Radio broadcasting in the era of HIV/AIDS: Can this be the magic bullet?

Published ArticleIn this study, we assessed the relevance and effectiveness of radio broadcasting as a strategy that facilitates the adoption and use of safer sexual practices among students at a South African university. Based on ethnographic data, the article highlights that the essential and critical contribution of campus radio lies in its ability to create a social space for HIV/AIDS communication. The overall aim of this study was to assess the relationship between exposure to radio broadcasting messages and the adoption of safer sexual practices. Our analysis suggests that campus broadcasting can be instrumental in promoting HIV/AIDS awareness and education

Citizenship, social capital and HIV/AIDS: a sociological analysis derived from the experience of the Umkhanyakhude district community, Kwazulu-Nata

This thesis is a multi-level analysis that seeks to examine the utility of applying the concept of social capital in dealing with a complexity of challenges and problems caused by HIV/AIDS in areas of social marginality. It examines social capital in the context of rurality and how its usage can successfully mediate on the effects of all structural factors fuelling the HIV/AIDS epidemic including poverty and social marginality. It does this against the background of scholarly research findings on the relevance of community or neighbourhood social structure in resolving a host of issues affecting its citizens. The study establishes that the ‘public benefit’ of social capital lies in resource connectivity, meso-level interactions and reciprocal transactions useful for HIV/AIDS prevention. Social capital is therefore identified in this study as civic engagement, neigbourliness, voluntary association or civic membership and collective action. The central thesis or argument advanced by this study is that community or village level interactions and associations among people and groups can greatly influence community cohesion and action towards HIV/AIDS prevention, avoidance and mitigation. In its pursuit of a deeper enquiry and understanding of the most often misunderstood concept or rather elusive in both the social science and public health lexicon, the thesis identifies the major sources of social capital as voluntary civic membership or associations in community groups, local village or community assemblages, exchanges of HIV/AIDS specific information, public discussions and other social spaces useful in helping community citizens to get an awareness of HIV/AIDS thereby making them adopt an HIV/AIDS protective behaviour. In this thesis, community or village-level social capital is seen as having a significant effect on household and HIV/AIDS. The study establishes that the prevalence of norms of ‘civicness’ and the vibrancy of horizontal ties at the community or village level generates the needed stocks of social capital for poverty reduction and HIV/AIDS mitigation.Building on Habermas’s(1992) theories of the ‘public sphere’ and ‘communicative action’ andthe Freirian(1996) discourse of ‘dialogue and praxis’, the study highlights the need for social for communication and dialogue in order to break the silence around HIV/AIDS in rural societies. Deliberative discussions or community conversations are suggested to build a critical awareness and consciousness on HIV/AIDS within the community or village context. In this study, quantifiable evidence tends to suggest that there is a strong correlation between lack of HIV/AIDS specific knowledge and HIV/ AIDS vulnerability. The study underscores the need forpublic communication on HIV/AIDS through community-level dialogues and conversations.Community dialogues and conversations are suggested to be active forms of interaction generating significant levels of social capital in the form of public knowledge on HIV/AIDS. This form of public knowledge is perceived as generating action oriented towards HIV/AIDS prevention and fostering the adoption of safer behavioural practices. The thesis also highlights the often muted link or correlation between human capital in the form of education and social capital. In several instances, the study has proven that human capital and education in particular helps in the creation of high stocks of social capital that can be applied to counteract both household and village level HIV/AIDS. The research further establishes the need for citizenship education which is more contextual and calls for critical enquiry, reflection and thinking on the part of all citizens or villagers. All in all, the research extends the existing knowledge on collective efficacy, village or neighbourhood advantage, associational or group membership, village governance and HIV/AIDS in the developing economies. It sheds more light on how village-level processes, interactions and exchanges within the ‘public sphere’ can be streamlined to deal with issues of marginality and rural HIV/AIDS. These study findings on social capital contribute to the ongoing debate about social capital, its relevance and applicability, in solving public health issues and challenges in developing societies.Thesis (MSoc) -- Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, 200

Citizenship, social capital and HIV/AIDS: a sociological analysis derived from the experience of the Umkhanyakhude district community, Kwazulu-Nata

This thesis is a multi-level analysis that seeks to examine the utility of applying the concept of social capital in dealing with a complexity of challenges and problems caused by HIV/AIDS in areas of social marginality. It examines social capital in the context of rurality and how its usage can successfully mediate on the effects of all structural factors fuelling the HIV/AIDS epidemic including poverty and social marginality. It does this against the background of scholarly research findings on the relevance of community or neighbourhood social structure in resolving a host of issues affecting its citizens. The study establishes that the ‘public benefit’ of social capital lies in resource connectivity, meso-level interactions and reciprocal transactions useful for HIV/AIDS prevention. Social capital is therefore identified in this study as civic engagement, neigbourliness, voluntary association or civic membership and collective action. The central thesis or argument advanced by this study is that community or village level interactions and associations among people and groups can greatly influence community cohesion and action towards HIV/AIDS prevention, avoidance and mitigation. In its pursuit of a deeper enquiry and understanding of the most often misunderstood concept or rather elusive in both the social science and public health lexicon, the thesis identifies the major sources of social capital as voluntary civic membership or associations in community groups, local village or community assemblages, exchanges of HIV/AIDS specific information, public discussions and other social spaces useful in helping community citizens to get an awareness of HIV/AIDS thereby making them adopt an HIV/AIDS protective behaviour. In this thesis, community or village-level social capital is seen as having a significant effect on household and HIV/AIDS. The study establishes that the prevalence of norms of ‘civicness’ and the vibrancy of horizontal ties at the community or village level generates the needed stocks of social capital for poverty reduction and HIV/AIDS mitigation.Building on Habermas’s(1992) theories of the ‘public sphere’ and ‘communicative action’ andthe Freirian(1996) discourse of ‘dialogue and praxis’, the study highlights the need for social for communication and dialogue in order to break the silence around HIV/AIDS in rural societies. Deliberative discussions or community conversations are suggested to build a critical awareness and consciousness on HIV/AIDS within the community or village context. In this study, quantifiable evidence tends to suggest that there is a strong correlation between lack of HIV/AIDS specific knowledge and HIV/ AIDS vulnerability. The study underscores the need forpublic communication on HIV/AIDS through community-level dialogues and conversations.Community dialogues and conversations are suggested to be active forms of interaction generating significant levels of social capital in the form of public knowledge on HIV/AIDS. This form of public knowledge is perceived as generating action oriented towards HIV/AIDS prevention and fostering the adoption of safer behavioural practices. The thesis also highlights the often muted link or correlation between human capital in the form of education and social capital. In several instances, the study has proven that human capital and education in particular helps in the creation of high stocks of social capital that can be applied to counteract both household and village level HIV/AIDS. The research further establishes the need for citizenship education which is more contextual and calls for critical enquiry, reflection and thinking on the part of all citizens or villagers. All in all, the research extends the existing knowledge on collective efficacy, village or neighbourhood advantage, associational or group membership, village governance and HIV/AIDS in the developing economies. It sheds more light on how village-level processes, interactions and exchanges within the ‘public sphere’ can be streamlined to deal with issues of marginality and rural HIV/AIDS. These study findings on social capital contribute to the ongoing debate about social capital, its relevance and applicability, in solving public health issues and challenges in developing societies.Thesis (MSoc) -- Faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities, 200

Popular politics, social movements and the struggle for substantive citizenship in contemporary South Africa

In this thesis, I present a political ethnography of popular protest in one of South Africa’s poor communities that was involved in a contentious confrontation with the state in demand of ‘self-government’ and political autonomy on several issues related to local governance and municipal administration. More broadly, the thesis is a study on how ordinary people in South Africa interact, engage, contest and bargain with institutions of power on everyday basis in demand of both moral and political recognition; basic services (such as water, electricity and housing); and also certain citizenship rights. This thesis therefore provides crucial insights into major issues lying at the heart of popular politics in contemporary South Africa. It grapples with the following research puzzle: why do ordinary South Africans continue to protest even when it is clear that their actions will not yield immediate results? Why do ordinary people still engage in protest even when the odds of tangible solutions to their day-to-day grievances and challenges are dim and slim? In its attempt to examine the intersection(s) between popular politics, citizenship, and political subjectivity in contemporary South Africa, the thesis adopts a qualitative research design that is informed by Michael Burawoy’s key ideas on the ‘extended case method’. Data collection proceeded mainly through in-depth (ethnographic) interviewing and extended periods of participant observation. A content analysis of newspaper articles and other key documents was also employed as an ancillary method to ethnographic interviewing and participant observation. The thesis argues that an adequate examination of the motivations of popular politics in contemporary South Africa has to go beyond a materialist paradigm of interest-based resource allocation (mobilisation) politics. It builds on existing research to argue for an approach to the analysis of popular politics that places both struggles of ‘redistribution’ and ‘moral recognition’ at the centre of sociological scrutiny. Rather than popular politics being only about responding to material inadequacies in the provision of basic services (water, electricity and housing for example), this thesis reveals also how the poor in South Africa engage in popular politics to highlight how the democratic project is failing to attend to moral questions. As part of its contribution, the thesis introduces a historical trope in the study and analysis of popular politics and community movement activities in South Africa that connects South Africa’s historical past to the present everyday realities of the poor. It is this ‘history’, the thesis argues, that frame contemporary struggles for the ordinary poor in South Africa. By introducing the idea of ‘political morality’, I argue in this thesis that the various incidences of popular politics in contemporary South Africa are indicative of a ‘crisis of normativity’. I coin this notion (crisis of normativity) to refer to the failures of conventional mechanisms and foundational norms of doing politics.published_or_final_versionSociologyDoctoralDoctor of Philosoph