Shannon Walsh

Visualizing the politics of innocence in the age of AIDS

We are concerned with the ways in which social constructions of age can contribute to reducing or exacerbating the vulnerability of young people, and for this reason we refer to the issue as one of ‘the politics of innocence’. The focus of this paper is on gender, youth and HIV prevention/AIDS awareness in the context of South Africa and investigates the uses (and abuses) of images of ‘childhood’, ‘youth’ and ‘adolescence’ in the age of AIDS. Notwithstanding the particular case of South Africa where the incidence of new cases of HIV infection amongst young people is at crisis proportions, the impetus for our work on the visual representations of youth, gender and AIDS comes out of a recognition of the increasing risk of youth to sexually transmitted infections, HIV and AIDS, and within that the particular vulnerability, worldwide, of young women.

‘I'm too young to die’: HIV, masculinity, danger and desire in urban South Africa

In the South African urban areas of Atlantis and Khayelitsha, men and boys see gang membership and violence (including gang-related violence) as part of ‘being a man’. In this context, life itself is perilous and vulnerable. This article draws on the narratives of boys about their lives, and explores some key questions relating to gender, development and HIV. These include: how are mens and boys’ ideas about sexuality created, and what does this suggest about the kinds of HIV interventions that should be offered? In particular, how does the reality of everyday life in urban South Africa affect male perceptions of risk in relation to HIV/AIDS? And how can men and boys best be targeted in HIV prevention and treatment work?

Under the Umbrella: Pedagogy, knowledge production, and video from the margins of the movement

Abstract In September 2014, students and Hong Kong citizens took to the streets demanding universal suffrage. Cell phones and video cameras in hand, amateur student filmmakers were some of the first to capture the police tear-gassing young people that brought the city to its feet. Young people were positioning themselves as storytellers and knowledge producers on the streets. How has this restructured hierarchy of knowledge production often found in university education in Hong Kong? How too has being active participants and/or passive observers of the events of the Umbrella Movement translated into a pedagogy of experience in student’s daily lives, and how has this knowledge returned to the classroom? Specifically, I am interested in ways that young women who are not Cantonese first-language speakers understand their role in the movement and the kinds of knowledge they produced. Through interviews with these diverse students, and visual data from the footage they shot during the protests, we gain a rare glimpse into the multicultural world gathered beneath the umbrella of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, and how a new generation of young female filmmakers are using video to share their changing perspectives on democratic reform, education, and everyday life.

The Philosopher and His Poor: The Poor-Black as Object for Political Desire in South Africa

The influence of academics on South African social movements should not be a surprise to anyone who has had any experience working with movements in that country. In 2008 I wrote about the role of academics in Abahlali baseMjondolo (AbM) and other South African social movements, calling the power dynamics at work ‘Uncomfortable Collaborations’ (Walsh 2008). The president of AbM for the majority of its existence, S’bu Zikode, said as much almost 10 years ago:

Addressing sexual violence and rape culture: Issues and interventions targeting boys and men

abstract While girl-led projects that address sexual violence can empower girls to seek consent and to understand their right to safety, this alone cannot deal with the reality of everyday violence. While girls are told to empower themselves and to voice their concerns, the surrounding cultural environment often reinforces silence, dismissal and retribution towards women who speak out. Men and boys need to be part of the solution. This briefing investigates the potentials of pro-feminist approaches to gender-based violence (GBV) targeting boys and men. Using examples from South Africa and North America, I look at various approaches and initiatives taken by and with men and boys, often with a desire to centre more radical analysis of patriarchy within the work itself. The briefing unpacks some of the dilemmas and potentials that have been raised by working with men and boys as allies around sexual violence, and ways to distinguish pro-feminist projects.

Knowledge and Power in South Africa: Xenophobia and Survival in the Post-Apartheid State

In May 2008, South Africa was racked with the worst xenophobic violence since the end of apartheid. In the space of a few weeks, more than sixty people—overwhelmingly migrants from other African countries—were viciously attacked and killed by bands of vigilantes. Tens of thousands of people were displaced, many seeking protection outside local police stations, community and church halls, and temporary, precarious camps constructed throughout the country.

Ethnography-in-Motion: Neoliberalism and the Shack Dwellers Movement in South Africa

This chapter unravels the role of ethnography as an aspect of political practice in the context of shack dweller struggles in postapartheid South Africa. Using both macro and micro optics, it is possible to examine globalization under late capitalism and its specific conditions and variations manifest in a South African shack settlement in Crossmoor, Chatsworth, with a discussion of how an ethnography-in-motion has been used as a pedagogical and political methodology. I follow Gillian Hart (2002) in hoping to “clarify the slippages, openings, and possibilities for emancipatory social change in this era of neo-liberal capitalisms, as well as the limits and constraints operating at different levels” (p. 45).