Sexual subjects : a feminist post-structuralist analysis of female adolescent sexual subjectivity and agency

Includes bibliographical references (leaves 159-169).Research and intervention into female adolescent sexual health in the context of HIV/AIDS have been dominated by individualistic, cognitive perspectives, which present sexuality as a site of rational, individual choice and agency. A paradigm shift has occurred in recent years, advanced with the realisation that decision-making around sexual health is not driven by rational reasoning alone but, rather, is complexly intertwined with social/discursive constructions of gender and sexuality which, in turn, are enmeshed with processes of signification and relations of power. Drawing upon feminist, post-structuralist and discourse analytic theoretical, methodological and analytical frames, the study focuses on the discourses available to young women for making meaning out of their experiences with their bodies, their relationships and sexual choices, and explores how gendered constructions of (female adolescent) sexuality alternatively enable or undermine adolescent girls' sexual health

Experiences of HIV/AIDS diagnosis, disclosure and stigma in an urban informal settlement in the Cape Peninsula: A qualitative exploration

This paper explores the personal experiences of five HIV positive individuals situated in an urban, informal settlement in Cape Town, South Africa. In-depth interviews and a focus group were conducted and analysed to facilitate an integrated understanding of how individual and social processes intersect and shape experiences of HIV positive individuals. Specifically, experiences of diagnosis, disclosure and stigma are investigated, and explored as they play out in the context of the family, the peer group, intimate (sexual) relationships, and within the broader community context

Bending the Automation Bias Curve: A Study of Human and AI-based Decision Making in National Security Contexts

Uses of artificial intelligence (AI), especially those powered by machine learning approaches, are growing in sectors and societies around the world. How will AI adoption proceed, especially in the international security realm? Research on automation bias suggests that humans can often be overconfident in AI, whereas research on algorithm aversion shows that, as the stakes of a decision rise, humans become more cautious about trusting algorithms. We theorize about the relationship between background knowledge about AI, trust in AI, and how these interact with other factors to influence the probability of automation bias in the international security context. We test these in a preregistered task identification experiment across a representative sample of 9000 adults in 9 countries with varying levels of AI industries. The results strongly support the theory, especially concerning AI background knowledge. A version of the Dunning Kruger effect appears to be at play, whereby those with the lowest level of experience with AI are slightly more likely to be algorithm-averse, then automation bias occurs at lower levels of knowledge before leveling off as a respondent's AI background reaches the highest levels. Additional results show effects from the task's difficulty, overall AI trust, and whether a human or AI decision aid is described as highly competent or less competent

Narratives of sexual abstinence: A qualitative study of female adolescents in a Cape Town community

Abstinence from sexual intercourse is the ‘A’ in the ‘ABC’ of mainstream interventions to address HIV/AIDS in South Africa. These interventions have been informed by social cognitive mode ls of sexual behaviour that emphasise the individual while neglecting the social context, and emphasise what the individual knows about long- term biomedical consequences while ignoring more immediate psychosocial factors on individual decision-making. The paper draws upon critical health psychology to explore decision-making around sexual abstinence among adolescent girls in Ocean View, a poor, ‘coloured’ neighbourhood in Cape Town. These girls ‘deviate’ from the norm in that they have chosen sexual abstinence in a context characterised by high levels of adolescent promiscuity. Their sexual decision-making is found to be a means whereby the participants attempt to challenge and counter destructive sexual norms operating within their community. Abstinence might be seen as part of a broader strategy of making and taking opportunities to escape from the destructive cycles of life in Ocean View. These concerns are both instrumental (in that sex has real consequences) and symbolic (in that abstaining from sex represents a more general approach to independence, self-control and relationships with others). This form of reaction against prevailing norms appeared more likely if a girl has some sources of support, such as a stable and loving home environment. However, in deviating from the norm, the girls are often targets of resentment by their sexually active peers, and have to deal with social isolation and exclusion. Sexual health concerns do not figure in these girls’ accounts of their sexual decision -making. This paper finds that sexual decision-making is informed more by the psychosocial and material context than by cognitive factors; in this sense, HIV/AIDS interventions based upon educating adolescents about sexual health are unlikely to have a significant effect upon sexual decision-making and behaviour

Playing the 'love game': Sexual decision-making amongst African girls in a Cape Town community

Drawing upon critical health and discursive psychology, the study explores the sexual decision-making of 8 sexually-active high school girls, aged 17 to 19 years, living in Masiphumelele, a poor African community in Cape Town, South African. The girls participated in a focus group and 1-2 individual, semi-structured interview/s. The paper describes and explores, firstly, the ideals girls uphold surrounding sexual relationships, on the one hand, and the normative character of sexual relationships as these typically play out in practice, stressing the dissonance between the two. The paper highlights the part that boys and girls play in reproducing a problematic sexual culture that supports sexual relationships that are antithetical to girls' ideals, and the processes that mediate sexual conformity. Following this, the paper turns to explore the participants' sexual decision-making and relationships. Three broad sexual strategies are isolated. The paper explores the rationale driving the respective strategies, the extent to which these strategies produce relationships that conform to, or, alternatively, diverge from and counter the norm, and the factors and processes mediating this. Finally, the paper explores and highlights the role of relationships beyond the sexual arena in mediating girls' sexual decision-making, and how these are implicated in reproducing problematic sexual norms and relationships. The study finds that the barriers to girls establishing and sustaining sexual relationships that promote emotional and physical health and well-being are deeply embedded within aspects of the psychosocial and material environment. Promoting the emotional and physical health and well-being of girls within their sexual relationships requires recognising and addressing problematic elements within their broader relational environments, and providing supportive, advisory figures and contexts, as well as positive role models

Sexual abstinence: A qualitative study of White, English-speaking girls in a Cape Town community

This paper explores decision-making around sexual abstinence among white, English-speaking adolescent girls in Fish Hoek, a middle-class neighbourhood in Cape Town, South Africa. The girls participated in a focus group and 1-2 individual, semi-structured interview/s. Sexual abstinence is found to be a strategy geared towards promoting emotional and relational well-being, rather than primarily geared towards promoting physical health and well-being. Decision-making around sexual abstinence is found to be value-laden, bound up in the meaning and value the participants attach to sex and sexual relationships, values and ideology surrounding marriage, as well as religious values and moral codes. Adolescent sexual decision-making is found to be socially mediated by dominant peer group sexual norms which value sexual promiscuity over sexual abstinence. Pressure to conform to dominant sexual norms and practices is found to be part of a nexus of social pressures facing young people more generally. Supportive family environments and relationships with affirming peers are found to play a pivotal role in sustaining counter-normative strategies such as sexual abstinence. Problematically, girls who engage in counter-normative sexual strategies such as abstinence experience ambivalence and insecurities which can feed into and reproduce sexual norms which devalue abstinence. Furthermore, counter-normative sexual strategies are underpinned by, and reproduce, other problematic hegemonic sexual discourses. Designing interventions that are geared towards sustaining positive sexual decision-making, and 'safe' sexual practices in the long-term, and not solely towards changing 'risky' sexual practices, is recommended

Adopting AI: How Familiarity Breeds Both Trust and Contempt

Despite pronouncements about the inevitable diffusion of artificial intelligence and autonomous technologies, in practice it is human behavior, not technology in a vacuum, that dictates how technology seeps into -- and changes -- societies. In order to better understand how human preferences shape technological adoption and the spread of AI-enabled autonomous technologies, we look at representative adult samples of US public opinion in 2018 and 2020 on the use of four types of autonomous technologies: vehicles, surgery, weapons, and cyber defense. By focusing on these four diverse uses of AI-enabled autonomy that span transportation, medicine, and national security, we exploit the inherent variation between these AI-enabled autonomous use cases. We find that those with familiarity and expertise with AI and similar technologies were more likely to support all of the autonomous applications we tested (except weapons) than those with a limited understanding of the technology. Individuals that had already delegated the act of driving by using ride-share apps were also more positive about autonomous vehicles. However, familiarity cut both ways; individuals are also less likely to support AI-enabled technologies when applied directly to their life, especially if technology automates tasks they are already familiar with operating. Finally, opposition to AI-enabled military applications has slightly increased over time

Growing Up in the New South Africa

This book presents a qualitative research conducted in the Fish Hoek valley in South Africa with a view to understanding the challenges in the transitions into adulthood in South Africa

Ecology of the free-living stages of 'Haemonchus contortus' in a cool temperate environment

Current understanding of the ecology of 'Haemonchus contortus' is incomplete and seen as an impediment to effective control of the worm in summer rainfall regions, where outbreaks are common and can result in significant stock mortality. Although there has been a wealth of published research on the effects of temperature on free-living development of 'H. contortus', our level of understanding of how moisture in the micro- and macro-environments influences development to infective larvae on herbage is considerably lower. The current state of knowledge of the free-living ecology of 'H. contortus' is reviewed in Chapter 2, with a particular focus on research findings since the 1970s. Knowledge gaps are highlighted, and a proposal made for a framework on which future investigations of 'H. contortus' can be based in order to improve prediction of free-living development. The key hypotheses under investigation in the experimental studies concerned the quantitative effects of moisture on free-living development of 'H. contortus', and are summarised in Chapter 1 and in further detail in each of the experimental chapters (Chapter 4-6). Plot experiments were conducted in the Northern Tablelands of NSW, where 'H. contortus' is the most important parasite of sheep. Subsequent laboratory experiments, designed in order to extend and explain the findings of the plot experiments, were conducted in programmable incubators in which temperature was regulated to mimic conditions typical to the Northern Tablelands summer. All experiments focused on testing the effects of a range of rainfall and moisture-related variables on 'H. contortus' development from egg through to infective larvae

Aerosol Indirect Effects on the Nighttime Arctic Ocean Surface from Thin, Predominantly Liquid Clouds

Aerosol indirect effects have potentially large impacts on the Arctic Ocean surface energy budget, but model estimates of regional-scale aerosol indirect effects are highly uncertain and poorly validated by observations. Here we demonstrate a new way to quantitatively estimate aerosol indirect effects on a regional scale from remote sensing observations. In this study, we focus on nighttime, optically thin, predominantly liquid clouds. The method is based on differences in cloud physical and microphysical characteristics in carefully selected clean, average, and aerosol-impacted conditions. The cloud subset of focus covers just approximately 5 % of cloudy Arctic Ocean regions, warming the Arctic Ocean surface by approximately 1-1.4 W m(exp -2) regionally during polar night. However, within this cloud subset, aerosol and cloud conditions can be determined with high confidence using CALIPSO and CloudSat data and model output. This cloud subset is generally susceptible to aerosols, with a polar nighttime estimated maximum regionally integrated indirect cooling effect of approximately 0.11 W m(exp 2) at the Arctic sea ice surface (approximately 8 % of the clean background cloud effect), excluding cloud fraction changes. Aerosol presence is related to reduced precipitation, cloud thickness, and radar reflectivity, and in some cases, an increased likelihood of cloud presence in the liquid phase. These observations are inconsistent with a glaciation indirect effect and are consistent with either a deactivation effect or less-efficient secondary ice formation related to smaller liquid cloud droplets. However, this cloud subset shows large differences in surface and meteorological forcing in shallow and higher-altitude clouds and between sea ice and open-ocean regions. For example, optically thin, predominantly liquid clouds are much more likely to overlay another cloud over the open ocean, which may reduce aerosol indirect effects on the surface. Also, shallow clouds over open ocean do not appear to respond to aerosols as strongly as clouds over stratified sea ice environments, indicating a larger influence of meteorological forcing over aerosol microphysics in these types of clouds over the rapidly changing Arctic Ocean