Narratives of everyday resistance from the margins

In this introduction and framing to this special issue on “Narratives of everyday resistance from the margins”, we make the case that narrative method and practice can contribute to a radical scholarship of psychosocial praxis. Critical scholarship is after all the mainstay of the PINS (Psychology in society) tradition since its inception in 1983 (Anonymous, 2014). To continue with this tradition of this critical theorisation, we reflect on themes contained in the five papers that constitute this issue and beyond, especially in relation to how these themes also link with similar global issues. We argue for conceiving of the collection of stories as agential narratives which contribute to a decolonial scholarship by centring lives positioned on the margins of post-apartheid South Africa. The stories told here recognise that the capitalist, racist and patriarchal orders which create abjection and poverty reside alongside lives permeated by joy and the search for meaning. The hallmark of the stories is a narrative of resistance and the refusal to accept inequality and injustice. We posit that the narrative frame is humanising and enables scholars to centre the everyday as a site for illuminating “wretched making” and the different ways of saying no

Becoming a man: exploring multiple voices of masculinity amongst a group of young adolescent boys in Alexandra Township, South Africa

Ph.D. University of the Witwatersrand, Faculty of Humanities, 2012The current study was aimed at exploring multiple voices of masculinity amongst township black adolescent boys in a particular South African setting of Alexandra Township, historically a working class community situated on the east side of Johannesburg. Thirty-two adolescent boys between the ages of 12 and 19 were recruited from two high schools in Alexandra and provided with disposable cameras to take 27 photos under the theme ‘my life as a boy’ in South Africa. Arrangements were made for these photos to be collected and processed. These photos were used to facilitate in-depth focus group discussions and individual interviews with each of the participants. In analyzing the data, the researcher combined discursive and applied psychoanalytic perspectives to identify meanings and contradictions that boys made in spoken texts about hegemonic and non-hegemonic masculinities. The key themes that emerged are that there are different ways of being a boy and that this process is characterised by mixed feelings of ambivalence, hesitation and self-doubt. It was evident that the process of negotiating all these voices of masculinity was not easy. The participants in the study seemed to simultaneously comply with and oppose hegemonic norms of masculinity in their narratives, revealing that negotiating alternative voices of young township masculinities is fraught with emotional costs and sacrifices. In conclusion, it is recommended that appropriate interventions need to be initiated and implemented to reduce high risk-taking behaviours associated with ‘hegemonic’ views of masculinity

CSVR Safe and Inclusive Cities Research Project

Bokfontein was revisited in May 2014 as part of a study on the CWP being carried out by the Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation. In this community, people worked in various projects such as road maintenance, gardening, home-based care, afterschool care, cutting grass, installing pipes for water, and working on the park. The community-based projects were found to be effective in facilitating peace, reconciliation and healing. Active involvement and support by municipal social workers has also contributed through connections to relevant government programs. Due to resultant delays, disillusionment and bureaucratic red tape, a three tier management system was replaced

The prevalence of alcohol and other drug use amongst school learners in Alexandra Township.

Master of Arts in Community-Based Counselling Psychology - PsychologyThe aim of this study was to investigate the prevalence of alcohol and other drug use amongst school learners in Alexandra Township. The participants in this study were 118 school learners in Alexandra Township. Of these 44 (40%) were in grade 9, 37 (32.2%) in grade 10 and 32 (27.8%) in grade 11; 55 (46.6%) were males and 63 (53.4%) were females; 50.4% were aged between 14—16, while 49.5% were aged between 17-20 years. Data was collected by means of a questionnaire, mostly requiring ‘yes’ or ‘no’ answers to determine use of various substances, the age of first use and the frequency use of these substances. This questionnaire has been used in other local studies and translated from English into Sesotho to maximize the validity of responses. The findings of this study indicate that in the past month the prevalence of 54.5% of males and 38.4% of females smoked cigarettes; 49.1% of males and 39.1% of females drank alcohol; and 36% of males and 12.6% of females smoked dagga. The everyday use of cigarettes was 41.7% for females and 47.2% for males; 7.2% of males and 3.6% females for alcohol; and 29.9% of males and 6.3 % for dagga. The results showed that there were no significant age and gender differences regarding the use of these drugs, except for dagga (X²=.005), with more males than females reported the use. It seems that the everyday use of alcohol, tobacco and dagga is very common than the use of other illicit drugs. Mental health workers should take note of the above findings while planning preventative strategies for the reduction of everyday dagga use, daily cigarette smoking and drinking of alcohol. The results are also important for those involved in treatment programmes to assist these school learners before they progress into more other serious drugs such as ecstasy, LSD, Crack cocaine and heroin

COVID-19: Violent Policing of Black Men During Lockdown Regulations in South Africa

Drawing on media reports published during South Africa’s COVID-19 lockdown, this article argues that violent policing of black men in South African townships was driven by racial stereotypes which depict black men as unruly, defiant, violent and aggressive. Law enforcement officials’ use of violence is rooted within the social construct of hegemonic masculinities in which victims are positioned as villains, while law enforcement officials position themselves as heroes who are simply enforcing the rule of law. This article argues that the use of violence affirms law enforcement officials’ sense of manhood while undermining, shaming and marginalising young black men’s sense of manhood. Furthermore, the article posits that the lockdown regulations gave law enforcement officials additional power and authority, bolstered by the panic and fear associated with the risk of contracting COVID-19, to further criminalise young black men. Policing is not just a safety act but a gendered phenomenon which draws on other discourses of race and class in justifying certain acts of violence against poor, black working-class men

Youth inclusion through public employment programmes : a case study of the community work programme in the township communities of Alexandra and Kagiso

Community Works Projects (CWP) are not prescribed but negotiated at the local level to include ‘useful work’, which serves the public good and/or improve the quality of community life. The study explores participation of youth within CWP with specific focus on factors that motivate or hinder them from joining, and activities that young people engage in once they join CWP. South Africa entered the COVID-19 pandemic with 29% unemployment, with over 40% living in poverty. The negative economic impact of COVID-19 has worsened unemployment levels. Evidence based, community-level interventions are required to ensure that employment through productive vocations can be achieved, especially for youth

Do non-governmental organizations bring change or maintain the status quo in times of crisis? A case study of the Marikana massacre in South Africa.

This paper reflects on the Marikana massacre of August 2012, subsequent violent strikes and responses by non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as a case study, and provides an analysis about whether these interventions bring transformative change or maintain the status quo in times of crisis. Events associated with Marikana are seen to be embedded in social structures of the time and part of deeper frictions and fractures of social transformation (Alexander, 2013). The role that NGOs might play in this context, must be interrogated as to their facilitation or hinderance of such social transformation. Interviews were conducted with representatives of NGOs intervening in Marikana that provided services of humanitarian assistance, and legal and psychosocial interventions and with mine workers and residents of Marikana about their experiences and views of these services. Findings from the study are illustrative of how NGOs were not primarily motivated to bring about lasting, transformative change but rather attempted to address immediate or short-term needs which, while important, did not account for underlying causes of the crises that they set out to address. Both ideological underpinnings of NGOs and structural conditions produced by state and capital, impact on outcomes of interventions. Given these limitations, it is argued that there is a need for deep critical interrogation through praxis, for NGOs to intervene differently in times of crisis to bring ‘real’ change and transformation in the lives of those who are marginalized

Poverty alleviation and urban violence prevention : exploring the impact of the community work programme on urban violence

The Community Work Programme (CWP) is more than a poverty alleviation programme. Based on preliminary fieldwork carried out in a Gauteng township, this paper explores questions that are raised by a study from Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation, including: relationships between poverty alleviation, job creation and the prevention of violence; the implications of the predominance of women in CWP; issues of the relationship between social cohesion and inclusion in urban settings within a context of high levels of inequality, poverty and unemployment; and the relationship between accountability, transparency, state legitimacy and civic inclusion

Research on the community work programme (CWP) in Kagiso Impact of the CWP on Violence

Meeting: Feedback meeting, Chief MogaleHall, Kagiso, 3 March 2013PowerPoint presentationThe Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation (CSVR) is a non-governmental organization (NGO) that works to build reconciliation, democracy and human rights, and to prevent violence in South Africa and in other African countries. The presentation outlines research undertaken in Kagiso and finds that the Community Work Programme (CWP) was undertaken too quickly. It includes background information, images, benefits of CWP and programme challenges. Crime and drug abuse remain key concerns in the community. There is a need for communication to improve understanding about, cooperation with, and respect for the CWP

Role of ex-offenders in implementing the Community Work Programme as a crime and violence prevention initiative

The focus of this article is the role of ex-offenders in the Community Work Programme (CWP) towards implementation of crime and violence prevention initiatives in the townships of Ivory Park and Orange Farm, South Africa. CWP was designed to provide an employment safety net to eligible, unemployed people by offering them regular work two days per week. Ex-offenders’ involvement in the CWP may have crime and violence prevention benefits. Their CWP work involves working with other CWP participants, with community members and with youth-at-risk through soccer initiatives and public campaigns against substance abuse, while facilitating their re-integration into communities