Stellenbosch University: SUNJournals
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Participatory Research: A Feminist Critique
No full textSouth Africa is currently going through a process of transformation. In this process policy making is a major concern of those who are responsible to steer the country through the period of change into a satisfactory new socio-economic order. Although the principles of democracy, non racism and non sexism have been widely accepted as the foundation for the new South Africa, these concepts need to be operationalised into specific policies in the various fields of government. In order to do this, research is required at all levels of society, ranging from grassroots groups to national structures.
The authors argue the inherently political nature of scientific research, meaning that scientific knowledge is an important tool in maintaining or shifting the balance of power. As Carasco (1983: 2) puts it: "Research, as a channel of inquiry and investigation with the potential to generate powerful knowledge and information, can be either liberating or repressive. It can lead to either decisive socio-political action on the part of an entire community or to the exclusion or manipulation of that community by an 'informed' minority".
It is further argued that the producer of what is considered scientific knowledge have predominantly been white, middle class, male and that they have used that knowledge to preserve the rights of their own group in society as well as to institutionalise a continued oppression of others, namely working class, black or female. The traditional, "male stream" research paradigm has maintained and reinforced the subordinate position of women in society. A Feminist Research paradigm will be presented as an alternative paradigm that contributes to the liberation of women and that allows for conducting non sexist, non racist research.
Subsequently a Participatory Research paradigm will be introduced. The authors believe that Participatory Research provides a methodology appropriate for libratory grassroots research. Participatory Research will then be submitted to a Feminist Research critique with the aim of developing a gender sensitive Participatory Research approach
Editorial
No full textAs we approach the point of celebrating one year's worth of democracy we have much to be joyous about. There is still a sense of incredulity when one thinks of the changes that have taken place since April 1994. One is tempted to bask in the glory of the "death of apartheid", and the birth of the "new, democratic, and non-racial" South Africa. However, democracy is not given to a people, a nation, a country, but rather has to be fought for, defended, and developed. It seems that this is as true for the society as a whole, as it is for social institutions, social groupings, organs of civil society, that make up the social totality. In other words, we, individually and collectivity, and in our collectivities, have a responsibility to develop and entrench democratic practices in all the interstices of social life
Reporting On Mental Health: This briefing is an account on the launch of the African Report on World Mental Health, and on the Regional Conference on Mental Health Policy, held in Cape Town, 23-25 October 1995.
No full text200 delegates from Africa, Europe and the US attended the first ever Southern African conference on mental health policy. The conference bad a dual purpose: (i) the launch of the African Report on World Mental Health; and (ii) a regional conference on mental health policy. The briefing is not intended to be exhaustive but will focus on the highlights of the conference, notably the keynote addresses by the Western Cape MEC for Health and Welfare and the authors on the Report on World Mental Health. Finally the common themes and strategies of the conference and resolutions adopted will be reported
Editorial
No full textIt is just over three and a half years since the formation of PsySSA, and the "formal" ending of organisational divisions amongst psychologists. It is also just over three years since the first democratic elections, and the “formal" ending of political divisions amongst the citizens of this country. The divisiveness of the apartheid past still lurks in all these new formations, regardless of the "good intentions" of creating democratic, non-racial, and non-sexist institutions. Social practices are historically enduring, and hence we should not be lulled into complacency by the political praise-singing that goes along with the formation of every “new thing” in the new South Africa. A new South Africa can only truly come into being by facing the past so that it can be transcended, rather than forgotten or repressed. As Edward Said reminds us, intellectuals are emigrants in their own countries. The position of the intellectual is one of exile, an insider view from "outside". Psychologists the world over, and especially in this country, have been reluctant intellectuals (of the discipline), and more comfortable in their roles as professionals
Mental health: A call to action: Desjarlais, R, Eisenberg, L, Good, B & Kleinman, A (1995) World mental health: Problems and priorities in low-income countries. New York: Oxford University Press. Pp. vii, 382. ISBN 0-19-509540-5 hbk.
No full textI begin this review of World mental health: Problems and priorities in low-income countries where the book ends, in "A call to action". I do this because this volume is not another academic book on mental health; in its content, its tone and its structure, it is a tool for mobilisation towards better mental health in developing countries. It is not surprising that the authors have launched the book by convening regional conferences and workshops to promote mental health and to facilitate country processes of mental health policy development. This said though, the book is not ·unacademic". The authors are exceptional scholars and this volume is by far the most comprehensive collation of academic material in public mental health yet published. It is clear though that the book has been Mitten to be ·used" rather than merely read
Evaluating HIV-Prevention Programmes: Conceptual Challenges
No full textWithin the context of HIV prevention in sub-Saharan Africa there is a growing move away from information-based health education towards the development of community-based participatory interventions. This progress has not been matched by the development of conceptual tools and indicators for evaluating the psycho-social and community-level changes which such programmes seek to bring about. Programme evaluators still rely overwhelmingly on individual behavioural and biomedical outcome measures, paying less attention to the processes underlying such outcomes. This paper outlines the rationale and conceptual framework underlying the planned evaluation strategy of a recently implemented three-year HIV-prevention project in the gold mining district of Carletonville. This evaluation seeks not only to measure the extent to which the programme succeeds or fails in having an impact (on levels of HIV and STDs as well as levels of perceived risk and condom use), but also to document the psycho-social and community-level dynamics underlying project outcomes
Editorial
No full textIn this issue we continue some of the psychoanalytic discussion which we started in our focus on psychoanalysis in Psychology in society 14 (1990). Leonard Bloom presents a challenging re-assertion of what he considers to be the four main basic insights of Freud. These are (1) the unconscious, (2) sexuality and the libido, (3) repression, and (4) transference processes. Readers might want to take issue with what exactly constitutes the "basic insights" of Freud's work, but what seems incontrovertible is Bloom's argument about the revisionism of much of contemporary psychoanalysis. Bloom also criticises the dampening of Freud's radicality by neo behavioural perspectives in psychology. He tries to reclaim Freud's centrality as a thinker about human experience and the value of human life in his application of Freud's work to a consideration of questions of racism and freedom. Bloom presents us with an account of Freud as a humanist thinker concerned with social dilemmas
The Experience of Abortion: A Bibliographic Essay
No full textThe recently changed legislative framework in South Africa has significant implications for research into abortion. Based on the World Bank Report on Women's Health, ARAG (Abortion Rights Action Group) (1995) estimates that 250 000 legal abortions will be performed yearly in South Africa. It Is likely that research into the experience of abortion will become a key research area. The legalisation of abortion on demand has occurred and research on the experience of abortion and all its implications Is vital for three main reasons.
Firstly, the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Act of 1996 promotes the provision of non-mandatory counselling, before and after abortions are performed. Thus health and social workers will need a theoretical framework for understanding the experience of abortion - in order to counsel women who are about to undergo, or who have just undergone, abortions. Providers of abortion services also need an understanding of how women experience abortion in order that they can provide sensitive services to minimize the distress of abortion.
A second related point, is that psychotherapists will also require such a theoretical framework, as of the many hundreds of thousands of women who will now have legal abortions, many may seek psychotherapy to deal with their experience.
Thirdly, there is a dearth of research on the experience of abortion in South Africa. Prior to the 1990s research into this issue was practically non-existent In South Africa (there are still no local Journal articles on the experience of abortion); but obviously the change in legislation on abortion will alter this. Taking into consideration that abortion has only very recently been legalised in South Africa (after decades of criminalisation and unremitting moral stricture, and amid considerable controversy) the finding that abortion is experienced differently in legal and illegal contexts (Gold-Steinberg, 1991) is crucial. Given South Africa's history, it is possible that abortion will be differently experienced here than in countries where it has long been legal
Editorial
No full textThe purpose of PINS editorials is to communicate with readers about the material in each issue, and to do this in a way that highlights certain aspects in the articles rather than merely offering summaries. The point of doing this, seeing as many journals don't have editorials, is to reinforce some of the concerns raised by our authors, and to encourage our readers to think and write about these very concerns. PINS is also aware of the decline of critical thought, in many spheres of society and not just in psychology-related matters, as the new post-apartheid consensus takes hold. Many of the anti-apartheid critiques were exactly that: anti, against, negative. The ideas and practices that prefigured the post-apartheid era during the late1980s were not well formed by the time the demands of the new democratic society were upon us. And now there is a danger within certain circles that "we have arrived" as a country, and hence any critique is interpreted as anti-government, and therefore (non sequitur, by the way) as pro-apartheid! It is a difficult and complex task to shift our critiques from what were predominantly very clear targets - the immorality and barbarism of apartheid as a social order - to the much murkier terrain of the continually and dynamically changing practices, policies, institutions, and laws of millennial South Africa as it tries to transform into a decent and democratic society This is not to deny the range of accomplishments of the post-apartheid government, but this is not the point, for at the same time nobody doubts the extent of the problems facing the transition, and how far we still have to go
To Live For A Future
No full textIn this article I want to outline a number of characteristics which together configure a certain style to our times. This is meant to draw us into a more deliberate assessment of where we are heading, given the way we think and live nowadays. Central to the article is a belief that we in this young republic with its long (indigenous) and relatively short (colonial) history need discourses marked by reasonableness and organised future directedness. Moreover, I am of the opinion that this is not often and widely enough the case in South Africa
I thus want to highlight some of the ways we talk and live which I believe to be antithetical to living for a future which will serve us all well. I also want to assume that we are committed to living well and to harnessing the best possible future for ourselves through present beliefs and projects, moreover, that we generally believe, more or less, that to live well means to live reasonably - admitting of course a very long history of changing ideas about what "reason" and "reasonably" mean I will briefly describe, below, two conceptions of reasonableness, one by Alfred North Whitehead and one by Stephen Toulmin, both which I find particularly attractive