Human Development, the Capability Approach and the Mediating of Sustainable Rural Livelihoods: a case study of women’s empowerment through expansive learning in the Mzimvubu Catchment of the Eastern Cape province, South Africa
- Authors: Conde-Aller, Laura
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Expansive learning , Social learning , Transformative learning , Capabilities approach (Social sciences) , Women's rights South Africa Mzimvubu River Watershed , Women Economic conditions , Women Social conditions , Sustainable agriculture South Africa Mzimvubu River Watershed
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/366236 , vital:65845 , DOI https://doi.org/10.21504/10962/366236
- Description: This study makes a contribution to the field of sustainable agricultural development and women empowerment in rural South Africa by examining the transformations derived from an expansive learning process with a women farmers group in terms of their food production capability expansion and empowerment as well as the well-being of their local catchment or landscape where their activity was situated. The study took place in the Lutengele villages along the upper reaches of the lower Mzimvubu Catchment near Port St Johns in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa. Women in southern Africa are significant contributors to household livelihoods through their household food production practices and at the same time they are also one of the primary natural resource users in rural landscapes. In this case study, historical and contemporary ethnographic and situational data revealed disjuncture between existing practice and the fulfilment of women aspirations with regard to food security and social and ecological well-being at large. As a result, central to this study were the concepts of aspirations and capabilities and the role that these played in transformative learning processes via formative intervention research (after Engeström’s concept of expansive learning). Expansive learning emerges from Vygotsky’s early work on mediation of learning through language and culture, which gave raise to Cultural Historical Activity Theory (CHAT). Whereas the Capability Approach (CA) recognises that development interventions or initiatives should focus on “expanding the freedom that deprive people from enjoying their valued beings and doings” (Sen, 1999, p. 3), in other words, what people value or have reason to value. The Capability Approach coupled with CHAT deepens the contextual understanding of the agricultural activity system in light of the engendered power dynamics associated with women having access to productive resources, their culturally expected roles and responsibilities in the institution of their households, their families and the community at large, and most importantly, aspects of gerontocracy defined by their age and status in society. In addition, drawing on the Capability Approach as a lens to view agricultural development, social transformation and empowerment, provided the tools to conceptualise participants’ aspirations, their true value and the capabilities necessary for such aspirations to be realised in a context filled with socio-cultural and political power relations and dynamics faced especially by women. The first phase of the study set out to map the context in which the participants’ small-scale food production activity was situated, their aspirations relevant to sustainable agricultural livelihoods, food security, well-being and lastly, the main factors or contradictions inhibiting participants from attaining the aspired food production goals. During the initial phase of the expansive learning cycle I was able to address the first research question: What tensions and contradictions in aspiration-practice relationships shape household food security in the context of catchment management of the women farmers’ group or river forum in the Lutengele area? Twelve contradictions were identified from the historical and contemporary socio-cultural analysis of the home-based food production practices and agricultural activity in relation to the research participants’ envisaged aspirations, which under further scrutiny were thereafter considered by the participants as critical capabilities to pursue during the collective and transformative learning process in the second phase of the study. In the second phase of the study, a series of second stimuli were introduced in the form of conceptual and material tools and tasks with the aim to move participants along the expansive learning process. This led to the unfolding of the collectively defined Capability Learning Pathways for sustainable food production or expansion of their agricultural capability in the context of sustainability of the local micro-catchment or landscape. Through the various Change Laboratory workshops and supporting mini-cycles in the last stages of the formative interventionist research, participants’ learning and development was supported in a way that not only brought individuals together to co-design relevant solutions, strategies and working groups or committees, but also catalysed and amplified transformative agency and the expansion of food production capability, sustainable land use practices and ultimately empowerment. This answered the second and most important research question: Can, and if so, how can expansive social learning processes shape conversion factors for turning available resources into functionings that enhance household food security capabilities and ecological well-being? The methodology of expansive learning and formative interventionist research design intervention, with supporting mediating tools, has proven a positive intervention in the attainment of capabilities (or functionings) in relation to the participant’s aspired livelihoods and consequently improving their well-being as well as their ability to navigate through the various gendered power dynamics, especially for the young women participating in this study. The study proposes expansive learning as a suitable critical and transformative learning theory and methodology for the mediation of collective deliberations and the pursuit of capability development as charted by the learners’ collective and individual aspirations. This is a learning process that not only pursues the learners’ attainment of material and cognitive changes but also opens up new opportunities and most importantly, the freedom to exercise their agency no matter the circumstances they find themselves in – in other words, the freedom to aspire and to be, do and become what one values as instrumentally and intrinsically critical to live a life that they have reason to value. In sum, the unfolding of the expansive learning process happened at three levels: at the value clarification level in terms of human and non-human relationships and social relationality, the institutional level and the practices level. The study recommends further research on the suitability of expansive learning and Change Laboratories as a Capability Expansion Methodology involving human development and Capability Approach practitioners, particularly those with an interest in informal learning and community-based empowering initiatives. Additionally, further studies are also suggested for examining formative interventionist research as a participatory action research approach for capability development work in education and learning research and in different study fields and contexts. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Education, Education, 2022
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- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
Inadequate menstrual health management and human rights
- Authors: Hartley, Gemma-Maé
- Date: 2022-10-14
- Subjects: Menstrual hygiene management , Human rights , Political philosophy , Transgression , Women Social conditions , Economic, social and cultural rights
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Master's theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/422506 , vital:71953
- Description: Various human rights bodies have suggested that Inadequate Menstrual Health Management (MHM) could contribute to violations of human rights or, at the very least, is connected to the fulfilment of human rights. Despite recognition of this, there has not been thorough analysis of whether inadequate MHM is a violation of human rights, particularly in political discussions on the philosophy of human rights. Using a liberal cosmopolitan framework, this thesis attempts to bridge this gap and, ultimately, to argue that inadequate MHM constitutes a violation of human rights. This assertion brings with it various complications due to the heavily contested nature of human rights, their correlative duties, and the requirements for a lack of fulfilment to be considered a violation. I address each complication in turn. I argue that the traditional approach to human rights violations fails to consider the various ways that human rights are violated in our contemporary, globalised world. I suggest that structural violations of human rights should not be ruled out, particularly when we consider severe poverty and its by-products. Ultimately, the question of inadequate MHM is concerned with the content of human rights. If inadequate MHM were a violation, it would be a violation of women’s socio-economic rights. However, both group rights and socio-economic rights are contested. This thesis therefore justifies these rights. Group-differentiated rights are argued to be necessary for substantive equality. This is particularly the case when we consider the various risks women face simply because they are women. Women therefore need special protections and provisions for their human rights to be fulfilled. Socio-economic rights are necessary for the well-being and dignity of individuals everywhere. We can justify them even if they are costly, vague, and demanding on states, as critics argue they are. Therefore, if we can accept socio-economic rights and women’s rights, we can argue that inadequate MHM is a structural violation of human rights. Thinking about inadequate MHM in this way means we can respond to it with a level of urgency. This has the potential to improve the well-being, development, and dignity of women. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Political and International Studies, 2023
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- Date Issued: 2022-10-14
Talk in online video games: study of how the use of jargon, social interaction, and representation in Overwatch affects the ability of women to immerse themselves in these spaces
- Authors: Stander, Emily
- Date: 2022-04-07
- Subjects: Internet games Social aspects , Video gamers Language , Women video gamers , Cyberbullying , Online hate speech , Online trolling , Online chat groups , Women Social conditions , Women Sociological aspects , Overwatch (Video game) , Internet games Sex differences , Sex discrimination against women
- Language: English
- Type: Master's thesis , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/232477 , vital:49995
- Description: This thesis investigates the impact on women of aggressive, demeaning and blaming talk in the online video game* space. The objective is to understand how players talk to each other and how this kind of talk presents issues for women trying to enter the online gaming sphere and become recognised as players. The main method was participatory observation and interviews with women who have experienced such talk. Key results which came from this research is that the process of keeping specific people out of communities through different means of talk - gatekeeping, women being viewed as objects of sexual gratification for men through bad representation in video games and media and using women as scapegoats for frustration and blame in the competitive online video game space, are the main issues which arise from the way players communicate with each other. In conclusion, the research presented that there needs to be an effective system of unlearning and relearning these behaviours in communities and a change in the way women are represented and seen in media is necessary in order to change the behavioural patterns which exist in gaming culture. , Thesis (MA) -- Faculty of Humanities, Journalism and Media Studies, 2022
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- Date Issued: 2022-04-07