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This thesis is the product of the author’s personal experience as a gay person working in the humanitarian sector who has experience of the challenges faced in countries of conflict and in countries where the rights of LGBTQ people are not assured. LGBTQ people have specific needs that are documented through research, highlighting the risks they face while working in high risk locations. With such limitations in the way that LGBTQ people are supported in the field, or in their home nations, with particular relevance to religiously supported heteronormativity which is relevent especially given the particular needs and concerns that LGBTQ people face in everyday life, these issues are exacerbated in conflict or hazardous settings. To establish the experiences of LGBTQ people, semi structured qualitative interviews have been used to illicit nuanced details from differing LGBTQ perspectives to provide some supportive insight into the conditions that individuals work in. These interviews were triangulated against the current data that exists, and an online quantitative and qualitative survey which investigated in more specificity the experiences of LGBTQ people and what support mechanisms would benefit them. Motivations, experience, health implications and support to LGBT staff are discussed from the point of view of LGBTQ staff, represented as much as possible by individuals of varying gender, sexual orientation, and race. The findings are used to provide recommendations for what agencies can do to provide a level of support to their own LGBTQ staff, a concept for which there are still significant gaps in literature, data, and practice.

For six decades, consumer researchers have relied heavily on Goffman's (1963) seminal work on stigma, often limiting themselves to a one-dimensional treatment of it as a static variable that determines the behaviour of homogenous groups. Such views, however, stand at odds with wider paradigm shifts away from modernity, and with feminist considerations about intersectionality. Most importantly, the dearth of studies examining the interplay between structural macro-dynamics and micro-level experiences has meant that rapid changes in societal attitudes have received insufficient attention. Considering the rise of minority portrayals in the past few years and importance of the media in dispersing and ameliorating stigma, there is a need to understand how media experiences differ across generations, sociocultural categories, and individual life-courses. Focusing on lesbian, gay, bisexual, trans, queer, and other (LGBTQ+) individuals, and building on Bauman's (2000) concept of liquid modernity as well as Bourdieu's (1994) theory of practice, this thesis explores how stigma experiences of two generations of LGBTQ+ consumers have changed, how this relates to their experiences of LGBTQ+ media portrayals, as well as what this tells us about how (marginalised) consumers navigate their lives and particularly the fragmentation of identity politics through (media) consumption. I followed an intersectional phenomenological enquiry, employing a meaning-based model of media experience that contributes to the literature by extending Mick and Buhl's (1992) work to account for considerations of intersectionality and intertextuality. Life story- and subsequent media experience interviews were analysed individually and across cases. The sample consisted of eight LGBTQ+ members of the Boomer- and ten of the Millennial generation. This study develops a theoretical framework of stigma as viscous instead of static: in constant flux due to the dynamic interplay between the doxic attitudes in social fields, as well as individual embodied dispositions, the stigma habitus. This provides a richer understanding of how it is enacted in consumer culture, enabling a critical analysis of the dialectic relationship between individuals and their environment. Through this framework, my study challenges generational accounts of difference, which are found to be too simplistic to account for diverging (media) experiences. Instead, it is the dialectic between context and (stigma) habitus that shapes dynamic experiences. For participants facing high levels of stigma viscosity, for example, LGBTQ+ portrayals seemed particularly important and experiences revolved around social acceptance. Moreover, lived experiences, as well as doxic beliefs about media, advertising, and a text's 'author' formed an intertextual frame of reference used to evaluate portrayals' authenticity and harmfulness. Importantly, participants' preference for or rejection of 'radical' vs heteronormative portrayals was shaped by tastes that have become naturalised in their habitus, with disparate doxic beliefs generating reflexive guilt and ambivalence. My findings suggest that stigma amelioration may ultimately lead to symbolic violence within the LGBTQ+ community against those who do not adhere to accepted consumption standards. This study also has implications for consumers more broadly as changes in viscosity affect consumption practices. Adhering to a critical approach, I describe a range of recommendations for practitioners and reflexive practices I engaged in following this study.

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Der Begriff Coming-out ist in politischer, wissenschaftlicher und alltagspraktischer Hinsicht mit verschiedenen Bedeutungen belegt. Ausgehend von seiner ursprünglichen Verwendung für die Initialisierung junger Edelfrauen auf einem semi-öffentlichen Heiratsmarkt im 19. Jahrhundert wurde er später für die (erstmalige) Thematisierung einer Nicht-Heterosexualität/Cisgeschlechtlichkeit üblich. Daran anschließend hat er etliche historisch-soziale Transformationen erfahren, die vor allem auf einer Verschiebung bzw. auf einer Umkehrung der Ökonomie der Sichtbarkeit beruhen, die sexuelle Abweichung formiert und ins Zentrum gesellschaftlicher Aufmerksamkeit setzt.

Mixed race and African South African parents of children coming out as Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transsexual, Intersex, Queer, Questioning and A-Sexual+ have a unique set of challenges within their cultural, religious and social contexts. The problem statement for the study entails that parents have to deal with familial and societal perceptions and reactions to their child coming out, face their own challenges and fears concerning their child’s sexual orientation or identity, and find coping strategies to deal with their coming out as LGBTIQA+. During my research in the UNISA library and online I found that there is a paucity of literature on this subject matter, especially within the South African context. The aim of this study was to obtain an in-depth understanding of these mixed race and African parents’ experiences, challenges and coping strategies in relation to a child coming out as LGBTIQA+. The Resiliency Theory of Family Stress, Adjustment and Adaptation, as linked to Hill’s Stress Theory and the Strength-based approach, were adopted as related theories within the theoretical framework of this study. A qualitative approach was employed, as I intended to gain insight into the lived experiences, challenges and coping strategies of mixed race and African South African parents in relation to a child coming out as LGBTIQA+, as well as to gain advice on social work support. A phenomenological and collective instrumental case study design, together with an explorative, descriptive and contextual strategy of inquiry, were used to explore, describe and contextualise how mixed race and African parents of LGBTIQA+ children experienced their children’s coming out, what their challenges were, and the coping strategies they employed to manage the challenges experienced. The sample of participants was selected by utilising purposive sampling. Semi-structured interviews, contained in an interview guide, were used to collect the data that was analysed using Tesch’s method of analysis (in Creswell, 2014:198). The data were collected by means of individual interviews and presented in a cross-person manner using selected narratives from the participants. Guba’s model, as espoused in Krefting (1991) and Lietz and Zayas (2010), was used and the four aspects of trustworthiness, namely credibility, transferability, dependability and confirmability, were applied. Ethical considerations were observed. The findings led the researcher to make recommendations regarding social work practice, education and further research into the phenomenon of parental experiences, challenges and coping strategies in relation to a child coming out as LGBTIQA+. In terms of parental experiences of their child coming out as LGBTIQA+, I found that parents were surprised and unhappy, disappointed, pained and shocked, and fearful for their child’s safety when they realised he or she was LGBTIQA+. When it came to their challenges and fears, the parents openly admitted that what the community, church and external family would make of their child being LGBTIQA+ caused stress for them. Lastly, the parents made recommendations to social workers based on their experiences, challenges and coping strategies, indicating that social workers should focus on sharing information and guiding parents; but firstly, social workers must have self-awareness and understand their own attitudes toward LGBTIQA+ matters. / Social Work / MA (Social Work)