Status, morality and the politics of transformation: an ethnographic account of nurses in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa

This thesis examines the ways in which a deeply entrenched nursing hierarchy is being reconfigured and challenged, and the status of nurses reshaped, in relation to wider political and social processes in the post-apartheid context. Specifically, it offers an ethnographic analysis of nurses working at Bethesda Hospital, a rural government hospital in northern KwaZulu-Natal. It argues that at this moment of liminal uncertainty characterising the current political and social transformation, nurses’ experiences are made meaningful both through a nostalgic reconstruction of the hospital’s missionary past, as well as through idioms that generate opportunities for – and a sense of control over – the future. These are all manifestations of a contemporary post-apartheid moment, yet they are also extensions of longer historical processes. This thesis, therefore, poses important questions about the nature of ‘transition’ in South Africa, and to what extent this has been marked both by rupture and continuity, in the localised context of a rural government hospital and its surrounding area. The thesis begins with an historical account of Bethesda hospital from its inception in 1937 as a Methodist mission hospital, and its eventual transfer to state control, describing a complex and changing micro-struggle for power in the context of a wider political economy of health care. It goes on to consider the influence of the hospital’s mission past on current practices, exploring the ways in which nostalgic memories feed into contemporary workplace debate. Such debate is framed by a context of severe and widespread ill-health exacerbated by the HIV/Aids epidemic, and the problems of staff shortage, fragmentation and poor pay and working conditions that provide ongoing and critical challenges to the institution and its employees. It considers how the moral concern provoked by this perceived crisis, and the preoccupation with hierarchy that has long been a feature of the South African nursing profession, are played out in relation to the emerging post-apartheid ideologies of ‘accountability’ and ‘rights’. Finally, it explores the ways in which nurses generate a mutual sense of purpose and control, while at the same time engaging in embattled struggles for status and self-recognition, through the practices of Born-again Christianity and international migration, showing how these offer new and powerful forms of status acquisition in the post-apartheid context. Based primarily on ethnographic fieldwork conducted at Bethesda hospital between December 2006 and October 2007, this thesis engages with theoretical discussions about social change and relationships of hierarchy within – and beyond – the workplace. Finally, it contributes to debates about the shifting fields of nursing and health care delivery in the wider South African context of immense political and social transformation

Going Up or Getting Out? Professional insecurity and austerity in the South African health sector

As a precondition of belonging, professionalism is often a taken-for-granted feature of being middle-class. Yet ethnographic attention to experiences of work reveals that professional identity can be fragile. Drawing on ethnographic research among nurses in KwaZulu-Natal, this article traces the feelings of precarity about work and the ambivalence that pervades ideas of professionalism. This ambiguity arises partly out of a peculiarly South African story in which histories of professionalism are entwined with the repressive apartheid project of separate development. Many of the professionals working as teachers, nurses, lawyers and administrators today were trained in the former ‘homelands’. Practices of professionalism are entangled with those of clientelism inherited from this earlier period of homeland politics. These local histories combine with wider processes of neoliberalism, as conditions of austerity produce structural shifts towards casualization. The article traces these dynamics in the stories of two nurses and considers what may be at stake politically as middle-class trajectories are threatened. Moving away from a view of the middle classes as either democratic or anti-democratic, feelings of ambivalence about work make questions of political allegiance an ambiguous and fraught matter

Parenteral Injection Massage: Bioavailability and Adverse effects, A Systematic Review

Parenteral injections are important preventive and intervention modalities for children and adults.  Pain issues during injection procedures need to be addressed to increase adherence to medications and vaccination.  Although pain is a concern, so are the measures to allow increased bioavailability of injectates for the maximal use of the body and the prevention of adverse effects.  The objective of this review is to find out whether massaging an injection site increases bioavailability of injectates, while at the same time decreasing the pain experience and adverse effects.  The subjects included 327 infants whose ages are 2, 4 and 6 months and 165 adults (15 to 67) who received parenteral injections.  There is insufficient evidence to recommend massage prior to or after an injection to decrease pain and increase the bioavailability of injectates.  More experimental studies are recommended.Â

Family Pictures "Out of Place": Race, Resistance, and Affirmation in the Pope Family Photograph Collection, 1890-1920

This thesis explores the significance of family photography for African Americans in the Jim Crow South through an examination of the photograph collection kept by the Popes, a middle-class African American family of Raleigh, NC. Drawing from multiple disciplines including social history, material culture, and visual culture, the study argues that portraiture represents a crucial yet under-examined arena for the construction of black identity and the expression of political agency under segregation. Findings include that the production, display, and distribution of photographs by families like the Popes represented political acts of opposition to images of blacks created by the dominant culture, as well as examples of African Americans taking control over their own representation in response to white supremacist stereotypes. Meanwhile, these photographs also fulfilled important personal functions, allowing blacks to shape their own legacy and to define and affirm their own senses of beauty, self-worth, and belonging

Copy of Will of Elizabeth Hull, including 77 Enslaved Persons

Copy of will of Elizabeth Hull, including 77 Enslaved Persons.https://egrove.olemiss.edu/lanternproject/1043/thumbnail.jp

The Student Engagement LifeCycle: A Holistic Approach to Improved Student Success

https://fuse.franklin.edu/ss2016/1060/thumbnail.jp

A rational approach to understanding the intelligence potential of Cable News Network (CNN)

Cable News Network (CNN) was America's number one source of information during Desert Shield/Desert Storm as well as a critical source of information for the US. Intelligence Community. CNN set the precedence for future conflicts by offering 24 hours coverage most of it live. CNN is also an unique source of information because it has access to people and places which are not available to the Intellligence Community. The strengths and weaknesses of the media are studied in order to develop a method of evaluating the intelligence potential of CNN. Using the theoretical priniciples of Alfred Korzybski and Geraldine Forsberg, a rational approach to understanding the intelligence potential is developedhttp://archive.org/details/rationalapproach00tanaLieutenant, United States NavyApproved for public release; distribution is unlimited

Copy of Will of Elizabeth Hull, including 77 Enslaved Persons

Copy of will of Elizabeth Hull, including 77 Enslaved Persons.https://scholarsjunction.msstate.edu/lantern-um/1044/thumbnail.jp