Search

This paper critically explores the use of satire and humour by fast-foods outlets in South Africa and Zimbabwe to advertise and market their menu through digital media platforms, Facebook and Twitter. Using Nando's South Africa and Mambo's Chicken, in Zimbabwe, as case studies, we examine how satire and humour are used as advertising strategies, and as a reflection of these countries' economic and political environments. Consumers are overwhelmed with information coming from different sources such as Television, radio, newspapers and Internet. The paper's theoretical approach is gleaned from advertising and satire. We argue that through their encounter with food, consumers tend to understand the reason behind their 'empty stomach', and mediate on prevailing socio-political and economic issues. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This article presents WhatsApp as a means of data collection among vulnerable populations, reporting on a study conducted in South Africa and Zimbabwe, to determine the terminology used for and among different genders and sexually diverse individuals. 19 LGBTIQ+ individuals, recruited through a modified snowballing technique, participated in the study. Using WhatsApp text-based information, the interview questions and information regarding the study and ethics-related information were forwarded from one participant to another. The same approach was used for data-collection purposes, where responses (either voice notes or written texts) were forwarded until they reached the initial two participants and/or the principal investigator. Data were analysed using Collazi's steps for data analysis. As the study focus was on the data collection technique, the paper highlights the ethical implications related to using WhatsApp as a data collecting tool. The study also indicates the advantages and disadvantages of using this platform and further emphasises that voice note WhatsApp messages yielded higher-quality and more in-depth responses than text messages. The limitations of using WhatsApp, and ways of enhancing its use as a means of data collection among vulnerable populations, are also addressed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Gaining access to participants in rural, politically unstable settings demands authority and consent not only from the participants and immediate line managers, but also from other players with interests in the research sites. This paper discusses data gathering experiences and challenges encountered during fieldwork for a PhD amidst a politically volatile situation in Zimbabwe in mid-2008. The article highlights the challenges encountered, how the researcher overcame some of them, and was stymied by others. Specifically, political challenges related to gaining access to schools and participants, which created time constraints and frustrations, fears and anxieties for the researcher. Issues of poor topography and interview space also emerged as other challenges. The paper proposes that the snags and surprises, the feelings of frustration, fear and anger that go with researching participants in politically unstable settings should not stall the research process but instead, handled with flexibility and patience, and used as motivation to continue. The experiences not only enhance the researcher's own reflexivity and reflectivity but also provide insights into the human conditions and actions as viewed from multiple perspectives. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Cross-border migration from Zimbabwe to South Africa has existed for a long time. Given this context, the governance of migrants, especially the undocumented Zimbabweans by South Africa, has come to the fore. Starting in 2009, South Africa granted undocumented Zimbabwean migrants Zimbabwean Dispensation Permits, which were replaced by Zimbabwean Special Dispensation Permits in 2014. In turn, the Zimbabwean Special Dispensation Permits were replaced by Zimbabwean Exemption Permits in September 2017. Although these are steps in the right direction, the changes in the conditions of these permits demonstrates humanitarian logic, which depoliticises and excludes the affected migrants. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This is a cross-national comparative study of how media in Zimbabwe, Botswana, and South Africa reconstructed their operations in response to Covid-19 global pandemic. The study is grounded in a qualitative research design that uses semi-structured interviews with journalists from Zimbabwe, Botswana and South Africa. The study investigated how news operations, newsroom cultures, news gathering, and news dissemination practices were impacted by the Covid-19 pandemic. Informed by the sociology of news production theoretical lens, the study noted that journalists and editors were affected by the Covid-19 pandemic which ensured they change some journalistic practices. The findings of this study reveal that journalists suffered traumatic experiences such as job losses, covid-19 related illness and fatalities. At a regulatory level, findings confirm the perennial challenges with media freedoms in the region with South Africa remaining a lone outlier. Lastly, interviews with journalists further demonstrate that newsrooms have had to maximise digital affordances for news gathering and dissemination as old revenue streams dried up. As a result, print media scaled back in its operations as a response to containing the spread of the virus. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Body mapping methods are used in sexual and reproductive health studies to encourage candid discussion of sex and sexuality, pleasure and pain, sickness and health, and to understand individuals' perceptions of their bodies. VOICE-D, a qualitative follow-up study to the VOICE trial, developed and used a body map tool in the context of individual in-depth interviews with women in South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe. The tool showed the outline of a nude female figure from the front and back perspective. We asked women to identify, label, and discuss genitalia and other body parts associated with sexual behaviors, pain, and pleasure. Respondents could indicate body parts without having to verbalize potentially embarrassing anatomical terms, enabling interviewers to clarify ambiguous terminology that may have otherwise been open to misinterpretation. Body maps provided women with a non-intimidating way of discussing and disclosing their sexual practices, and minimized miscommunication of anatomical and behavioral terminology. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study assessed socio-economic impacts of labour migration from Zimbabwe to South Africa using the case of a rural community in Bikita district of Masvingo Province. Mixed methods were used during primary data collection. The sample comprised 48 households selected through snowball sampling and five purposively selected key informants. Data analysis involved both statistical and thematic analysis. The major reason for migration from this community to South Africa was the search for employment given the lack of jobs in Zimbabwe. This helped migrant households improve their purchasing power and enhance their consumption of goods. Remittances were, however, inadequate to meet all household needs. Hence, some failed to pay children's school fees in time, access health services when ill, and have balanced diets. When migrant workers decide to move to South Africa, it is not always the case that their children automatically have a better life. Some of them fail to remit regularly and if they send money home, small amounts may be involved. Despite this challenge, migrant households depended on remittances which cushioned them during times of need. Government should control labour migration to South Africa through creating employment and ensure that children of poor labour migrants attend school. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study triangulates offline and online research methods to examine how and why young activists in Zimbabwe and South Africa use Facebook for political purposes. It demonstrates that like traditional participant observation, which was popularized by classical anthropologists, algorithmically ‘occurring’ data gathered through social media ethnography provides some of the richest information to burrow into the everyday political lives of young activists (who are generally presented in mainstream literature as having disengaged from traditional forms of political participation). Building on Postill and Pink’s (2012) typology of social media ethnography, this study proposes a seven stage criteria for conducting online participant observation on Facebook in the era of data ‘deluge’. These stages include: background listening, friending/liking, interacting, observing, catching up, exploring, and archiving. Based on the author’s multi-sited fieldwork experiences in Zimbabwe and South Africa, this study argues that online like offline participant observation has context specific methodological dilemmas which require innovative flexibility and ethical sensitivity on the part of the qualitative researcher. It also discusses various ethical dilemmas which the author encountered during the multi-sited fieldwork as well practical strategies other researchers can use for delurking, archiving and safeguarding participants’ privacy and confidentiality. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The abortion decision-making process is embedded within overlapping power relations. Using a post-colonial feminist framework, we analyse South African and Zimbabwean women’s narratives regarding their abortion decision. As neighbouring countries, South Africa and Zimbabwe provide a useful counterpoint as they have common and differing social histories and very different abortion legislation. In our analysis, we unpick transversal commonalities and divergences in the discursive resources deployed by the women in their narratives in the two sites. Commonalities included the women feeling compelled to justify their abortion decision in the interactive interview space, an absence of a reproductive rights discourse, and the deployment of relationship embedded discourses in the justificatory work performed by the women. The “conjugalisation of reproduction”, “imperative of good mothering”, and “unstable partner relationships” discourses featured across both sites but the manner in which these were deployed differed. These discursive resources allowed the women to position themselves as making responsible decisions. The Zimbabwean women spoke of shame and hiding, a discursive resource that was explicitly absent in the South African women’s accounts. We conclude by arguing that our post-colonial feminist approach allows for a contextualised reproductive justice stance to abortion decision-making that identifies both transnational and context-specific power relations. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The San are Southern Africa's first indigenous peoples. They can be found in South Africa, Botswana, Zimbabwe and Namibia. The San peoples in Botswana still face discrimination especially in the education sector as their indigenous literacy and way of life are largely ignored. Their languages are not part of the school curriculum in Botswana; English (the official language) and Setswana (the national language) are taught in schools. In theory, this should not be the case. It greatly disadvantages San children as they underperform and drop out of school. Hence, very few have made it to the University of Botswana and the colleges of education. In order for Botswana to reach its aim of an educated and informed nation by 2016, San peoples need to be catered for in the country's education system. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]