Theses and Dissertations from UMD
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Item EFFECTS OF INTERSECTING STIGMAS ON HIV AND ALCOHOL-RELATED HEALTH BEHAVIORS(2021) Regenauer, Kristen S; Magidson, Jessica F; Psychology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)South Africa (SA) has a high burden of HIV and problematic alcohol use. However, associations between HIV stigma and alcohol-outcomes, and alcohol stigma and HIV-outcomes are largely unknown. Further, limited research has examined the role of avoidance in these associations. Therefore, as part of a larger clinical trial, we explored these associations among people living with HIV (PLWH) and problem drinking in SA (N=64). Patients had blood drawn for biomarker-verified measures of outcome variables, and completed self-report measures for all variables. A significant interaction was found between internalized HIV stigma and avoidance in predicting self-report problematic alcohol use (b(SE)=.24(.09), p=.01) such that at low levels of avoidance, higher HIV stigma was associated with less problematic alcohol use (b(SE)=-1.92(.85), p=.03). A matching nonsignificant pattern was observed for biomarker-verified alcohol consumption, suggesting that the relationship between internalized HIV stigma and problematic alcohol use may be moderated by avoidance.Item TEACHING CITIZENSHIP & DEMOCRACY IN A NEW DEMOCRACY: PEDAGOGY, CURRICULUM & TEACHERS’ BELIEFS IN SOUTH AFRICA(2017) Fogle-Donmoyer, Amanda; Lin, Jing; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In 2014, twenty years had passed since the first free elections, the birth of democracy and implementation of transitional educational reforms in South Africa. While efforts to create an education system based on human rights, democracy, equality, and unity were made, questions remain about how teachers should address these principles in their classrooms. It is difficult to determine, therefore, how citizenship and democracy education should be taught and how teachers perceive their role as educators of South Africa’s new generation of democratic citizens. Using Davies’ and Jansen’s concepts of post-conflict pedagogy, this dissertation investigates how teachers responsible for citizenship and democracy education in South Africa perceive the abstract topics of citizenship and democracy and how their beliefs, backgrounds, and life experiences influence how they present the national curriculum to their learners. In order to answer these questions, a multiple and comparative case study of sixteen teacher participants at three schools was carried out in Durban, South Africa. Using in-depth interviews, classroom observation, and document review as data collection methods, the dissertation investigates how teachers’ beliefs, the national curriculum and teaching methods intersected. Data analysis was conducted through thematic coding. Results suggest that teachers’ beliefs and experiences with democracy shape how they teach civic education topics, especially concerning their racial background and experiences during apartheid and the democratic transition. Inequalities in school resources also limit pedagogical choices, especially in methods designed to educate active and informed citizens.Item MORE THAN JUST ‘MOB VIOLENCE’: AN IN-DEPTH LOOK AT VIGILANTE VIOLENCE IN SOUTH AFRICAN TOWNSHIPS(2016) Gross, Mark; Madhavan, Sangeetha; Villarreal, Andres; Sociology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Vigilante violence is generally understood as an alternative means of controlling crime and providing security where the state does not. It has been found in nearly all modern societies at one point or another. Currently, in South Africa, vigilantism is common, accounting for roughly 5% of daily homicides. Despite its ubiquity, vigilante violence has largely been ignored by scholars, and in South Africa, vigilante violence tends to be dismissed as “mob violence.” This dissertation draws on extensive fieldwork, multiple qualitative and quantitative data sources, and different theoretical and methodological approaches, to provide a comprehensive analysis of vigilante violence in Gauteng, South Africa. The first paper address critical theoretical issues surrounding the role of weak and failed states in fostering vigilantism. In this analysis, I use large-scale quantitative data from the Gauteng City-Region Observatory 2013 Quality of Life Survey and an independently compiled database of newspaper articles detailing incidents of vigilantism in Gauteng. I employ measures of perceptions of government performance and the provision of state security to test the relationship between perceived state legitimacy and vigilante violence. I find that negative perceptions of government performance are actually associated with decreases in vigilante violence, while negative perceptions of state security are associated with increases. The second paper utilizes the same data sources and uses the well-establish social disorganization ad neighborhood effects literature to examine the relationship between neighborhood cohesion, collective efficacy, and vigilante violence. I find that, in contrast to existing research, higher levels of neighborhood cohesion and collective efficacy actually result in more incidents of vigilante violence. The third paper expands upon the micro-sociological perspective of violence developed by Collins (2008), “forward panic,” the process whereby the tension and fear marking most potentially violent situations is suddenly released, bringing about extraordinary acts of violence. Analysis of in-depth interviews shows that episodes of vigilante violence in townships are often clearly episodes of forward panic. Although the concept of forward panic focuses on individuals, I argue that if the pre-conditions that foster forward panics in individuals are structural, there is the potential for forward panic in entire groups or parts of communities.Item Imaging the Gap: Dissensus and Belonging in Thandile Zwelibanzi's Still Existence(2013) Williams, Jessica Rachelle; Hill, Shannen; Art History and Archaeology; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In his 2010 series, Still Existence, South African photographer Thandile Zwelibanzi images illegal African immigrants as they informally sell sweets and cigarettes on the streets of Johannesburg. In his documentation of the political arguments of these foreigners for their inclusion in the consensus of the nation, Zwelibanzi lends a medium to these individuals through which they can obtain aesthetic (and therefore political) agency. If, in Still Existence, the public sphere of Johannesburg's streets serve as the "dissensual stage" upon which foreign traders exert their claims of belonging and contest their right to work, then it is the process of their subjectivization and their argument for their belonging that are ultimately imaged in these portraits.Item The Impact of Macro Level Grievance Resolution on Terrorism and Political Violence in South Africa(2012) Van Brakle, Mischelle; LaFree, Gary; Dugan, Laura; Criminology and Criminal Justice; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)In this dissertation, I examined the relationship between two socio-legal and two political macro level reforms in South Africa on levels of anti-apartheid, separatist and unknown terrorism and fatalities. These reforms were the repeal of the pass laws, the repeal of the race classification system, the legalization of formerly outlawed political parties and the first democratic election. The results suggest that socio-legal reforms were associated with temporary increases from separatist and unknown groups. As for the political reforms, the election was associated with decreases in unknown terrorist attacks and fatalities from all three group types. Recognizing the potential for violence from groups losing power is critical to developing effective counter-terrorism strategies, particularly when transitioning from authoritarian to more democratic governance structures.Item Black South African Women Writers: Narrating the Self, Narrating the Nation(2010) Boswell, Barbara; Bolles, Lynn; Rosenfelt, Deborah; Women's Studies; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)This dissertation examines the ways in which Black women writers construct the South African nation in their fiction. Based on analyses of four novels, Miriam Tlali's Muriel at Metropolitan (1979), Lauretta Ngcobo's And They Didn't Die (1989), Zoë Wicomb's David's Story (2000), and Sindiwe Magona's Mother to Mother (1998), it examines how those most disenfranchised by the policy of apartheid in South Africa articulated, configure and re-imagine the nation through their writing. It also investigates how these women writers construct themselves as writing subjects in a society that has historically denied them creative and personal agency. I view Black women's writing as a form of activism and resistance to apartheid, and situate the production of their novels within the larger political context of twentieth century South Africa. The dissertation thus focuses on the ways in which the apartheid doctrine affected Black women's lives politically and as producers of writing. Drawing theoretically on Mamphele Ramphela's conceptualizations of space, Carole Boyce Davies' formulation of Black women writers as "migratory" subjects, and life course theory, I analyze life history interviews with four writers in an attempt to map the ways they transcended their "received" identities as laborers and reproducers of labor for the apartheid nation, to become authors of their own lives and works. I expand traditional feminist definitions of agency, arguing that, for these women, writing became an act that was cumulatively agentic, instilling in them increased personal agency. This outcome was the opposite of the apartheid's state intended goal of oppressing and silencing these writers. I further argue that in writing, the authors were engaged in creative re-visioning - a subject's ability to re-envision or reimagine what is possible for her to achieve within her lifetime. The dissertation then goes on to examine four novels produced by Tlali, Ngcobo, Magona, and Wicomb, emphasizing the ways in which these texts undermine unitary, masculinist forms of nationalisms, be these apartheid or emerging African nationalisms. I conclude by proposing a Black South African feminist literary criticism as a means for producing literary texts about Black women and as a methodology for interpreting such texts.Item Living Feminism in the Academy: South African Women Tell Their Stories(2009) Corneilse, Carol; Klees, Steven J; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)Studies about North American and European women predominate the literature on gender issues in higher education, particularly research that focuses on female academics who are self-described feminists. The literature tells us that there are differences between the institutional experiences of feminist faculty, as opposed to female faculty in general. Most universities are male-dominated institutions and inequalities in status, rank, and salary persist, although the gaps have shrunk over time. Female faculty who self-identify as feminists are more likely to challenge discriminatory institutional practices, because feminism, by its nature, challenges the status quo. And they are more likely to be ostracized and ridiculed when they confront unequal treatment. Yet the presence of feminists in the academy signals their belief in its value as an institution. Universities offer the intellectual space to theorize about women's position in society, to generate knowledge that brings about greater understanding of women's lives, and to develop strategies for change. There is a small, but growing, body of literature documenting the experiences of female faculty in South Africa's higher education institutions. Few studies have focused on feminist faculty, however. In this qualitative study, six diverse women share their experiences of being feminist faculty in South African universities over a thirty-year period, beginning in the early 1970s. Their personal narratives begin in their formative childhood years when they first become aware of social injustice. The study documents their growing feminist consciousness, their initial encounters with feminist theories, their struggles as university and community activists, and as young faculty. The women recall pivotal events and experiences that have shaped them, and describe what it has been like to live out their feminist values on a daily basis in South Africa's universities.Item Encountering Faces Of The Other: A Phenomenological Study Of American High School Students Journeying Through South Africa(2004-07-06) Garran, Christopher Scott; Hultgren, Francine; Education Policy, and Leadership; Digital Repository at the University of Maryland; University of Maryland (College Park, Md.)ABSTRACT TITLE OF DISSERTATION: ENCOUNTERING FACES OF THE OTHER: A PHENOMENOLOGICAL STUDY OF AMERICAN HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS JOURNEYING THROUGH SOUTH AFRICA Christopher Scott Garran, Doctor of Philosophy, 2004 Dissertation directed by: Professor Francine Hultgren Department of Education Policy & Leadership In this phenomenological study, I explore the lived experience of American high school students encountering the Other within South Africa. My research question wonders, "While dwelling with one-an-Other, what is the experience like for my students to journey to the place of South Africa and to encounter the primary Other of the people, the Other of nature and the Other of social justice?" My exploration relies heavily upon the works of Levinas, Heidegger and Freire. As a research guide, van Manen keeps me attuned pedagogically. Through the de-tour and the tension of the encounter experience, I follow my students' voices. As I dig deep into their lived experience of encountering the face of the South African Other, I unearth the phenomenon's essential structures. A preliminary study with two students reveals in the initial encounter a "starting from oneself" where they feel a captured, advertised and alienated presence. In going face-to-face and in unpacking their prejudices, they place the Other behind an exotic mask. Considering the lived place of South Africa, these two students speak to a dwelling together and a wandering-out. As I dig deeper, the eight students of my study lead me toward the tensions within South Africa's beautiful, poor places. In these lived places, the Other's face summons my students and guilt spreads across their being. In seeing the Other, my students begin to realize that they, too, are watched. They begin to recognize the Other in the self and the self in the Other. Fractured by their encounter, my students step away from the ego-self. They begin to homestead and to construct an-Other-self. Standing on the frontier of transformation, my students begin to cultivate a self that crosses borders, holds an awareness of its attachment to the world and feels its unfinishedness. Finally, I suggest that teachers and students must lend their presence to one-an-Other while re-implacing themselves out in the world of lived experience. Intervening in the world, together as teacher and students, we cultivate the pedagogical conditions for transformative, social justice education.