African Safety Promotion: A Journal of Injury and Violence Prevention

Thanatopolitics and Fugitive Mourning in Pandemic Death

Hugo Canham — 2021-07-30

COVID-19 has reminded us that death is not only inevitable but also, for those who are constructed as death bound, imminent and immanent. In this paper, I contend that this season of mass death has led to an intensified thanatopolitics where the state has sought to take over full control of corpses and the death world. This has major implications for how we order and relate to the African death world. Mourning and funeral rites are important sites of sociality for the processing of loss, ritual cleansing and renewal. The COVID-19 pandemic and the dramatic rise in deaths associated with it mean that mourning, rites, sociality and potential renewal are fundamentally disrupted. This disruption occurs because rituals and customs associated with how Africans honour and bury the dead have to change as a result of health protocols and government regulations that are promulgated against contagion. However, through media reports on those killed by COVID-19, I demonstrate that thanatopolitics remains fragile in the face of the erotics of mourning and fugitive mourning that families and communities engage in. This paper is an effort to engage with the subject of pandemic death and the meaning of what we lose when ritual and relation are threatened. It presents the erotics of mourning and fugitive mourning as forms of resistance that the black underclasses are always insurgently engaged in.

COVID-19 and the ‘New Normal’ in Education: Exacerbating Existing Inequities in Education

Yusuf Sayed — 2021-07-30

This paper considers education responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, with specific reference to South Africa, examining how inequality has been exacerbated as a result of the pandemic. It outlines how education policy choices are shaped and how the (mis)use of evidence highlights the lack of meaningful and robust involvement by key education stakeholders and social science specialists, particularly from the critical tradition. COVID-19 has intensified and sharpened social, political and economic fragilities and inequities globally, forcing governments to (re)think responses to social problems and disruptions. This paper underscores three dimensions of inequity in education as a result of the pandemic: equitable teaching and learning during the lockdown and school closures; inequities that may result from the (re)opening of schools in the ‘new normal’; and the lack of attention to psychosocial support and professional development. The paper argues that while this pandemic may be new, it has exacerbated existing inequities in education provision, intensified by the COVID-19 disaster management and education policy. The paper argues for a progressive approach to education transformation in response to this pandemic and future crises and disruptions.

Pandemics Remind Us of Our Responsibility to Ourselves, Others and Future Generations: A Time for Intergenerational Justice?

Keymanthri Moodley — 2021-07-30

Over the past year, the world has experienced colliding pandemics of viral outbreaks and injustice - social and health inequities, gender-based violence, marginalisation of immigrant populations, racial discrimination. All of this was superimposed on an ever - worsening climate crisis. This is not the first viral pandemic neither will it be the last. The collective moral injury experienced by the global community requires recalibrating for life in an interpandemic world, moving beyond self-interest and building trust as an ethical imperative. Central to this recalibration is assumption of responsibility to future generations - intergenerational justice. Not only does such an ethics of responsibility enhance mutuality and reciprocity, it is also synchronous with African philosophical thinking, which supports interdependence in this world and is firmly rooted in ancestral worlds and future worlds.

Statistical Considerations when Communicating Health Risks: Experiences from Canada, Chile, Ecuador and England Facing COVID-19

Shrikant I. Bangdiwala — 2021-07-30

Communicating statistics in health risk communication is a fundamental part of managing public health emergencies. Effective communication requires careful planning and the anticipation of possible information demands from the population. The information should be clear, relevant, easy to understand, timely, accurate and precise, allowing the public to make informed decisions about protective behaviours. COVID-19, being a new disease, with little known about its characteristics and effects, has challenged governments and healthcare systems in all countries. This article discusses the statistical issues involved, and the experiences of risk communication in four countries – Canada, Chile, Ecuador and England. These countries have communicated risks differently, partly because of their different healthcare systems, as well as socioeconomic, cultural and political realities. During a pandemic, health authorities and governments must step up to the challenge of communicating statistical information under pressure and with urgency, when little is known about the disease, the situation is dynamic and evolving, and the general public is gripped with fear and anxiety. This is in addition to the existing challenges relating to the generation of data of different quality by diverse sources, and a public with varying levels of statistical literacy. From a statistical perspective, communiqués about risks and numbers should convey the uncertainty there is about the information, the inherent variabilities in the system, the precision and accuracy of estimates and the assumptions behind projections. Complex technical concepts, such as ‘flattening the curve’, ‘range in risk estimates’ and ‘projected trends,’ should be explained.

The State of Violence Prevention: Reflections from the First South African National Conference on Violence Prevention

Mohamed Seedat — 2021-07-30

Our analysis of the state of violence prevention in the country is based on a thematic content analysis of abstracts submitted for the First South African National Conference on Violence Prevention. A description of the constituent features of interventions, as well as the theoretical and evaluative assumptions that underlie them, is useful for identifying gaps, strengths and areas for development in the violence prevention sector. Our analysis suggests that the work presented at the conference, albeit a limited representation of violence prevention initiatives in the country, may be indicative of the plural forms of violence and is partially responsive to the complex psychosocial drivers of violence. While multidimensional interventions seem to focus on central contributing factors, including gendered cultural norms and practices, hegemonic masculinities, specific vulnerable groups and locations, the structural drivers of violence are not directly addressed. There is thus space and scope for prevention interventions that target socioeconomic and material determinants of violence directly. Likewise, for national implementation science and related efforts to grow, future interventions will have to incorporate theoretical and evaluative frames that help to explain the factors that may optimise intervention success, uptake and sustainability.

Reassessing Masculinities-Focused Interventions: Room and Reasons for Improvement

Karen Graaff — 2021-07-30

Gender-based violence (GBV) remains a serious issue in many countries around the world, and this is particularly true for South Africa. Many current interventions to address this phenomenon have, however, had little success in reducing the rates of such violence. This study looked at masculinities-focused interventions as a method for addressing GBV, through a qualitative investigation of the One Man Can (OMC) programme in the Western Cape province of South Africa, based on the observation of workshops, and interviews and focus groups with workshop participants and facilitators. A number of concerns related to the implementation of the intervention are detailed. The first is a lack of awareness of the intersectional nature of masculinities, which risks implying that it is only individual men who need to change, rather than systemic patriarchy and gender inequality. Second, the workshops focus almost exclusively on poor men of colour, which can reinforce the existing stigma these men face in racist societies, such as South Africa. Finally, the workshops use a narrow definition of GBV, focusing almost entirely on violence against women, which excludes violence against other marginalised groups, such as the LGBTQI+ community, boys and men. Thus, the workshops require a rethink of their content and implementation, in order to better contribute to efforts aimed at reducing GBV within larger gender and sexual justice goals.

What’s in a Name? Reflections at a Milestone Moment in African Safety Promotion

Mohamed Seedat — 2021-07-30

The year 2020 marked 19 years since African Safety Promotion: A Journal of Injury and Violence Prevention (ASP) was launched. In this reflective account, I describe selected aspects of the journal’s reach and published contents, with reference to the founding impulse and aims that shaped its vision and trajectory over almost two decades. Even though ASP was successful in its aim of attracting contributions that support the development of public health-oriented injury and violence prevention science, it did not gain the requisite traction with respect to its intention to serve as an Africa-centred dialogical space. Several factors appear to have influenced ASP’s substantive trajectory, identity and progression, and the subsequent decision to change its name.

(Mis)Understanding Same-Sex Sexual Violence Amongst Boys: A Perspective on Recent Rape Incidents in South Africa

Sebenzile Nkosi — 2021-07-30

Incidents of male–male sexual violence amongst young boys in South Africa have been brought into sharp focus by the media and, to a lesser extent, research, yet there continues to be very little research into this phenomenon in South Africa. In this perspective, evidence is presented of how the dearth of research has led to a limited appreciation of the associated risk factors and the socioeconomic circumstances under which male–male sexual violence amongst young boys occurs. It is possible to theorise that this neglect results from a gendered discourse which frames males and females as perpetrators and victims respectively, and disregards males as victims. Moreover, drawing on critical men and masculinities scholarship, the contention is made that this neglect also results from limited recognition that boys are gendered, that there are a multiplicity and hierarchy of masculinities amongst boys, with dominant masculinities sometimes employing physical and sexual violence to suppress and control subordinate and alternative masculinities. More research is urgently needed on boy–boy sexual violence in resource-poor communities in South Africa. Such work should be grounded in the critical men and masculinities framework. The findings from such research could inform the development of context-specific gender-transformative interventions for young adolescent boys, to prevent their construction of violent masculinities and the use of violence.