life.
The cutting edge: Khoe-San rock-markings at the Gestoptefontein-Driekuil engraving complex, North West Province, South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2011) Hollmann, Jeremy Charles; Humphreys, A.J.B.; Faculty of Arts
The study is about the rock engravings on the wonderstone hills just outside Ottosdal, North West province, about 70km northwest of Klerksdorp. Wonderstone is remarkable rock that is smooth, shiny and very easy to mark. The wonderstone occurs only on two adjacent farms, Gestoptefontein and Driekuil, and thus the rock art on the wonderstone outcrops is referred to as the Gestoptefontein- Driekuil complex (GDC). This rock art is now the only remaining trace of what must once have been a much larger complex of engravings. Sadly, much of the rock art has been destroyed in the course of mining activities, with very few records. The largest remaining outcrop is still threatened by potential mining activities. The study attempts to bring this disastrous and unacceptable situation to the attention of the public and the heritage authorities, who have so far failed to respond to applications to grant the sites protection. It therefore has two main aims: to locate and record as much of the rock art as possible and to understand the significance of the outcrops in the lives of the people who made them. Based on the rock art itself, as well as what little historical evidence is available, it is argued that the rock art was made by Khoe-San people during the performance of important ceremonies and other activities. The rock art has two main components: engravings of referential motifs and a gestural, or performative, element. The referential motifs depict a range of things: anthropomorphs and zoomorphs, decorative designs, items of clothing, as well as ornaments and decorations. The gestural markings were made by rubbing, cutting and hammering the soft wonderstone, probably in the course of a range of activities that people carried out on the outcrops. One of the main findings of the study is that the GDC was a place that was of particular significance to women. This is suggested by the large number of engravings of items that are closely associated with Khoe-San women � depictions of aprons, ornaments, and decorations. These play a prominent role in the initiation practices of many Khoe-San groups. Initiates emerging from ritual isolation after their first menstruation are given new clothes; they are also loaned ornaments and jewellery. This reincorporation into society as a �new person� has been described by some Khoe-San women as one of the high points of their lives. Oral traditions from the area indicate that the wonderstone outcrops were believed to have special properties; the study incorporates these traditions to argue that the wonderstone outcrops were associated with the presence of a great water snake that lay on the rocks and also lived in the pools of water in the nearby Driekuil Spruit. People therefore came to the outcrops to perform rites of reincorporation. One of these ceremonies may have been performing rites of association with the great snake; such practices may have included the use of rock dust as an ingredient for body paint.
Employment demand, employability and the supply-side machinery : the case of the children of the liberation struggle of Namibia
(University of the Western Cape, 2012) Shivangulula, Shirley Euginia Ndahafa Uvatera; Adesina, J.; Tati, Gabriel
Over the past four years, growing volumes of media literature centre staged the Namibian economy with the dilemma of the �Children of the Liberation Struggle of Namibia� (CoLSoN) in their resilient protest for employment. Yet, amid such chronicled portrayal and persistent social, economic and political discourse, the underpinnings of the plight of the CoLSoN for labour market participation received vigorous scholarly inattention and remained scientifically unexplored. This study, therefore, contributes to the body of knowledge on the employability, employment prospects and vulnerability to unemployment, and public policy interventions depicting the unemployed CoLSoN in Namibia. The Researcher situated the study in a post-positivist paradigm. Positioned in the Human Capital Theory, the study utilised the employability theory to examine the employability of the unemployed CoLSoN. The study employed the conceptual framework of employment prospects and vulnerability to unemployment to investigate the domains responsible for the low employment prospects and vulnerability to unemployment of the unemployed CoLSoN. Drawing on the theory of search and match, the study examined the typology of the supply-side effort of Government to establish the controlling of the ensuing disequilibrium of the demand-supply side efforts. The study employed a concurrent mixed method design comprising quantitative and qualitative schemes of inquiry, and drew a sample size of 605 unemployed CoLSoN through the simple random probability sampling procedure to respond to a 76-item survey instrument. Additionally, the study drew a purposive sub sample of 50 CoLSoN and two organisations to amplify the experiences of the unemployed CoLSoN and inform of the policy options directed to their plight through semi-structured interviews. The study analysed the quantitative data utilising the ANOVA, Multiple regression techniques, Spearman correlation and t-test of the SPSS software. Qualitative data analysis occurred through the application of thematic categorisation. The study found that fierce labour market demands and administrative malice delay the transition into the labour market of the unemployed CoLSoN. The interviews revealed intergenerational poverty transmission a distant, but potent dynamic of degenerating individual qualities among the unemployed CoLSoN for employability. The ANOVA sustained the postulation that low employability traits are not equally prevalent in all the age groups of the unemployed CoLSoN. Estimates indicate that a mere investment in the education of the unemployed CoLSoN would improve their generic employability by about 11%. The study recommends the exercise of employability as an Active Labour Market Policy to balance the demand-supply-side inconsistencies of the labour market that exclude the disadvantaged from participating therein. The study further recommends the reinforcement of institutional audit procedures to control the inaptness of intentional administrative barriers to the labour market participation of the CoLSoN. The study also recommends the granting of fiscal incentives to the private sector for a speedy absorption of the CoLSoN into the labour market. That way, the low employment prospects among the unemployed CoLSoN would contract. Their employability for labour market participation would augment, invigorating them to take charge of their lives and curb poverty transmission to the next generations.
Genealogies and narratives of San authenticities the ?Khomani San land claim in the southern Kalahari
(University of the Western Cape, 2012) Ellis, William; Gibson, Diana
In this thesis, I examine the narratives of authenticity, the limits thereof, the potential interests served by these narratives, and the power relations involved in the promotion of an authentic San identity. I focus on four key areas to achieve this goal: the methodological issues involved in studying authenticity, the framing of the land claim lodged by the San against the Kalahari Gemsbok National Park in South Africa in 1995, the post-land claim settlement activities on the restituted farms, and the various issues around authenticity and traditional leadership. I will also highlight a variety of issues, ranging from livelihoods to governance, community-based natural resource management (CBNRM), identity and ethnicity, and common property debates. The study begins with a brief introduction to the richly textured and highly contested debates and analytical issues concerning the San. Among other things, this first part of the thesis deals with naming, the alleged disappearance of the San, and the eventual reemergence of this group in the post-apartheid landscape of southern Africa. This is followed by a brief description of some aspects of the natural environment of the southern Kalahari and how the San see themselves situated within this cultural�ecological complex. This exploration of the cultural�ecological landscape is not meant to mirror previous San studies of cultural ecology but rather to offer an account of a possible San ontology. The thesis gives an inventory firstly of the research methods applied by myself, and then probes the research encounter reflexively. The main descriptive chapters of the thesis begin with an examination of how the ?Khomani San emerged onto the political landscape of post-1994 South Africa and how an ethnic entity was constituted through the land restitution process. The post-restitution activities of at least three subgroups of the ?Khomani San Common Property Association (CPA) are then examined and shown to be a series of contestations and challenges of authenticity. In the final chapter, I take an experimental look at a particular institution that emerged as central to the debates about authenticity and the management of resources in the ?Khomani San CPA
Pets and their people: a sociological investigation into the pet-keeping practices of two demographically diverse samples of South Africans
(University of the Western Cape, 2012) Spicer, Sharyn
This study provides a sociological analysis of pet-keeping among two different samples of South Africans who display divergent tendencies. The demographic variables that shape attitudes, behaviour and practices towards pets such as age, gender, class, race and ethnicity, along with marital status, religion, area of residence and household type and structure are outlined. In addition, various other factors, such as past experiences with pets (particularly during childhood), emotional connections with other animals and the differential accumulation of ?animal capital� are explored. The objective of this thesis is to assess the ways in which pets are integrated into the lives of the two samples of pet owners. This research also examines diverse attitudes toward some important issues within animal welfare. This thesis shows that pet-keeping cuts across social categories and that a complex interplay of factors influences perceptions of pets and pet-keeping rituals and routines. The growth and increased popularity of pet-keeping in contemporary societies can be linked to broader political, economic and social changes and cultural shifts. In particular, it is argued that postmodern conditions have facilitated the growth of pet-keeping as well as the increased emotional intensity associated therewith. Furthermore, an understanding of the motivations underlying pet-keeping and the different roles they play in people�s lives reveal much about our views about one another as well as the broader dynamics characterising our unequal society. Data were collected through a combination of a quantitative survey and qualitative interview methods. The findings of this study both contradict and confirm those made in previous studies. Data analysis shows that there is a correlation between the style of pet keeping favoured and the gender of the primary pet caretaker. It further demonstrates the impact that the participant�s previous experiences, have on their current preferences for a particular type of pet, as well as their favoured style of pet-keeping
Creativity in spaces of learning: experimentations in two schools
(University of the Western Cape, 2012) Sauls, Roderick K; Oloyede, Olajide
The questions concerning how creativity can enhance the culture of learning in schools, especially amongst the previously marginalized groups, are not simple and straightforward. In South Africa, the general questions often posed are: �What form of creative activities exists in schools?� and �How do learners� develop creativity that improves life skills?� This study provides empirical findings that suggest answers to these questions. It focuses on how creativity can enhance the culture of learning and why it is significant in nation building. In particular, the results of the study show, through experimental exercises with learners and observational data, that the arts may be regarded as a mechanism to enhance creativity in spaces of learning for the vast majority of people in South Africa. The analysis revealed that in-school-time participation in the arts transformed the conditions for and structure of participation in different phases during schooling. The experimentation showed the learners making choices and participating in all forms of activities. As the in-school-time learners developed experience, self-esteem, and competence in the arts, their life and labour skills developed. The results also revealed that primary experiences provide learners with a head start in learning � from commitment (motivation) to enhancement (learning how to learn) to competency (skills). Thus, the basis for the enhancement of creativity is how learners participate as this affects the intensity with which they learn how to learn. The study concludes with suggestions for the implementation of various educational endeavors in the application of creativity as an enhancement for a substantial education that can play a major part in social, political, and economic development and prosperity in South Africa.
Human Rights Modernities: Practices of Luo Councils of Elders in Contemporary Western Kenya
(University of the Western Cape, 2013) Akoth, Stephen Ouma; Becker, Heike
This dissertation is ethnography of human rights discourse in postcolonial Kenya. It situates itself in the inexorable rise of the application of International Human Rights Law witnessed in the 21st century. For this reason, many contemporary observers refer to this period as an �era of Human Rights�. With an ethnographic account centred primarily in Luo Nyanza, western Kenya, the dissertation seeks to open up questions about the practice of Human Rights by reference not to their philosophical origin but their practical manifestations. It conceptualizes Human Rights as a discourse of ongoing conversations of �multiple realities� thus resulting to an empirical rather than ideological account of manifestations of personhoods and modernities. It is a study of the production of human rights that journeys in particular contexts and moments but conscious enough not to be circumscribed by its specific location. With this strategy, the dissertation is based on some sort of dialogue. On the one hand is a notion of Human Rights as rooted in Western enligthmenent discourse which one can describe as a Eurocentric perspective visible through the International Human Rights Instruments promulgated by the United Nations (UN) and its agencies and the other a perspective common among a section of Luo people of western Kenya visible through chike, kido and kwero that are articulated and safeguarded by Luo Councils of Elders. In suggesting the distinction between �the Western� and �the Luo� notions of personhood, the researcher is aware that both frameworks are manifestly plural and �intercivilizational� in their conceptualization
Integration in South Africa: a study of changes in the community health system
(University of the Western Cape, 2014) Parr, Jennifer Simone; Van Wyk, Brian
In the thesis, I analyse a facilitated pilot project of integration of health care services at the community-level. The importance of the thesis is justified by three reasons: firstly integration and the creation of a district health system, as envisaged under Primary Health Care, is promoted as the solution to the health inequalities inherited from Apartheid in South Africa. However, many pilot integration projects have failed and analysing a failed project from an anthropological perspective provides valuable insight. Secondly a renewed interest in Primary Health Care, as the World Health Report of 2008 sets out, also makes this a pertinent pursuit from an international viewpoint. Thirdly the human experience is often ignored in health reform literature. I argue that anthropology can provide valuable insight into integration processes in a health system. Because anthropology explores the human experience, it provides a detailed understanding of the changes in a community health system and their impact on all role players. The data presented in the thesis were collected in an ethnographic communitylevel study in one township urban South Africa between October 1999 and October 2002. This makes this it a historical piece of work to a degree. I describe and critically analyse the facilitated process from the start of the project in October 1999 till its disintegration in failure in June 2001. I also describe and analyse the findings from community research conducted in 2002. For the analysis, firstly I build upon Scott�s concepts of dominance and resistance from his book Dominance and the Arts of Resistance to construct a framework. I argue that to understand a change process fully requires considering the historical context, the international arena, the present context and the facilitator.
Soldiers in exile: the military habitus and identities of former Zimbabwean soldiers in South Africa
(U, 2014) Maringira, Godfrey; Gibson, Diana; Richters, Annemiek; Carrasco, Lorena Nunez
After analysing stories of 44 former soldiers from Zimbabwe (39 army deserters and 5 who resigned from the army), I argue that even though they were disillusioned by the Zimbabwe National Army's conduct both in war and during peacetime deployment, in exile in South Africa they continue to hold on to their military identities. While in many studies trained soldiers are presented as capable of becoming civilians in post-combat life, my thesis points to the difficulties associated with such a process. Even though scholars present military identities as fluid, I argue that it is also deeply embodied and expressed through �bodily disposition�. In substantiating my argument, I employ Bourdieu�s (1990) theory of habitus and field, to reveal how what was learned in the military is difficult to unlearn. I argue that the practice of clinging onto a soldierly identity is a social and economic resource for the former soldiers who became my research participants. The soldierly habitus is social because of its capacity to elicit and provide a bonding space in the absence of a supportive exile host community. It is a financial resource in the sense that it represents military skills that enable these former soldiers to access productive work in the formal and informal markets. I argue that, even though these former soldiers have the capacity to engage in violence, they have remained disciplined, while skillfully deploying their �soldierly-ness�. Although these former soldiers experience nightmares of, for instance, having killed in war, they continue to �soldier on� in their exile context. They journey between two different, but complementary, spaces of healing, the Pentecostal churches and a soldier-in-exile support group. Even so they remain dissatisfied with what both spaces have to offer. The two spaces, with different kinds of support for the former soldiers, present seemingly contradictory results which the soldiers themselves try with limited success to integrate, in rebuilding their lives. They do not find conclusive healing in either space and continue to experience nightmares, while perceiving such a situation as part of the soldiering �self�: an on-going military life outside the barracks. Methodologically, I employed qualitative research methods. I utilised ethnographical tools which included the life history approach, field conversations and group discussions in order to understand the exiled soldiers� past and how and why they have remained stuck in their military past. Having been a soldier in the Zimbabwe National Army myself for more than 10 years, I explain why I found it interesting, yet complex, to study my comrades. The interviews were done in the IsiNdebele and ChiShona languages, with a few done in English. The choice of language was influenced by each former soldier�s preference.
The Nigerian healthcare system: A study of access to affordable essential medicines and healthcare
(University of the Western Cape, 2015) Obuaku-Igwe, Chinwe Christopher; Oloyede, Olajide
The concepts of availability, affordability, accessibility and acceptability otherwise known as the 4As of ATM are key factors that influence access to essential medicines in any given health system. However, the exact scale and extent to which these 4As affect various populations in Nigeria remains unknown. This study investigates the Nigerian healthcare system with special focus on access to quality and affordable essential medicines in three Nigerian States; Abuja, Kaduna and Nassarawa, by drawing upon primary data, using qualitative and quantitative research methods.
The role of men in promoting women�s reproductive and maternal health in a matrilineal marriage system in Malawi: the case of Ntchisi District
(University of the Western Cape, 2015) Kapulula, Phillip Klemens; Gibson, Diana Mari
This research explored the role of men in efforts by the Malawi Ministry of Health to promote women�s reproductive and maternal health in accordance with Millennium Development Goal (MDG) number five, i.e. to reduce the maternal mortality ratio by three quarters between 1990 and 2015. The study was conceptualised in 2011 in an effort to contribute to the national strategy to reduce maternal mortality in Malawi, and it was done in the particular cultural context of a matrilineal marriage and kinship system in Ntchisi district, Malawi. At the inception of this study, the highest prevalence of maternal deaths in the country was reported in seven districts, including Ntchisi. A common understanding in public health circles worldwide is that male involvement in reproductive and maternal health activities is an important factor in achieving the above MDG goal. But historically, research on maternal health in Malawi has focused mostly on women and children. Consequently there are only a small number of relevant previous studies or extant literature to draw on for the current investigation. Malawi�s reproductive and maternal health policies largely lack locally-informed research on men and masculinities. My study aimed to explore the relationship between local constructions of masculinity, fatherhood and reproductive health in Malawi among Chichewa speakers who live in Ntchisi. It was guided by the social constructionist theory which recognises the role of the impersonal features of the social world like cultural, personal and group influences in the construction of ideas, knowledge and facts. In this study I adopted an inductive approach to learning in which the participants were the main players in describing and explaining social phenomena as they are constructed and experienced in the research site. I conducted multiple in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with 53 married men, key informant interviews with eight local leaders and traditional birth attendants, as well as focus group discussions with 12 married women who had given birth multiple times. Data analysis involved intensive scrutiny of transcripts to determine prevailing themes. Listening to the tapes and re-reading these transcripts enabled me to detect patterns and categorise different practices and constructions, to find associations between these practices and constructions of concepts. Malawi�s men are considered to be the traditional gatekeepers of maternal and social ideals. Therefore, as elders in a clan or as husbands, their prompt decisions can facilitate the access of their spouses to maternal and reproductive health services. Men as heads of households and decision makers can also support and enable their wives to follow the recommended maternal health counsel. However, men�s �lack of involvement� is not the principal reason why there is increasing maternal challenges among child-bearing women in Ntchisi. Although men are not entirely free of the blame for contributing to the status quo, they already work hard towards ensuring positive pregnancy outcomes for their spouses. The study found that husbands in Ntchisi have long been involved in pregnancy and child care. The study shows that pregnancy is regarded as a liminal state or as a kind of �sickness�. Male involvement in pregnancy means the man should take over the routine household chores of drawing water, fetching firewood and cooking, among other things. However, men construct their involvement in reproductive and maternal health matters in the framework of masculinity and femininity as dictated by the commonly held beliefs of a matrilineal Chewa grouping. The study showed that masculinities are constructed within the context of a matrilineal system, which has nonetheless been changing largely due to the colonial impact of the United Kingdom, the related influences of Christian and westernised social ideals and an education system based on the British model. Men�s gendered practices in reproduction and parenting have foundations in the initiation rites of the secret Nyau societies where the masculine ideals of sexuality and secrecy are inculcated. This research cannot be generally extrapolated to the wider population in Malawi but it is a starting point for understanding the responses of matrilineal Chichewa speaking men to reproductive and maternal health matters. Further and broader research on the construction of fatherhood and masculinity is needed in Malawi to make it possible for public health policy on reproductive and maternal health to be more culturally informed.
The lords of poverty? Micro-credit institutions and social reproduction in South Africa
(University of the Western Cape, 2015) Omomowo, Kolawole Emmanuel; Adesina, Jimi
The broader conception of poverty as �quality of social reproduction� demonstrates the delicate nature of the interaction between the institutions of the family/household, the economy and the state. These institutions interact in the dispensation of individual, productive and collective consumptions important for social well-being and social reproduction in society. The gap in the configuration of these consumptions relationship opens the space for the institution of micro-credits to thrive in South Africa to the detriment of adequate �quality of social reproduction� especially for people living in �poverty range� or �precarious prosperity�. The lack of comprehensive social policy regime provides the recipe for the consumption of micro-credit at the desperate, need and choice dimensions, in order to close the gap between income and consumption needs to facilitate social reproduction of concerned family/households. Micro-credit consumption is viewed as an individual response, in the absence of collective consumption in the form of social policy, to smoothen individual consumption, and to cater for the strain or challenges of social reproduction. The implications of this, for concerned family/households, are imperative to how poverty is perceived, hence, the question �the lords of poverty�? In addition to the income and expenditure conception of poverty, the understanding of poverty dynamics will be enriched by engaging with the method through which the poor and �precarious prosperous� (people living within �poverty range�) respond to the gap between their income and expenditure to finance shortfalls in their consumption needs. The relief sought from micro-credit (the focus of this study) to finance the gap in consumption needs can alleviate poverty, and at the same time perpetuates it through chronic indebtedness. The patronage of micro-credit in the form of cash loan, retail goods credit and informal micro-credit in the way people living within the �poverty range� live their lives, as well as the activities of micro-credit institutions are highlighted in this study. Consumer credit consumption has become such a permanent feature of the social reproduction efforts of individual households in South Africa that it is crucial to understand the broader institutional interaction that may account for this. Further, it is important to understand how the patronage of consumer credit impact on the need that prompted it in the first place and other implications that may speak to the quality of social reproduction of households. These are the core problematics that are engaged in this study. The relationship between poverty (as well-being) and the consumption of micro-credit is considered within the broader framework of political economy. The effects of predatory institutions, such as microcredit, could be significant for the quality of social reproduction of households.
The use of medicinal plants to treat mental illness in Kavango East and West regions, Namibia
(University of the Western Cape, 2016) Shirungu, Michael M.J.; Gibson, Diana; Cheikhyoussef, Ahmad
The thesis examines mental illness as it is understood and treated by traditional healers in Kavango, based on ethnographic data collected over twelve (12) months in three (3) different phases from 2014 to 2016. The thesis offers ethnographic material and theoretical insight on the socio-cultural construction of three common mental disorders (CMD) which were identified and treated by traditional healers: Nyambi, Kasenge and Ndjangura. I employed the �cultural models� of Dahlberg et al (2010, p. 282) as a framework to understand mental illness and its treatment by traditional healers - who deal with sick persons on a daily basis. The three common mentally related illnesses appear to be specific to the Kavango people, based on their cultural settings. I argue that these mental illness categories are not fixed or objective, but rather reflect the expertise of the Vanganga (Traditional healers) who identify them, and ultimately treat the afflicted. While traditional healers themselves assume that these local notions of mental illness are static, in reality they are not. Rather, these are active concepts constituted by culturally and socially relative categories whose precise boundaries and meanings vary and are highly contested. It was evident that the conceptualization (expression of belief patterns, thoughts and ideas) by the Vanganga (Traditional healers) of the three local mentally related illnesses differed, in the ways they perceived and treated similar conditions. The manner in which these perceived signs and symptoms informed their diagnoses differed, but also overlapped: in terms of basic assumptions that underlay explanations and treatment, and the ways in which the conditions became manifest. The thesis postulates that Traditional healers form part of the local health care system, historically unregulated. There have been calls for the recognition and regulation of traditional healers and their medicines, but to date such recognition and regulation has, if anything, been sporadic, insufficient and controversial. In response to this I provide a new way of classifying traditional healers in Kavango and propose the use of three categories: Kangangwena (assistant traditional healer), Nganga (general traditional healer) and Nkurunganga (expert traditional healer). The thesis discusses the cultural epistemology of traditional healing concerning the use of medicinal plants as treatment for mental illness. Plant knowledge and its application by traditional healers is explored, with the emphasis on the medicinal plants used to treat various mentally related illnesses. In addition, administration methods and the medicinal plants used in the treatment of mental illness are examined. I argue that medicinal plants are believed to possess powers that need to be "enticed or seduced" by healers, in order to produce a therapeutic effect on the muveri (sick person). I contend that medicinal plants are perceived to have an agentivity which is embedded in the community and people who utilize them. Thus, I intend to show that medicinal plants have power that work at different levels via ritual healing ceremonies and communication to the ancestors, as a way of "seducing" them to bring forth their therapeutic effect on the sick person. The plants in question were "seduced" inter alia by boiling, powdering, crushing and soaking, to increase their rate of reaction and generate more therapeutic power. A total of 37 medicinal plant species belonging to 24 families were reported to be used traditionally in Kavango regions in Namibia, to treat the five different categories of mental disorders. The most reported use of plants was of Albizia tanganyicensis, Ancylanthos rubiginosus, Bobgunnia madagascariensis, Dialium engleranum Diospyros virgata, Elaeodendron transvaalense and Guibourtia coleosperma. Roots and leaves were most frequently used in treatment. Remedies were prepared by boiling, while oral intake and steaming were most commonly used by healers to administer them.
Performances of Muslim-ness in post-apartheid Cape Town: Authenticating cultural difference, belonging and citizenship
(University of the Western Cape, 2017) Alhourani, Ala; Becker, Heike
This thesis presents an ethnographic study of the resurgence of public performances of Muslim-ness and an exploration of the Muslim politics of cultural difference in the democratic, post-colonial, and liberal context of the post-apartheid South African nation-state. The central argument that underpins my approach throughout this thesis is that the post-apartheid cultural politics of 'rainbowism' has led to an enhanced and remarkable resurgence of public performance of Muslim-ness in Cape Town. This thesis posits that this resurgence has mediated a sense of belonging that is defined by the multiple allegiances of Muslims to their local cultural particularity, to the South African nation-state, and to the transnational Muslim Ummah.

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