Thabisile Buthelezi

Giving a face to HIV and AIDS: on the uses of photo-voice by teachers and community health care workers working with youth in rural South Africa

This paper focuses on an ongoing project in rural South Africa involving teachers and community health workers addressing their work with youth and HIV and AIDS. It outlines a photo-voice component of the project, highlighting in particular the design features of setting up such a project, and in particular addresses five emerging issues in visual methodologies: technical concerns, interpretation, ethical concerns, documentation and taking action. The paper concludes by looking at the ways in which the kind of reflexivity afforded by visual methodologies can help to make visible a plan of action for change. In a province of South Africa that is at the epicentre of the pandemic, this is vital.

What can a woman do with a camera? Turning the female gaze on poverty and HIV and AIDS in rural South Africa

This article explores the use of participatory video in finding solutions to challenges faced by schools and communities in the contexts of poverty and the AIDS pandemic in one rural community in KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa. Locating the analysis within the study of feminist visual culture and the notion of the female gaze, the article focuses on a close reading of the production of a three‐minute video produced by women participating in a project involving teachers, learners, community healthcare workers, and parents. We use textual analysis to look at three levels of textuality: the primary text, the production text, and audience text. Working with video offers a critical way to engage more broadly with texts within qualitative research in education, to engage women in examining their everyday lives, and to make visible new possibilities for addressing the problems of AIDS and poverty.

Youth voices about sex and AIDS: implications for life skills education through the ‘Learning Together’ project in KwaZulu‐Natal, South Africa

This paper focuses on youth voices about sex and AIDS and reveals significant discrepancies between the ‘ideal adult worldview’ and the ‘practical youth worldview’ on sexual matters. In discussing the ‘youth worldview’, it draws on Piaget’s theories of childhood development and Perry’s theory of student development, both theories which postulate that children cannot learn material if they have not reached a particular level of development. It concludes that life skills implementation is the key issue to HIV prevention among young people. It is argued that such a programme should take the rights‐based approach in order to get a firm grip of actual sexual practices among youth. It is further argued that this is only possible where there is maximum youth engagement—and this can be achieved through role modelling and the use of visual and arts‐based participatory methodologies.

Every voice counts: Towards a new agenda for schools in rural communities in the age of AIDS

This discussion piece focuses on possible strategies for taking action around some of the challenges teachers and schools in rural communities face in the context of larger systemic changes in southern Africa, and particularly in the context of HIV/AIDS. For this purpose we examine five key entry points, i.e. teachers’ lives, school leadership and management, the voices of young people, teachers working with communities, and partnerships and pedagogies for preparing new teachers. We propose visual participatory research as a possible strategy for providing a space for dialogue that could be unleashed from the narrow political and economical aims of education transformation in South Africa. In a context where rural communities and schools are often viewed and approached as deficient, we consider the importance of an asset-based approach, invoking specific types of communication as an alternative to a needs-based approach to community development.

The intersection of gender and class in Ilanga and Isolezwe news coverage of rape

abstract This briefing explores the contribution of print press to social definitions of rape by examining the intersection of gender and class in media coverage of rape. Drawing on a content analysis of selected case-based Ilanga and Isolezwe newspaper articles about rape, it recognises the need for the public to be informed about rape crime. However, it argues that reporting can endorse the invisibility of certain groups of people and enhance the visibility of other groups. Furthermore, it argues that whereas reporting of a rape crime committed either by strangers or to children transcends gender politics in that perpetrators are reported as such, class can direct reporting at discounting womens allegations of rape and justifying the masquerading of rape as seduction or provocation. It concludes by asking whether press coverage helps or hinders efforts towards a safe and just society.

Cultural beliefs, folk medicine and the unfathomable mystery of the ‘Axe Killer’ explored in Dhlomo’s isiZulu novel Izwi Nesithunzi (the Voice and the Shadow)

Abstract This paper analyses Dhlomo’s (1980) isiZulu novel titled, Izwi Nesithunzi, distinguishing three types of traditional healers, constructed around three characters: a genuine herbalist, a fame-fixated herbalist and a witch-cum-herbalist in the characters of Mr Nkatha Zuma, Ncibijane Zuma and Shibasa Mfulamfula, respectively. It argues that the behaviour of individual medicine person is determined by the interwoven and interconnected factors such as beliefs about the Supreme Being, beliefs about the value of human life and character disorders that manifest in an individual’s adult life as a consequence of the effects of societal ills such as child abuses and abandonment. The paper juxtaposes the actions of Ncibijane, a fame-fixated herbalist, with the activities of the real serial killer, dubbed ‘The Axe Killer’, who murdered 15 victims in KwaZulu-Natal before the court sentenced him to death in Pretoria in 1956. The paper highlights research gaps relating to: the ways of differentiating good and bad traditional healers; consequences of early adverse childhood experiences in adult life and possible interventions; and the behaviour and activities informed by a belief on wealth-creating medicine/familiar, and its related effects on societal behaviour. The paper concludes by emphasising the importance of creating a healthy environment in which all children grow into well-adjusted individuals.