Diana Gibson

Community Violence and PTSD in Selected South African Townships

Given the high rates of crime in South Africa’s townships, nonpolitical violence out-side the home and its psychological impact on women were investigated within two samples, the primary a help-seeking sample and the secondary a community sample. In the help-seeking sample, two thirds of the women reported having experienced several traumatic events outside the home. Those women displayed a median of 9 PTSD (post-traumatic stress disorder) symptoms, with nearly half meeting all criteria for PTSD. In the community sample, 40 women of color were interviewed at a community festival for women, and again two thirds reported having experienced several traumatic events outside the home during the previous year. These women displayed a median of 8.8 PTSD symptoms, with none meeting all criteria for PTSD. South Africa’s distinctive culture of violence is discussed as context for understanding issues of community violence and PTSD among women in its minority townships.

Traditional health practitioners' perceptions, herbal treatment and management of HIV and related opportunistic infections.

BackgroundIn South Africa, traditional health practitioners’ (THPs) explanatory frameworks concerning illness aetiologies are much researched. However there is a gap in the literature on how THPs understand HIV-related opportunistic infections (OIs), i.e. tuberculosis, candidiasis and herpes zoster. This study aimed to comprehend THPs’ understandings of the aforementioned; to ascertain and better understand the treatment methods used by THPs for HIV and OIs, while also contributing to the documentation of South African medicinal plants for future conservation.MethodsThe study was conducted in two locations: Strand, Western Cape where THPs are trained and Mpoza village, Mount Frere, Eastern Cape from where medicinal plants are ordered or collected. Semi-structured interviews were conducted with 53 THPs of whom 36 were diviners (amagrirha: isangoma) and 17 herbalists (inyanga). THPs were selected through a non-probability “snowball” method. Data were analysed using a thematic content analysis approach. An ethnobotanical survey was conducted and plants used to manage HIV and OIs were collected. A complete set of voucher specimens was deposited at the University of the Western Cape Herbarium for identification. Plant names were checked and updated with Kew’s online website http://www.theplantlist.org.ResultsTHPs conceptualise the aetiology of HIV and OIs at two related levels. The first involves the immediate manifestation of the illness/condition because of a viral infection in the blood (HIV), the presence of bacteria in the lungs (tuberculosis), or weakened state of the body making it susceptible to OIs. The presence of OIs is indicative of the probable presence of HIV. The second level of causation affects the first, which includes pollution, changes in cultural sexual norms, witchcraft, environmental factors, and lack of adherence to ancestral rituals. THPs reported using 17 plants belonging to 12 families. Remedies included mixes of up to five plants.ConclusionThis study explored the THPs’ perspectives on HIV and commonly associated OIs and their herbal treatment methods. THPs generally rely on biomedical diagnosis before treating a client. They also seek guidance from the ancestors for a particular diagnosis, the plants to use for a specific treatment, when to harvest, and how to administer herbal remedies.

It's in my blood : the military habitus of former Zimbabwean soldiers in exile in South Africa

This article examines the habitus of soldiers who either deserted or resigned from the Zimbabwe National Army in the post–2000 crisis in Zimbabwe and now live in exile in Johannesburg, South Africa. It is based on the information provided by forty-four former soldiers who related their life histories and participated in informal conversations and group discussions. A main finding is that these men, even though they have left the army, hold on in the extreme to their being as soldiers. This is shaped by at least four, interlinked dimensions of change in their lives: leaving the army without honorable discharge, leaving Zimbabwe itself, being exiles in an often unwelcoming South Africa, loss of family life and military status. The post-deployment dominance of military dispositions in the identity of the former soldiers is quite unique. Most former combatants worldwide have succeeded in different degrees to unmake their habituated forms of military identity or live with multiple identities.

Constructions of Masculinity, Mental Toughness and the Inexpressibility of Distress among a Selected Group of South African Veterans of the ‘Bush War’ in Namibia

The study examined the manner in which conscripted combat veterans make meaning of their violent experiences during the apartheid-era ‘Bush War’ in the border area between Namibia and Angola. A total of 43 ex-combatants participated in the study (23 Afrikaans-speaking; 20 English-speaking). Data was collected through in-depth interviews, e-mails, telephone conversations, online discussions through websites and letters. Data was coded and analysed by using a phenomenological framework. Ethical clearance was obtained. Military masculinities shaped some of the dilemmas faced by men who saw and perpetrated violence during the war. Negative constructions of psychological problems, distress and suffering as ‘unmanly’, affects the ways in which ex-combatants can express their memories and lived experiences of the war.

Ethnobotanical survey of medicinal plants used to manage High Blood Pressure and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Bitterfontein, Western Cape Province, South Africa

ETHNOPHARMACOLOGICAL RELEVANCE The aim of this study was to identify and document medicinal plants used to manage High Blood Pressure and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus in Bitterfontein, Western Cape Province, South Africa. METHODS One hundred and twelve (112) respondents were interviewed between August 2014 and September 2015 through semi-structured surveys to gather data on the percentage of people who had been diagnosed with High Blood Pressure and/or Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus and to determine the frequency of medicinal plant and allopathic medicine use. Twelve (12) key respondents were subsequently selected, using a non-probability snowball sampling method. They were interviewed in-depth concerning their plant practices and assisted with plant collection. RESULTS Twenty-four plant (24) species belonging to 15 families were identified for the management of High Blood Pressure and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus. The most frequently reported families were Asteraceae (20.8%), Lamiaceae (16.67%), Crassulaceae (8.33%) and Aizoaceae (8.33%). The remaining (45.54%) were evenly split over eleven families- Fabaceae, Amaryllidaceae, Anacardiaceae, Capparaceae, Geraniaceae, Apiaceae, Convolvulaceae, Apocynaceae, Rutaceae, Asphodelaceae and Thymelaeaceae. The most commonly used plant species overall was Lessertia frutescens (96.55%). The most frequently used plant parts included leaves (57.63%) roots/bulbs (15.25%) and stems (11.86%), mostly prepared as infusions or decoctions for oral administration. CONCLUSIONS Medicinal plants are widely used by High Blood Pressure and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus sufferers. They employ diverse plant species to manage both conditions. In addition, some sufferers often use prescribed allopathic medication, as well as medicinal plants, but at different intervals. Despite high usage the plants identified are not currently threatened (Red Data list status: least concern).

Sutherlandia frutescens: The meeting of science and traditional knowledge

Sutherlandia frutescens (L.) R.Br. (syn. Lessertia frutescens (L.) Goldblatt and J.C. Manning) is an indigenous medicinal plant extensively used in South Africa to treat a variety of health conditions. It is a fairly widespread, drought-resistant plant that grows in the Western, Eastern, and Northern Cape provinces and some areas of KwaZulu-Natal, varying in its chemical and genetic makeup across these geographic areas.1 Sutherlandia is widely used as a traditional medicine. Extensive scientific studies are being carried out on the safety, quality, and the efficacy of this medicinal plant to validate the traditional claims, elucidate the bioactive constituents, and conduct clinical trials. This has resulted in a unique situation in South Africas history, where traditional knowledge and science intersect to provide insight into this popular plant. This photoessay attempts to illustrate the interlinkage of science with the indigenous knowledge of traditional healers, the local knowledge of people who care for the sick, product development, and innovation agenda of the country as it relates to this plant. The essay shows how S. frutescens, as a medicinal plant, and the study of its pharmacologic components are represented and understood differently, yet with a similar aim: to enhance its safety. The essay explores the plant as botanical entity, its local uses and therapeutic properties, and the science related to ongoing phase IIa and IIb clinical trials.

Towards plant-centred methodologies in anthropology

This paper reflects on research on medicinal plants in the Matzikama Local Municipality, Western Cape, in order to elaborate on methodological possibilities and their problematic in such studies. Classical ethnographic research is usually conducted from an anthropocentric viewpoint, but our intimate engagement with plants compelled us to experiment with a range of methodological tools in order to gain deeper and wider insight into plant worlds. We paused, spent time to dwell with plants, drew on all our senses and learned new ways to be attentive to plants and their more-than-human sociality and entanglements. This expanded our perceptual skills as we reassessed how to study, engage plants with care and think about and with them afresh. The thrust of our efforts was to draw plants from the margin of research, without anthropomorphising them.

Rethinking medicinal plants and plant medicines

Because plants are perceived as sessile and immobile, they are often represented as objects or things in current literature. In this paper, I explore variations and shifts in research and literature since 2000 that reconsider the ways that plant-related ideas, expertise and practices intersect in multiple associations related to medicinal plants. I argue that, in their relationship with humans, plants have histories, are mobile and can also bring about political and other effects. I use ethnographic material from Namibia and the Western Cape of South Africa to review medicinal plants, by focusing on human-plant relations and the incorporation of plants as non-human subjects with non-intentional agency.

Human and plant interfaces: relationality, knowledge and practices

This introduction to the special issue on “Human-Plant Interfaces: Relationality, Knowledge and Practices” briefly makes a case for the ethnography of the human-plant interface by referring to three interrelated aspects that emerge from the set of papers that follow. These aspects involve the radical interconnectedness of humans, plants and things; the need to consider the agentivity of plants; and challenges to methodological orthodoxies. This task calls up key theoretical orientations that seek to include plants in research, description and theorisation. Further, the papers collected here gather perspectives from a range of plant practitioners and locate them in their respective circuits of knowledge. The planthropologies and plantographies produced show that plants are situated in a network of ecologies, sites, practitioners, philosophies and practices of knowledge making.

'I have plans': scrutinising the meaning, production and sustaining of hope in safe sexual practices among young men in Khayelitsha, Cape Town

This paper scrutinises hope from an anthropological perspective and in a South African setting. While public, theological and other discourses have attended to hope, anthropologists in South Africa have not done so and the paper aims to highlight it as an area of interest for the social sciences. One exception to the general trend is Crapanzanos (2003) work on hope, which sees it as somewhat passive. By drawing on research among young men in Khayelitsha, the paper argues that they view hope as active and as part of making and realising their plans for the future. In this regard the production and reproduction of hope impacts positively on safe sexual practices.