Browsing by Author "Ngidi, Ndumiso Daluxolo."
Now showing 1 - 4 of 4
- Results Per Page
- Sort Options
Item Being an adolescent orphan in the context of sexual violence: a participatory visual methodology study in and around a township secondary school in Kwazulu-Natal, South Africa.(2020) Ngidi, Ndumiso Daluxolo.; Moletsane, Relebohile.The study reported in this thesis examined the vulnerability and agency of a group of adolescent orphans in the context of sexual violence in and around a township secondary school. This qualitative study was located within a transformative paradigm and employed a participatory visual methodology in its objective to pursue the notion of research as intervention. Located in one co-educational secondary school in the Inanda, Ntuzuma and Kwamashu township precinct, in KwaZulu-Natal, the study involved 27 adolescents aged 14-17 years, and in Grades eight to 10, who identified as ‘double orphans’ (i.e., those who had lost both their biological parents). To generate data, the study used drawing, collage, photovoice, storyboards and participants’ written reflections as modes of inquiry and representation. These were supplemented by data generated through interpretive group discussion and my own researcher field notes. Data analysis occurred in three layers: the first two layers involved the participants’ own analysis of their visual artefacts, the captions they wrote and the explanations they gave about them during the interpretive group discussions. The third layer involved my own thematic analysis of the participants’ data. The theoretical framework that informed data analysis in the study involved, first, the Frankfurt School’s critical theory, which suggests that inquiry must emphasise the creation of a sense of consciousness where participants are able to identify and communicate their vulnerability to sexual violence in and around their school. From this perspective, the study was premised on the notion that the emancipation of adolescent orphans from sexual violence is possible if safe spaces are created in which they can freely analyse their victimisation and critically imagine strategies for curbing/ending it. The second theory used in the study is Mezirow’s (1978) transformative learning theory, which posits that given a safe space and tools (involving the use of participatory visual methodology) to communicate their perspectives, adolescent orphans can become critical, engaged and active agents who can envision possibilities for social change in the context of sexual violence. The findings in this study illustrate the ways in which I used PVM to engage adolescent orphans in identifying, understanding and communicating their vulnerability to sexual violence in and around their township secondary school. However, the findings also point to gendered differences in how both boys and girls in this study were able to communicate their vulnerability. Specifically, the findings revealed that orphaned girls found it easier to articulate their vulnerability to sexual violence, while the orphaned boys tended to be silent about their own vulnerability. Finally, the participants identified the tools and strategies for addressing sexual violence, including structural and emotional support strategies, as well as retribution and punishment for perpetrators. The findings reinforced the idea that PVM can be a tool for research as intervention. In other words, provided with the right tools (through the use of PVM) and a safe space to engage freely as knowledge producers, adolescent orphans in this study were able to explore and articulate both their vulnerability to sexual violence and to identify the tools and resources they needed to address it. Informed by these findings as well as the literature reviewed, this thesis proposes that in the context of sexual violence, providing a safe space and using PVM with adolescent orphans has the power to excavate the silenced voices of children who are often marginalised; in doing so, this approach develops their agency to address violence.Item Limited access to safely managed water in resource poor rural contexts: a photovoice study of adult experiences in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa.(2021) Mkize, Onenkosi Simile.; Ngidi, Ndumiso Daluxolo.This study examined how adults living in a resource-poor rural community experienced and communicated about their challenges of living in a place that had limited access to safely managed water. Seventeen adult women and men were purposively recruited from eMdubezweni in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. In order to explore these daily experiences, the study employed a participatory visual methodology, and used photovoice as a tool to generate data. Data generated using photovoice was augment by four focus-group discussions and oneon- one interviews with the adult participants. Analysis in the study was informed by two theories. First, the entitlement theory provided a framework for understanding how limited access to safely managed water in resource-poor rural communities resulted from enduring injustices that were inherited from a legacy of colonial and apartheid rule, and the failure of the democratic dispensation to rectify the impact of these historically unjust systems. Second, the gender socialisation lens provided a general framework used to examine the gender inequalities inherent in how water is accessed and who, between men and women, benefits the most from this access. Data analysis was in three layers: the first two layers involved the participants’ own analysis of their photovoice images, the captions they wrote and the explanations they gave about their visual artefacts. The third layer involved my own thematic analysis of the data. The overall finding pointed to the marginalisation of rural livelihoods from the practice of national development. Moreover, the findings pointed to gendered differences in how both the women and men in this study experienced and articulated the challenges they faced regarding their living in a resource-poor rural community will limited access to safely managed water. Emerging from the findings, this dissertation proposes a framework for amplifying rural voices for improving safely managed water services, with several implications for research and practice.Item The social geographies of school-related gender-based violence on children’s school journeys in rural KwaZulu-Natal.(2022) Khumalo, Ayanda Cynthia.; Ngidi, Ndumiso Daluxolo.; Essack, Zaynab.This study examined the social geographies of school-related gender-based violence (SRGBV) on children’s journeys to and from school (hereafter, school journeys). In particular, the study explored the spaces and places identified by primary school children as the social geographies of SRGBV on their school journeys. Moreover, the study investigated how primary school children negotiated their spatial safety when navigating their school journeys. Twenty primary schoolchildren, aged between 10-12 years and attending Grades 5-7, were purposively recruited from one resource-poor rural community in the KwaZulu-Natal midlands, in South Africa (SA). The study recruited only primary schoolchildren who walked without adult supervision for at least five kilometres to and from school. Data was generated using participatory visual methodologies, which involved the use of photovoice and participatory mapping. These visual data were supplemented by four focus group discussions (FGD). Data analysis occurred in two layers. The first layer involved the analysis of visual artefacts and the explanations provided by the participants during the FGD. The second layer involved thematic and visual data analysis of all the data generated. Conceptually, the study was guided by both the feminist geographies and the broadly conceived children’s geographies frames of thinking. Feminist geographies provided a lens for understanding how gender shaped primary school children’s understandings and experiences of SRGBV on their school journey. On the other hand, children’s geographies provided a frame for understanding the sociocultural meanings children attached to their engagement with both their social geographies and the people they interacted with across space/place. Theoretically, the analysis was informed by the defensible space theory, which analysed how and why certain social geographies exposed primary school children to gender-based violence (GBV). Data analysis revealed a plethora of social geographies that rendered participants vulnerable to GBV on their school journeys. These geographies included dense bushes, taverns, and other public and economic spaces such as tuckshops in and around the community. Moreover, since these children walked to school without adult supervision, they reported a sense of fear and terror in navigating unsafe social geographies in their community. Finally, while they feared walking to school, participants demonstrated agency in negotiating their spatial safety by drawing from the available community and interpersonal resources. The use of participatory visual methods offered a unique opportunity to see how primary school children constructed and understood the social geographies of their school journeys, and how in these spaces, forms of GBV occurred.Item Vulnerability to child marriage: perspectives of adolescent girls from a resource-poor rural community in Manicaland, Zimbabwe.(2022) Dube, Tsitsi.; Ngidi, Ndumiso Daluxolo.This study examined the vulnerability of rural adolescent girls to child marriage. In particular, the research explored how twenty adolescent girls who were conveniently recruited from a resource-poor rural community in the Manicaland Province of Zimbabwe understood and communicated their vulnerability to child marriage. The adolescent girls who participated in this study emerged from a resource-poor context where they were oppressed by poverty, heteropatriarchy, and prevailing gender norms characterized by the sociocultural and economic ecologies of Manicaland. The study used focus group discussions and in-depth interviews to gain insight into the adolescent girls` understandings of their vulnerability to child marriage. Analysis in the study was informed by two theories. First, feminist theories provided a framework for understanding how gender shaped the lives of rural adolescent girls, and in turn, rendered them socially inferior and susceptible to the experience of child marriage. Second, the social norms theory provided a framework for understating how prevailing social and cultural norms endangered marginalised and exposed adolescent girls to perilous practices such as child marriage. The data generated in the study were analysed using a thematic approach. Findings revealed that the adolescent girls who participated in this study were vulnerable to child marriage. They understood their vulnerability to child marriage in several ways that were tied to their gender identities, their inferior social positions as girls, enduring household and community poverty, perilous gender norms and inequality, heteropatriarchy, and religious and cultural norms. Within this context, the participants reported that their agency to resist child marriage was limited. The findings have implications for ameliorative programming and interventions that are focused on giving adolescent girls safe spaces and the voice to challenge gender, sociocultural, and the heteropatriarchy that rendered them vulnerable to child marriage.