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Now showing 1 - 5 of 13

Recent Submissions

Other, othering, otherness
(Rhodes University, 2026-03-27) Fourie, Alan Llewellyn; Akhurst, Jacqueline (https://orcid.org/0000-0003-1566-9092 )
This qualitative exploratory study examined how Traditional Healers in South Africa understand and work with experiences of other, othering and otherness—concepts central to psychological theory. Nine Traditional Healers from AmaXhosa and AmaZulu traditions participated in semi-structured interviews, representing both rural and urban practice settings. The research addresses a critical gap in South African psychology by integrating historically marginalised indigenous healing knowledge with analytical psychology frameworks. This integration responds to the increased prevalence of othering phenomena in post-apartheid South Africa, ongoing theoretical debates about otherness, urgent calls for decolonising psychology, and analytical psychology's historical engagement with indigenous healing dating back to Jung's work. Using an interpretivist research paradigm and qualitative case study design, thematic analysis revealed two overarching themes: (1) Alterity and Othering Within—internal subjective experiences; and (2) Alterity and Othering Without—external experiences relating to society, family, other healers, and clinical work. Each theme contains subthemes of Separateness with Connection and Agency, as well as Separateness, Unconnected, and No Agency, revealing that othering is central to the identity formation of Traditional Healers, including their calling (ukutwasa), spiritual development, and therapeutic practice. Findings demonstrate that Traditional Healers have sophisticated, culturally grounded frameworks for understanding other, othering and otherness which parallel and extend analytical psychology concepts, including individuation, the ego-Self relationship, the collective unconscious, synchronicity, projection, and shadow work. Their practices emphasise ritual engagement, boundary maintenance, and a sustained relationship with otherness, rather than complete integration—offering important corrections to mainstream psychology. The study makes three central contributions: highlighting traditional healing as a parallel form of psychological knowledge; establishing analytical psychology as a theoretical bridge between Western frameworks and traditional healing; and demonstrating its transformative potential for addressing contemporary phenomena of othering. Implications include incorporating alterity experiences in clinical training, developing collaborative practice models, and advancing psychology's decolonisation in South Africa. Future research should expand to larger samples using collaborative methodologies that position Traditional Healers as co-researchers throughout all phases of the research.
Women’s reproductive health in the workplace
(Rhodes University, 2026-03-27) Yekani, Athenkosi (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9869-3666); Kabungaidze, Trust; Harry, Tinashe (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6174-6883 )
Reproductive health issues such as Menopause and Premenstrual Syndrome (PMS) or Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder (PMDD) affect women’s personal and occupational lives. Despite this, there remains a lack of targeted policies and interventions in various organisational context, including in South Africa. This oversight is also reflected in the dearth of literature or research examining the impact of and women’s experiences with these issues within South African workplaces. Thus, using a qualitative research approach, this study explored the lived experiences and perceptions of women affected by PMS and Menopause within the South African workplace context. Using Liberal feminism and Empowerment theory, this study advocates for the reproductive health rights or justice and institutional support of women’s unique health needs, while Goffman’s Stigma theory sheds light on the psychosocial dynamics of silence and discrimination associated with women’s reproductive health in the workplace. Through semi-structured interviews with women representing the population of interest, the analysis revealed that the physical, emotional, and cognitive difficulties of these issues significantly affect women’s overall quality of life. Despite this, workplace support remains inadequate, perpetuated by stigma, and gendered norms that pressure women to suffer in silence. The study highlights the urgency of policy reforms within our workplaces, empowering affected women through structural accommodations, and challenges the normalisation of gendered health stigma, trivialisation, and discrimination. Conclusively, the findings contribute to broader discussions on gender equity and occupational health and wellbeing, calling organisations to recognise women’s reproductive health issues, including PMS and menopause, as legitimate workplace concerns and equity issues.
Ethiopian women under fire
(Rhodes University, 2026-03-27) Tsuene, Kananelo; Spencer, Lynda (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9504-5919 ); Kwanya, Joseph (https://orcid.org/0000-0001-5571-6709 )
This study argues that three contemporary texts about Ethiopia, titled The Shadow King, The Wife’s Tale and Daughters of Silence adopt a revisionist approach to foreground the female voice and its growing agency in the context of the Second Italo-Ethiopian War of 1935. The study engages with this argument by examining literary representations of women’s roles and experiences of war. The scope of this study includes selected primary texts of postcolonial literature with an emphasis on war, women’s trauma, Ethiopian women’s writing and gendered memory. It begins with an analysis of Maaza Mengiste’s representation of women’s evolving roles during wartime in The Shadow King, theoretically drawing on Florence Stratton’s concepts of inversion and appropriation. This work also analyses how Aida Edemariam blends memoir, creative non-fiction and vicarious writing to reinterpret her grandmother’s history in The Wife’s Tale, demonstrating how non-fiction can defy and manipulate rigid conventions to reclaim women’s narratives. It further examines how silence and trauma manifest on the female body in Rebecca Fisseha’s Daughters of Silence. This thesis uses gender, postcolonial, trauma, feminist and narrative theory as guiding frameworks. I draw on the concepts of African theorists including Oike Machiko’s contentions about why there is a lack of literary criticism of war narratives authored by women. I engage with Pauline Ada Uwakweh’s research about trauma and violence during wartimes, Sheila Meintjes, Anu Pillay, and Meredith Turshen’s theory about the transformative nature of war, and Pumla Gobodo-Madikizela’s research on violence reenactment and inter-generational trauma in post-conflict Africa. This study also draws on Western trauma, feminism and gender theorists. Among them are Irene Visser, whose research focuses on vicarious trauma and writing about war as a secondary victim. I also engage with Philip Dwyer’s studies of the memoir, and Nicolas Abraham and Maria Torok’s research on inter-generational trauma. The main question this thesis seeks to answer is: how do the selected texts collectively serve a revisionist purpose, offering new perspectives on women’s untold war histories and their enduring political and social impact on Ethiopia.
Massed prolonged exposure therapy for PTSD and depression
(Rhodes University, 2026-03-07) Qodashe, Mandisa; Booysen, Duane (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6349-3178 )
Approximately 97.6% of South African university students report exposure to a potentially traumatic event (PTE) (Padmanabhanunni, 2020). University students are thus at an increased risk of developing post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Furthermore, of those with PTSD, 30-50% will experience severe major depressive disorder (Campbell et al., 2007). However, there remains a large treatment gap that is characteristic of university counselling centres. Consequently, this study employed a mixed methods design to investigate the effectiveness, acceptability and feasibility of Massed-Prolonged Exposure (MPE) in reducing PTSD as the primary outcome and comorbid depression as the secondary outcome in a South African university. A Single-Case Experimental Design (SCED) was employed to assess MPE’s effectiveness, whilst interviews were conducted after the intervention to assess the participants perceptions related to the feasibility and acceptability of MPE. Participants (n = 2) were recruited from Rhodes University through purposive sampling. Initial screening utilized the PTSD Diagnostic Scale for DSM-5 (PDS-5) and Patient Health Questionnaire-9 (PHQ-9) to confirm PTSD and major depressive disorder (MDD) diagnoses. The PHQ-9 and PTSD Symptom Checklist for DSM-5 (PCL-5) were used for ongoing assessment during the intervention. The participants no longer met the criteria for both diagnoses at the end of the intervention. Reflexive thematic analysis was used to assess the interviews. The findings from these interviews revealed that although participants found the techniques of the intervention initially challenging, they found the treatment helpful. The study provides preliminary evidence supporting the use of MPE in ameliorating PTSD and MDD symptoms. The study also contributes to the literature regarding evidence-based interventions within South African university settings.
Cancel culture and accountability on South African black Twitter
(Rhodes University, 2026-03-27) Ngoasheng, Evah Lethabo; Uzuegbunam, Chikezie E (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3958-5494 ); Aiseng, Kealeboga (https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5684-9519 )
This thesis critically examines cancel culture and accountability on South African Black Twitter (SABT), specifically addressing how the platform’s simplified binary discourse risks reducing complex social issues and hindering effective accountability measures. The study investigates the use of social media to hold individuals and commercial brands accountable for misconduct. The objective is to scrutinise the linguistic and discursive processes that construct, enforce, or overturn public accountability while retaining the necessary cultural and political nuance. This research employs a multiple case study approach utilising Critical Techno-Cultural Discourse Analysis (CTDA), an adaptation of Fairclough’s CDA, across a sustained 2019-2024 period. The methodology involved analysing a dataset of 1,500 high-engagement tweets collected from five high-profile cancellation cases (including politician Helen Zille and corporate brand Clicks) to analyse campaign progression across different institutional targets. The core findings establish that SABT operates as a digital imbizo, characterised by moral sovereignty: accountability is negotiated via Ubuntu and Black solidarity for economic justice (Clicks) or restorative justice (Maboe). Platform affordances are strategically weaponised for political resistance, as the Zille case shows how archival surveillance affects ideological dispossession, positioning the imbizo as the ultimate decider of political legitimacy. Furthermore, techno-linguistic adaptation and other mechanisms expose significant racialised double standards, demonstrating SABT’s structural efficacy in accountability. This unique process provides an essential theoretical framework for understanding how marginalised digital publics successfully repurpose platform affordances to achieve material outcomes that bypass traditional judicial and corporate systems. This study makes a significant contribution to the field by theorising SABT’s role as a unique counter-public sphere that uses resistance to generate material and culturally resonant forms of social justice, highlighting the tension between community-led accountability and entrenched power structures.