Perceptions of subtance abuse prevention programmes implemented in the Ramothsere Moiloa Local Municipality South Africa

Substance abuse is a significant challenge facing the World and in particular South Africa. In this study, various Western and African traditional perspectives were considered to gain an understanding of the substance abuse problem among adolescents. The study was conducted in one of the rural villages of the Ramotshere Moiloa Local Municipality in the North West Province of South Africa. Participants included 24 African male and female adolescents between 13 and 19 years of age, as well as 2 parents and 9 professionals. The 9 professionals are educators, a social worker, a clinical psychologist, a mental health worker, a traditional leader and a traditional healer, between 37 to 53 years of age. A qualitative, explorative research design was employed. Data sources included individual face-to-face interviews, focus group discussions, and a document review. Thematic analysis was employed to analyse data. The findings were based on the perceptions of participants and revealed that adolescents are socially entrapped to substances such as alcohol, tobacco, cannabis, cocaine, glue, nyaope, and segonyamahlo. Reasons for their use of substances included individual, family, and environmental factors. The findings revealed the severe impact of substance abuse on adolescents and their families. There was evidence of primary, secondary, and tertiary levels of substance abuse prevention programmes targeting adolescents and other community members. In addition, stakeholders such as parents, peers, professionals, traditional leaders, traditional healers, government, and non-government organisations were recommended to implement substance abuse prevention programmes to address the substance abuse problem among adolescents. Furthermore, the study highlighted efforts made to reflect on the implemented substance abuse prevention programmes.PsychologyD. Phil. (Psychology

An existential-phenomenological inquiry into self-perceived pornography addiction

Despite scientific and clinical interest in problematic pornography use as a type of behavioural addiction, little is known about the qualitative characteristics of self-perceived pornography addiction. The goal of this study is to enhance the understanding of pornography addiction from the perspective of users who consider themselves addicted. To this end, semi-structured interviews were carried out with ten male participants in therapy for pornography addiction. Interpretative phenomenological analysis was applied to data gathered from the interviews to capture the essential features of their experiences. The findings demonstrate that self-perceived pornography addiction is a multi-faceted phenomenon, involving physical, psychological, behavioural, relational and ethical difficulties. Despite physical pain and instrumental treatment of one’s own body, pornography consumption is perceived as a highly valued form of intimacy-free sexual conduct. The study shows that self-perceived addiction entails an alienated way of being with the focus on the self and intensely negative emotionality in the form of self-directed hostility and adverse self-perceptions. Conceptualising the experience in terms of addiction provides the self-perceived pornography addicts with a set of explanations and justifications for their behaviour. This understanding, however, raises a number of concerns, including a deep fear of stigma, the belief that addiction to pornography is particularly difficult to overcome and the assumption that their problems are perceived by others as a form of self-indulgence rather than genuine difficulty. The study adds to the knowledge of the phenomenon, which is predominantly explanatory in nature, by revealing new qualitative characteristics and offering insights rooted in the lived experience. In the absence of evidence-based recommendations and guidance for practitioners, it has the potential to inform clinical practice of clinical psychologists working with clients who experience problems with pornography consumption

Social representations of marketplace immorality:The case of the Kenyan illicit alcohol market

This thesis examines social representations of marketplace immorality in a context of contested legitimacy. In recent years, the legislative context of illicit alcohol in Kenya has changed the status of illicit alcohol from legal to illegal, then back to legal, between June 2015 and February 2016. Using social representations theory, this study explores the dominant social representations in the Kenyan illicit alcohol market during this volatile regulatory period. The study draws on longitudinal data from digital mainstream and social media news sites, as well as interview and observation data. The study seeks to expand understanding on the extent to which social representations convey morality, and the impact of social representations on people’s perceptions and practices, thereby extending knowledge and understanding of social representations and morality. Consumer research has begun to consider issues relating to morality in the marketplace, but this is still a nascent area of research. Most studies on morality have explored only a subset of moral concerns but this study expands the conceptualization of morality in a market context responding to calls from market researchers for a broader definition of consumer morality. The study focuses on plural moral domains with several moral concerns and highlights both individual-centred and other-centred moral concerns. The study also demonstrates that social representations in the alcohol market focus on the harm from illicit consumption practices leading to selective objectification of consumer and alcohol problems and limiting remedial initiatives in the marketplace. The findings also reveal that cognitive polyphasia is a pervasive feature in the social representations of the Kenyan illicit alcohol market. Key aspects of cognitive polyphasia that define some of its functionalities and how it could be operationalised are a nascent area in the study of social representations. This study’s findings contribute to the existing knowledge on cognitive polyphasia by revealing cognitive polyphasia as a means of adapting to change, coping with change, resisting change and inducing change. The study also contributes to knowledge on the delegitimization of market practices by examining the role of cognitive polyphasia in changing practices and perceptions. The study findings also illustrate moral ambiguities in the marketplace as well as the psychological and socio-psychological processes used to navigate the moral ambiguities. The processes illustrated include social representation, moral exclusion, moral rationalization, moral decoupling and moral override. These processes provide insights into the reasoning and justifications behind why consumers would or would not act in an ethical or moral manner. The research further contributes to the literature on morality by highlighting the influence of emotions in moral judgement. These findings confirm previous empirical research in moral psychology on the role of emotion in moral judgement. The study proposes greater emphasis on emotional appeals in efforts to encourage moral consumer behaviour since emotions are revealed as key to moral judgement. The practical implications of this research are mainly in relation to the incorporation of community cultural language when talking about, or implementing illicit alcohol policy, to help make the policies a part of the local culture

Painkiller (ab)use : the discursive construction and lived experience of non-medical consumption

The ‘misuse’ or ‘abuse’ of pharmaceutical pain medications is of growing interest among medical practitioners and has received increasing media attention over the last decade. Concerned with the health harms of non-medical consumption, medical and media attention has focussed on the potential to ‘abuse’ and become ‘addicted’ to pharmaceutical opiates. This thesis seeks to contextualise this emerging discourse of pharmaceutical ‘abuse’ within the social and political histories from which it has emerged. It is divided into two parts: the first addresses the discursive construction of painkiller (ab)use as it is articulated in dominant and expert accounts; the second part provides an empirical investigation that draws on the lived experience of those who actually engage in non-medical consumption. This thesis critically analyses expert knowledge by asking how it constructs substance use, addiction, medical authority, the body and pain. It canvasses history, research and policy to articulate how dominant understandings of drug consumption and pain shift over time and within different contexts. The thesis outlines the way official accounts of drug consumption not only describe but also constitute non-medical consumption as a ‘social problem’ for policy intervention. It articulates how research about non-medical consumption often conflates a range of levels of drug consumption and can exaggerate its relationship with criminality. This increased criminalisation of painkiller consumption in policy and research is juxtaposed with a social context in which the definition of pain has begun to encompass a broader range of human experiences. Broadening definitions of pain have contributed to increased cultural expectations about the therapeutic potential of pharmaceuticals. The narratives and life experiences of people who engage in non-medical consumption are also explored. An empirical investigation in the thesis builds on qualitative traditions of drug research that indicate that drug use is a social practice inseparable from the context in which drugs are consumed. It reveals a range of practices that are not limited to ‘abuse’ and which occur in everyday contexts often at a distance from the criminalised image of policy and research accounts. Pain medications are an ideal complement to everyday cycles of restraint and release. This also extends to people who use opiates to treat chronic pain and who use medications for recreation. Analysis of interview data indicates that neoliberal and commercial discourse, which argue for individualised modes of medication consumption, are in tension with official accounts that posit the need for the strict control of opiates and those who consume them. The work conducted in this thesis demonstrates that painkillers are intermediary objects that slip between the categories of legal and illegal, medical and non-medical, and moral and immoral, depending on the context of consumption. For those who use these medications, an intimate relationship between pleasure seeking, health practice and productive citizenship appears to dominate motivations for consumption

Jagged blue frontiers: The police and the policing of boundaries in South Africa

Social and territorial boundaries have been fundamental to the approaches and practices of policing bodies in South Africa for centuries, from the mounted colonial paramilitary forces of the 1800s to the 21st century professional police. Boundaries have not only been a central mechanism that the police have consistently used to control and regulate the general population, but have also been catalysts for change in terms of operational policing strategies and tactics. This has typically been the case when a threat has been ascribed to a bounded area and/or populations that reside within the confines of the boundary, or on the other side of the boundary. The nature of the such a threat is considered to be even more severe when communities within the bounded space, or on the other side of the boundary, acquire significant quantities of firearms and ammunition, as this provides such populations with the lethal technology to defy and contest the police's coercive authority and ability to conserve boundaries relating to the maintenance of order and the enforcement of laws. South Africa is a distinctly relevant case study for an examination of the relationship between boundaries and the police as for the past three and a half centuries South Africa's diverse policing history has been profoundly framed by territorial, social and political boundaries. The police and the proto-police have been at the sharp edge of the application of authority by assorted forms of government, and have often acted to safeguard the interests of economic and political elites. That is, the police and formal policing bodies have been required to subdue and suppress groups and individuals that resisted or threatened the process of state building and resource extraction. The police were also regularly deployed to protect the territorial borders of South Africa from menacing others. By means of this historical analysis of South Africa, this thesis introduces a new concept, 'police frontierism', which illuminates the nature of the relationships between the police, policing and boundaries, and can potentially be used for future case study research. It is an alternative way of conceptualising policing, one in which police work is fundamentally framed by social and territorial boundaries. Such boundaries delineate perceived safe or 'civilised' spaces from dangerous or 'uncivilised' ones. The police tend to concentrate their resources in the frontier zone immediately adjacent to the boundary in order to preserve or extend the boundary of safety and 'civilisation', and restrict, subdue or eliminate those individuals, groups or circumstances from the 'uncivilised' spaces that a government authority or elites have deemed to be a threat to order and peace. An essential dynamic of this policing approach is that the boundary and the adjoining frontier zone strongly influence police practices and behaviour in this context. In particular, territorial and social delineations amplify and distort existing police prejudices against those communities on the other side of the boundary. The police often engage in othering, where the communities of interest are viewed negatively, and are predominantly seen as agents of disorder and law breaking. This othering may lead to an intensification of aggressive police behaviour towards the targeted communities

Fourteen years on: The legacy of giving testimony to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission for survivors of human rights violations

This thesis was submitted for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy and awarded by Brunel University.OBJECTIVES : This study focused, unusually, on the experience of people who gave testimony in person to the TRC many years previously. The study’s objectives were firstly to explore the personal, social and political events that participants recounted as motivating them to testify to the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission (TRC), and secondly to analyse the meanings that participants gave retrospectively, about fourteen years later, to testifying before the TRC. METHOD: 30 participants were recruited, from poor socioeconomic backgrounds, in Gauteng and Western Cape provinces, South Africa. Semi-structured interviews were conducted in participants’ preferred SA languages. Data were analysed using principles of modified grounded theory. FINDINGS: Participants from the two provinces testified through shared hopes for change but differed in the specific political and violent events that they wished to make public. Looking back, many participants expressed disillusionment with the TRC’s effectiveness. Participants were concerned by unfulfilled promises, inadequate reparations and lack of socioeconomic improvement. Memories of horrific abuses were still vivid, and most doubted that the TRC process could result in forgiveness, amnesty, reconciliation and healing. Participants felt unacknowledged, invalidated and inadequately recompensed, symbolically and monetarily. Nonetheless, participants expressed suspended hope, if not for themselves but for the future generations. ‘Misrecognition’ emerged as the overarching theme, an experience of feeling ignored and dismissed, finding promises for material recompense broken, and their contribution to the seemingly successful TRC processes not recognised. CONCLUSION: The TRC process neglected the abuse of the apartheid period, which has left a legacy. This study has shown that many participants continue to struggle with the legacy of a very unequal society, and further follow-up research is vital to review participants’ long-term needs. Lack of improvement in social and economic conditions has led some people in South Africa to question the effectiveness of the TRC