Rhodes University Graduation Ceremony 2009
- Authors: Rhodes University
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: vital:8138 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007250
- Description: Rhodes University Graduation Ceremonies [at] 1820 Settlers National Monument Thursday, 16 April at 18:00 [and] Friday, 17 April at 10:30; 14:30 & 18:00 [and] Saturday, 18 April at 10:30
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Rhodes University
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: vital:8138 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007250
- Description: Rhodes University Graduation Ceremonies [at] 1820 Settlers National Monument Thursday, 16 April at 18:00 [and] Friday, 17 April at 10:30; 14:30 & 18:00 [and] Saturday, 18 April at 10:30
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
“The Two Cultures reunited: entomology for everyone”
- Authors: Villet, Martin H
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Audio , text
- Identifier: vital:587 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018947
- Description: Fifty years ago C.P. Snow delivered his essay, "The Two Cultures", sparking the schism between the Humanities and the Sciences. This lecture explores cultural entomology as a means of reconciling two other cultures: academia and society, and suggests one way of addressing this alienating dilemma.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Villet, Martin H
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Audio , text
- Identifier: vital:587 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018947
- Description: Fifty years ago C.P. Snow delivered his essay, "The Two Cultures", sparking the schism between the Humanities and the Sciences. This lecture explores cultural entomology as a means of reconciling two other cultures: academia and society, and suggests one way of addressing this alienating dilemma.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Ameliorating poverty in South Africa through natural resource commercialisation: how can government make a difference?
- Authors: Shackleton, Sheona E
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: vital:6614 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016221
- Description: [From Introduction] Some of the poorest rural people in South Africa are turning to the natural resource base for income generation. Using traditional skills they are converting a variety of wild resources into commodities that are sold in the market place. Wood and woven craft, medicines, fresh and processed wild foods, alcoholic beverages, building materials, fuelwood, dried mopane worms, cultural artefacts and brooms are just some examples of the array of natural resource products increasingly seen for sale in local and external markets. The majority of participants in this trade have minimal education, few assets to draw on, and little access to alternative sources of income or jobs. A significant proportion are women, with more than half heading their own households. Many come from homes devastated by HIV/AIDS. The cash earned from selling natural resource products, however small, is of critical importance, preventing producers and their families from slipping deeper into poverty. “Since I have been making brooms my children no longer go to bed crying of hunger,” observed one broom producer. The State has an obligation, in terms of its commitment to reducing poverty and developing the so-called 'second economy', to support producers and traders who are desperately trying to make a living for themselves. , This policy brief is based on the original brief made available for a workshop in August 2006. It draws on, amongst other sources, the results of several case studies of natural resource commercialisation undertaken across South Africa. The project was funded by the South Africa-Netherlands Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD), BP South Africa and the National Research Foundation (NRF). The Center for International Forestry Research, with support from SIDA, provided the funding to share these findings with key stakeholders including government policy and decision makers.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Shackleton, Sheona E
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: vital:6614 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016221
- Description: [From Introduction] Some of the poorest rural people in South Africa are turning to the natural resource base for income generation. Using traditional skills they are converting a variety of wild resources into commodities that are sold in the market place. Wood and woven craft, medicines, fresh and processed wild foods, alcoholic beverages, building materials, fuelwood, dried mopane worms, cultural artefacts and brooms are just some examples of the array of natural resource products increasingly seen for sale in local and external markets. The majority of participants in this trade have minimal education, few assets to draw on, and little access to alternative sources of income or jobs. A significant proportion are women, with more than half heading their own households. Many come from homes devastated by HIV/AIDS. The cash earned from selling natural resource products, however small, is of critical importance, preventing producers and their families from slipping deeper into poverty. “Since I have been making brooms my children no longer go to bed crying of hunger,” observed one broom producer. The State has an obligation, in terms of its commitment to reducing poverty and developing the so-called 'second economy', to support producers and traders who are desperately trying to make a living for themselves. , This policy brief is based on the original brief made available for a workshop in August 2006. It draws on, amongst other sources, the results of several case studies of natural resource commercialisation undertaken across South Africa. The project was funded by the South Africa-Netherlands Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD), BP South Africa and the National Research Foundation (NRF). The Center for International Forestry Research, with support from SIDA, provided the funding to share these findings with key stakeholders including government policy and decision makers.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Exploring job search and the causes of endogenous unemployment: evidence from Duncan Village, South Africa
- Authors: Duff, Patrick Alexander
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Unemployment , Unemployment -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- East London -- Duncan Village , Job hunting -- South Africa -- East London -- Duncan Village , Labor market -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MCom
- Identifier: vital:1026
- Description: Despite high rates of unemployment in South Africa, there is little consensus about its origins and solutions to the problem. Job search (how and when people search for work)is one aspect of the unemployment problem. Job search is shown to be a complex process strongly linked to the endogenous structure of the labour market. The flaws in traditional methods (theoretical and measurement) highlight this. Using data from a tailor-made survey in Duncan Village (a peri-urban area in Buffalo City, South Africa) the research examines factors that influence the effectiveness of job search. The results show that mode of search (how people look for work) is used as a signal by employers. Degrees of success are stratified amongst searchers using either ‘word of mouth’, place-to-place or formal modes of search. The thesis provides a method-test to reveal a complex body of evidence that has yet to be fully explored by practitioners in this field.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Duff, Patrick Alexander
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Unemployment , Unemployment -- Social aspects -- South Africa -- East London -- Duncan Village , Job hunting -- South Africa -- East London -- Duncan Village , Labor market -- South Africa
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MCom
- Identifier: vital:1026
- Description: Despite high rates of unemployment in South Africa, there is little consensus about its origins and solutions to the problem. Job search (how and when people search for work)is one aspect of the unemployment problem. Job search is shown to be a complex process strongly linked to the endogenous structure of the labour market. The flaws in traditional methods (theoretical and measurement) highlight this. Using data from a tailor-made survey in Duncan Village (a peri-urban area in Buffalo City, South Africa) the research examines factors that influence the effectiveness of job search. The results show that mode of search (how people look for work) is used as a signal by employers. Degrees of success are stratified amongst searchers using either ‘word of mouth’, place-to-place or formal modes of search. The thesis provides a method-test to reveal a complex body of evidence that has yet to be fully explored by practitioners in this field.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Human-river relationships in the Kat River catchment and the implications for integrated water resource management (IWRM) : an exploraratory study
- Authors: Birkholz, Sharon Alice
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Aquatic ecology -- South Africa -- Kat River , Rivers -- South Africa -- Kat River -- Sociological aspects , Rivers -- South Africa -- Kat River , Water supply -- South Africa -- Kat River -- Management , Human ecology -- South Africa -- Kat River , Stream ecology -- South Africa -- Kat River
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4838 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005514
- Description: Through out this study ‘relational scenarios’ were seen as the possible outcomes of the expression of human-river relationships in a catchment. Working within Inglis’s (2008, pg. 10) comment that ‘the Human World Relationship is expressed through a person’s views and behaviour towards the natural world, which can be either constructive or destructive’, two relational scenarios were selected to represent these two predicted outcomes of human-environment (or in the case of this thesis human-river) relationships: IWRM, seen as constructive and mutually beneficial to both the social and ecological system, and the Tragedy of the Commons, seen as destructive and parasitic in nature. In respect to this assertion, a conceptual framework or model was developed and used to guide the inductive process of this research. Through a social survey (administered via semi-structured interviews) of stakeholders (water-users) in the Kat River Catchment, Eastern Cape, South Africa, social attitudes towards the Kat River were explored. These attitudes were considered as variables that relate to the expression of ‘Human World Relationships’ namely ‘values and behaviour’ (Inglis, 2008, pg. 10). The findings of this thesis confirm that attitudes are influential components of human-river relationships in the Kat River Catchment. It was observed from the findings that the attitudes individuals have towards the Kat River have the potential to influence the ways people interact with the River and its associated resources, and are in turn influenced by the condition of the River and connections people have or make with the River within their daily lives. Such relationships in turn affect the management of the River and its water resources and influence how individuals approach water-related issues and undertake the associated activities. Given this understanding it was then proposed that attitudes could provide information that enables the prediction of likely ‘relational scenarios’ (IWRM or the Tragedy of the Commons) in a catchment. The findings appear to support this proposal, and three main attitude groups (utilitarian, associative and dissociative) were identified and used to further the discussion into how this knowledge could be used in predicting possible relational scenarios based on human-river relationships. Further exploration of the identified attitude groups suggested that these variables are significantly influenced by environmental ethics and place attachment (present in the community) and a series of guiding frameworks were developed to facilitate the exploration of the attitude groups relative to these concepts. The frameworks were generated from the hypothesis that knowledge of attitude groups in a catchment, in connection with the relative degrees to which moral values and worldviews are expressed, could provide insight into the readiness of a catchment system for the implementation of IWRM and/or the facilitative steps needed to shift the influence of unfavourable attitude groups (i.e. dissociative attitudes). Such steps would most likely involve extensive educational, awareness and capacity building programs. Finally, given the above theoretical frameworks, inductively developed from the findings of the social survey and related literature, the conceptual model was reevaluated and extended to include the thesis findings and hypotheses. It is suggested that in a catchment where there is a balance between the expression of utilitarian and associative attitude groups, then there is a high probability of finding present evidence of mutually beneficial human-river relationships already in play, as well as ‘fertile soil’ for the promotion of IWRM and philosophies and skills that generate such relationships. Alternatively in an area with a strong expression of dissociative attitudes, it is more likely to find evidence of destructive, more parasitic-like relationships being expressed, and a lack of commitment and interest in being involved in changing the status quo. It is likely that where both associative and dissociative attitudes are present there will be an overlap of elements of both scenarios – a situation that is probable in most catchments – depending on the strength of expression of either attitude group the balance will shift (be shifting) between the two relational scenarios.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Birkholz, Sharon Alice
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Aquatic ecology -- South Africa -- Kat River , Rivers -- South Africa -- Kat River -- Sociological aspects , Rivers -- South Africa -- Kat River , Water supply -- South Africa -- Kat River -- Management , Human ecology -- South Africa -- Kat River , Stream ecology -- South Africa -- Kat River
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MSc
- Identifier: vital:4838 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1005514
- Description: Through out this study ‘relational scenarios’ were seen as the possible outcomes of the expression of human-river relationships in a catchment. Working within Inglis’s (2008, pg. 10) comment that ‘the Human World Relationship is expressed through a person’s views and behaviour towards the natural world, which can be either constructive or destructive’, two relational scenarios were selected to represent these two predicted outcomes of human-environment (or in the case of this thesis human-river) relationships: IWRM, seen as constructive and mutually beneficial to both the social and ecological system, and the Tragedy of the Commons, seen as destructive and parasitic in nature. In respect to this assertion, a conceptual framework or model was developed and used to guide the inductive process of this research. Through a social survey (administered via semi-structured interviews) of stakeholders (water-users) in the Kat River Catchment, Eastern Cape, South Africa, social attitudes towards the Kat River were explored. These attitudes were considered as variables that relate to the expression of ‘Human World Relationships’ namely ‘values and behaviour’ (Inglis, 2008, pg. 10). The findings of this thesis confirm that attitudes are influential components of human-river relationships in the Kat River Catchment. It was observed from the findings that the attitudes individuals have towards the Kat River have the potential to influence the ways people interact with the River and its associated resources, and are in turn influenced by the condition of the River and connections people have or make with the River within their daily lives. Such relationships in turn affect the management of the River and its water resources and influence how individuals approach water-related issues and undertake the associated activities. Given this understanding it was then proposed that attitudes could provide information that enables the prediction of likely ‘relational scenarios’ (IWRM or the Tragedy of the Commons) in a catchment. The findings appear to support this proposal, and three main attitude groups (utilitarian, associative and dissociative) were identified and used to further the discussion into how this knowledge could be used in predicting possible relational scenarios based on human-river relationships. Further exploration of the identified attitude groups suggested that these variables are significantly influenced by environmental ethics and place attachment (present in the community) and a series of guiding frameworks were developed to facilitate the exploration of the attitude groups relative to these concepts. The frameworks were generated from the hypothesis that knowledge of attitude groups in a catchment, in connection with the relative degrees to which moral values and worldviews are expressed, could provide insight into the readiness of a catchment system for the implementation of IWRM and/or the facilitative steps needed to shift the influence of unfavourable attitude groups (i.e. dissociative attitudes). Such steps would most likely involve extensive educational, awareness and capacity building programs. Finally, given the above theoretical frameworks, inductively developed from the findings of the social survey and related literature, the conceptual model was reevaluated and extended to include the thesis findings and hypotheses. It is suggested that in a catchment where there is a balance between the expression of utilitarian and associative attitude groups, then there is a high probability of finding present evidence of mutually beneficial human-river relationships already in play, as well as ‘fertile soil’ for the promotion of IWRM and philosophies and skills that generate such relationships. Alternatively in an area with a strong expression of dissociative attitudes, it is more likely to find evidence of destructive, more parasitic-like relationships being expressed, and a lack of commitment and interest in being involved in changing the status quo. It is likely that where both associative and dissociative attitudes are present there will be an overlap of elements of both scenarios – a situation that is probable in most catchments – depending on the strength of expression of either attitude group the balance will shift (be shifting) between the two relational scenarios.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Making the Invisible Visible: Ameliorating Poverty through Natural Resource Commercialisation
- Authors: Shackleton, Sheona E
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: vital:6618 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016226
- Description: [From Introduction] The majority of households in South Africa, especially those in the rural communal areas, live in abject poverty. Some 70% of rural households can be classified as poor, while 18-24% fall into the chronically poor category. Unlike many other developing nations, South Africa's rural communal areas are characterised by relatively poor availability of agricultural land, with only about 40% of rural households involved in field cropping. This results in high levels of integration and dependence on the cash economy. Unemployment levels are amongst the highest in the world at about 30%. Unemployment amongst women tends to be greater than amongst men resulting in a poverty rate amongst rural female-headed households of over 60%; double that of male-headed households. The scourge of HIV/AIDS is devastating already poor households' ability to cope. More than half of HIV/AIDS affected households have insufficient food (UNDP 2003). Impacts of the pandemic include not only the loss of income, but also increased expenditure particularly on medical care and funerals. The need to care for ill household members or orphaned children also limits the choices of occupation that other household members can pursue, and may restrict labour availability for food production. Household assets are often sold for cash eroding the few safety nets people have. HIV/AIDS is expected to contribute to a chronic impoverishment of 26-33% more households than would be the case in its absence (Aliber 2003). , Endnote: This policy brief is based on the original brief made available for a workshop in August 2006. It is derived, amongst other sources, from the findings of nine case studies of local natural resource commercialisation undertaken as part of a project funded by the South Africa-Netherlands Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD), BP South Africa and the National Research Foundation (NRF). Case studies on woodcraft, furniture production, weaving, broom production and the sale of wild foods and traditional marula beer were completed by Zwoitwa Makhado (UWC), Sibongile Mavimbela (Rhodes), Taryn Pereira (Rhodes), Sheona Shackleton (Rhodes) and Jabulile Sithole (WSU). CIFOR with support from SIDA, provided the funding to share these findings with key stakeholders. The opinions expressed in these policy briefs are those of the author and research team and should not necessarily be attributed to funders and partner institutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Shackleton, Sheona E
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text
- Identifier: vital:6618 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016226
- Description: [From Introduction] The majority of households in South Africa, especially those in the rural communal areas, live in abject poverty. Some 70% of rural households can be classified as poor, while 18-24% fall into the chronically poor category. Unlike many other developing nations, South Africa's rural communal areas are characterised by relatively poor availability of agricultural land, with only about 40% of rural households involved in field cropping. This results in high levels of integration and dependence on the cash economy. Unemployment levels are amongst the highest in the world at about 30%. Unemployment amongst women tends to be greater than amongst men resulting in a poverty rate amongst rural female-headed households of over 60%; double that of male-headed households. The scourge of HIV/AIDS is devastating already poor households' ability to cope. More than half of HIV/AIDS affected households have insufficient food (UNDP 2003). Impacts of the pandemic include not only the loss of income, but also increased expenditure particularly on medical care and funerals. The need to care for ill household members or orphaned children also limits the choices of occupation that other household members can pursue, and may restrict labour availability for food production. Household assets are often sold for cash eroding the few safety nets people have. HIV/AIDS is expected to contribute to a chronic impoverishment of 26-33% more households than would be the case in its absence (Aliber 2003). , Endnote: This policy brief is based on the original brief made available for a workshop in August 2006. It is derived, amongst other sources, from the findings of nine case studies of local natural resource commercialisation undertaken as part of a project funded by the South Africa-Netherlands Programme on Alternatives in Development (SANPAD), BP South Africa and the National Research Foundation (NRF). Case studies on woodcraft, furniture production, weaving, broom production and the sale of wild foods and traditional marula beer were completed by Zwoitwa Makhado (UWC), Sibongile Mavimbela (Rhodes), Taryn Pereira (Rhodes), Sheona Shackleton (Rhodes) and Jabulile Sithole (WSU). CIFOR with support from SIDA, provided the funding to share these findings with key stakeholders. The opinions expressed in these policy briefs are those of the author and research team and should not necessarily be attributed to funders and partner institutions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Myth, Music & Modernism: the Wagnerian dimension in Virginia Woolf's Mrs Dalloway and the waves and James Joyce’s Finnegans Wake
- Authors: McGregor, Jamie Alexander
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/77069 , vital:30662
- Description: The study of Wagner's influence on the modernist novel is an established field with clear room for further contributions. Very little of the criticism undertaken to date takes full cognizance of the philosophical content of Wagner's dramas: a revolutionary form of romanticism that calls into question the very nature of the world, its most radical component being Schopenhauer's version of transcendental idealism. The compatibility of this doctrine with Wagner's earlier work, with its already marked privileging of myth over history, enabled his later dramas, consciously influenced by Schopenhauer, to crown a body of work greater than the sum of its parts. In works by Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, the "translation" of Wagnerian ideas into novelistic form demonstrates how they might be applied in "real life". In Mrs Dalloway, the figure of Septimus can be read as partly modelled on Wagner's heroes Siegfried and Tristan, two outstanding examples of the opposing heroic types found throughout his oeuvre, whose contrasting attributes are fused in Septimus's bipolar personality. The Wagnerian pattern also throws light on Septimus's transcendental "relationship" with a woman he does not even know, and on the implied noumenal identity of seemingly isolated individuals. In The Waves, the allusions to both Parsifal and the Ring need to be reconsidered in light of the fact that these works' heroes are all but identical (a fact overlooked in previous criticism); as Wagner's solar hero par excellence, Siegfried is central to the novel's cyclical symbolism. The Waves also revisits the question of identity but in a more cosmic context – the metaphysical unity of everything. In Finnegans Wake, the symbolism of the cosmic cycle is again related to the Ring, as are Wagner's two heroic types to the Shem / Shaun opposition (the Joyce / Woolf parallels here have also been overlooked in criticism to date). All three texts reveal a fascination with the two contrasting faces of a Wagnerian hero who embodies the dual nature of reality, mirroring in himself the eternal rise and fall of world history and, beyond them, the timeless stasis of myth.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: McGregor, Jamie Alexander
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Doctoral , PhD
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/77069 , vital:30662
- Description: The study of Wagner's influence on the modernist novel is an established field with clear room for further contributions. Very little of the criticism undertaken to date takes full cognizance of the philosophical content of Wagner's dramas: a revolutionary form of romanticism that calls into question the very nature of the world, its most radical component being Schopenhauer's version of transcendental idealism. The compatibility of this doctrine with Wagner's earlier work, with its already marked privileging of myth over history, enabled his later dramas, consciously influenced by Schopenhauer, to crown a body of work greater than the sum of its parts. In works by Virginia Woolf and James Joyce, the "translation" of Wagnerian ideas into novelistic form demonstrates how they might be applied in "real life". In Mrs Dalloway, the figure of Septimus can be read as partly modelled on Wagner's heroes Siegfried and Tristan, two outstanding examples of the opposing heroic types found throughout his oeuvre, whose contrasting attributes are fused in Septimus's bipolar personality. The Wagnerian pattern also throws light on Septimus's transcendental "relationship" with a woman he does not even know, and on the implied noumenal identity of seemingly isolated individuals. In The Waves, the allusions to both Parsifal and the Ring need to be reconsidered in light of the fact that these works' heroes are all but identical (a fact overlooked in previous criticism); as Wagner's solar hero par excellence, Siegfried is central to the novel's cyclical symbolism. The Waves also revisits the question of identity but in a more cosmic context – the metaphysical unity of everything. In Finnegans Wake, the symbolism of the cosmic cycle is again related to the Ring, as are Wagner's two heroic types to the Shem / Shaun opposition (the Joyce / Woolf parallels here have also been overlooked in criticism to date). All three texts reveal a fascination with the two contrasting faces of a Wagnerian hero who embodies the dual nature of reality, mirroring in himself the eternal rise and fall of world history and, beyond them, the timeless stasis of myth.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Discourses around abortion in a low-income community in the Western Cape
- Authors: Bowes, Tanya-Ann
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Abortion -- Moral and ethical aspects , Abortion -- Religious aspects -- Christianity , Patriarchy -- South Africa , Abortion -- South Africa -- Western Cape , Male domination (Social structure)
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MSocSci
- Identifier: vital:2939 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002448
- Description: Since the introduction of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act in 1996, research concerning abortion has primarily focused on public health issues or on the personal experience of women. The cultural and social context within which women experience a termination of pregnancy and in which services are offered has received less attention. The purpose of this study was to analyse public discourses around abortion in a low-income community in the Western Cape. Focus groups were used to gather data from three women’s and three men’s groups. The findings suggest that the agenda of pro-life discourses in this community is not always to defend the life of the fetus. Rather these discourses serve to protect, preserve and maintain the power of the traditional nuclear family, headed by the husband, over women’s reproduction and sexuality. Religious and moral arguments serve to disguise the gender issues at stake. However, instances also occurred where TOP was supported if the husband participated in the decision-making process. Therefore, his presence normalised abortion. Thus, the prevailing public discourses around abortion in this community either support or negate abortion in order to further the agenda of patriarchy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Bowes, Tanya-Ann
- Date: 2009
- Subjects: Abortion -- Moral and ethical aspects , Abortion -- Religious aspects -- Christianity , Patriarchy -- South Africa , Abortion -- South Africa -- Western Cape , Male domination (Social structure)
- Language: English
- Type: text , Thesis , Masters , MSocSci
- Identifier: vital:2939 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1002448
- Description: Since the introduction of the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act in 1996, research concerning abortion has primarily focused on public health issues or on the personal experience of women. The cultural and social context within which women experience a termination of pregnancy and in which services are offered has received less attention. The purpose of this study was to analyse public discourses around abortion in a low-income community in the Western Cape. Focus groups were used to gather data from three women’s and three men’s groups. The findings suggest that the agenda of pro-life discourses in this community is not always to defend the life of the fetus. Rather these discourses serve to protect, preserve and maintain the power of the traditional nuclear family, headed by the husband, over women’s reproduction and sexuality. Religious and moral arguments serve to disguise the gender issues at stake. However, instances also occurred where TOP was supported if the husband participated in the decision-making process. Therefore, his presence normalised abortion. Thus, the prevailing public discourses around abortion in this community either support or negate abortion in order to further the agenda of patriarchy.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
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