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This paper presents empirical and methodological findings from an art-based, participatory process with a group (n  = 16) of adolescent and young advisors in the Western Cape Province of South Africa. In a weekend workshop, participants reflected on their participation in 12 years of health and development-related research through theatre, song, visual methodologies and semi-structured interviews. Empirical findings suggest that participants interpreted the group research encounter as a site of empowerment, social support and as a socio-political endeavour. Through song, theatre and a mural illustration, they demonstrated that they value 'unity' in research, with the aim of ameliorating the conditions of adolescents and young people in other parts of South Africa and the continent. Methodological findings document how participants deployed art-based approaches from South Africa's powerful history of activism, including the struggle against apartheid, the fight for anti-retroviral therapy and more recent social movements towards decolonization. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Pre‐abortion counselling may play a key role in abortion seekers' understanding of their decision to terminate a pregnancy and the subsequent emotions that they feel. In this paper, we report on a study conducted in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa concerning womxn's experiences of the pre‐abortion counselling offered as part of the implementation of the Choice of Termination Act that governs the provision of legal abortion in the country. Using a narrative‐discursive lens, the analysis revealed four micro‐narratives in which participants appreciated non‐directive and empathic counselling, as well as being provided with information. They also indicated that the counselling was upsetting and hurtful, particularly when providers drew on the awfulisation of abortion discourse to suggest that abortion leads to terrible consequences, and foetal personhood discourse to intimate that terminating the pregnancy is wrong and other alternatives (adoption, parenting) are better. The connection between these broadly positive and negative responses may lie in the dominance of anti‐abortion discourses coupled with the powerful positioning of healthcare providers as experts. The attendant disempowerment of clients within the health clinic setting may constrain pregnant people's ability to question such 'expert' information. The implications for feminist client‐centred pre‐abortion counselling are discussed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]