Pathways From Food Insecurity to Intimate Partner Violence Perpetration Among Peri-Urban Men in South Africa.

INTRODUCTION: Although poverty is sometimes seen as a driver of intimate partner violence victimization, less is known about how it intersects with men's violence perpetration. Food insecurity is a sensitive marker of poverty that may have unique mechanisms leading to men's intimate partner violence perpetration given its association with gender roles and men "providing for the family." METHODS: Using cluster-based sampling, the team conducted an audio-assisted questionnaire in 2016 among men living in a peri-urban settlement near Johannesburg, South Africa. The aim was to examine the relationship between men's food insecurity and their use of past-year intimate partner violence, and to explore the pathways linking these two conditions. RESULTS: Among 2,006 currently partnered men, nearly half (48.4%) perpetrated intimate partner violence and more than half (61.4%) were food insecure. Food insecurity was associated with doubled odds of intimate partner violence (OR=2.15, 95% CI=1.73, 2.66). This association persisted after controlling for sociodemographics, relationship characteristics, and neighborhood clustering. In a structural equation model, food insecurity retained a direct relationship with men's violence perpetration and worked through indirect pathways of mental health and relationship quality. CONCLUSIONS: Addressing men's perpetration of intimate partner violence may require examination of broader structural challenges, such as food insecurity. Future interventions should consider livelihood strategies alongside relationship and mental health approaches

A literature review of the secondary school experiences of trans youth

In this article I review 83 empirical studies that provide insight into the secondary school experiences of trans youth. The studies show that while some trans youth have affirming experiences, the majority are exposed to institutionalized cisnormativity that makes them vulnerable to macroaggressions, microaggressions and violence within school settings. Trans youth’s exposure to institutionalized cisnormativity was found to intersect with multiple vectors of social power, which subject some trans youth to multiple forms of disadvantage, while affording others degrees of privilege. In conclusion, the findings show that trans youth’s educational experiences reflect broader structural inequalities yet defy essentialising explanations

Politically Sensitive Encounters: Ethnography, Access, and the Benefits of “Hanging Out”

Negotiating politically sensitive research environments requires both a careful consideration of the methods involved and a great deal of personal resolve. In drawing upon two distinct yet comparable fieldwork experiences, this paper champions the benefits of ethnographic methods in seeking to gain positionality and research legitimacy among those identified as future research participants. The authors explore and discuss their use of the ethnographic concept of “hanging out” in politically sensitive environments when seeking to negotiate access to potentially hard to reach participants living in challenging research environments. Through an illustrative examination of their experiences in researching commemorative rituals in Palestine and mental health in a Northern Irish prison, both authors reflect upon their use of “hanging out” when seeking to break down barriers and gain acceptance among their target research participants. Their involvement in a range of activities, not directly related to the overall aims of the research project, highlights a need for qualitative researchers to adopt a flexible research design, one that embraces serendipitous or chance encounters, when seeking to gain access to hard to reach research participants or when issues of researcher legitimacy are particularly pronounced, such as is the case in politically sensitive research environments

Gender, violence, and sexuality

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Gender, violence, and sexuality

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Trans and gender diverse youth resisting cisnormativity in school

In this article, we demonstrate how the theory of vulnerability-in-resistance is manifest in the school experiences of trans youth in Ireland. Despite rapidly changing cultural attitudes towards gender and sexuality diversity and increasing visibility of LGBTI+ youth, we show that trans youth in Ireland continue to be vulnerable to marginalisation, discrimination, and violence within school settings because of institutionalised cisnormativity. We explore how this vulnerability drives some trans youth to resist the conditions of their vulnerability. Strategies of resistance include naming their experience, mobilising their voice and building networks of solidarity. Enacting such resistances invariably exposes trans youth to harm but these same actions reveal their potentiality in disrupting and fragmenting educational cisnormativity

HIV non-testing, perpetration of violence against women, and sexual risk-behaviour: A cross-sectional analysis of South African peri-urban township men

Despite HIV testing having improved globally, men remain disproportionately less likely to test for HIV. While violence against women (VAW) and HIV risk have a strong association among women, few studies explore men around VAW perpetration, risky-sexual behaviour, and HIV testing. Males aged 18–42 years were recruited from a peri-urban settlement near Johannesburg, South Africa. Data were from an endline of a trial. We used logistic regression to assess odds of non-HIV testing using STATA 13. At endline, 1508 men participated in the study. Of these nearly one-third (31.6%, n = 475) had not tested for HIV in the past year. HIV non-testing was significantly lower among men who were single, older, did not complete high school and were less food secure. VAW perpetration retained a significant association with HIV non-testing after controlling for socio-demographics (AOR = 0.73, 95%CI = 0.58–0.93). In multivariate models, HIV non-testing was also associated with inconsistent condom use (AOR = 0.64, 95%CI = 0.48–0.85), problem drinking (AOR = 0.72, 95%CI = 0.55–0.94) and reporting of all four risky sexual behaviours (AOR = 0.70, 95%CI = 0.49–1.01). Data suggests that one-third of men who never test for HIV in this setting may represent a high-risk group. Future campaigns could consider behaviour change around non-violence, relationship quality, and gender norms alongside HIV testing

The post-primary school experiences of transgender and gender diverse youth in Ireland

This report details the key findings from a research project that explored the post-primary school experiences of transgender and gender diverse (TGD) youth in Ireland. The study was co-funded by the Irish Research Council and Marie Skłowdowska-Curie Actions as part of the “Collaborative Research Fellowships for a Responsive and Innovative Europe” (CAROLINE) programme. The research was a collaboration between the School of Education, University of Limerick and Transgender Equality Network Ireland (TENI). The project was made possible by, and builds on, the advocacy, education and support work that TENI has been conducting in the education sector since 2013. The project team consisted of Dr Ruari-Santiago McBride (Research Fellow), Dr Aoife Neary (Principal Investigator and Academic Mentor), Dr Breda Gray (Consultative Academic Mentor), and Vanessa Lacey (Secondment Mentor)

Growing sideways: Re-articulating ontologies of childhood within/through relationships and sexuality education (RSE)

This article presents a collaborative reflective-thinking writing project that draws from the authors’ experiences of co-productive and critical inquiry with children in the field of gender, sexualities and education. Integrating our collective concerns regarding how childhood can be negatively framed and policed within/through RSE, we explore how these ontological boundaries might be queered through a collective engagement with the possibilities for/of RSE that is affirmative, playful and coproduced with, rather than for, childre