This article examines the rationale for a dynamic perspective of poverty in South Africa and analyses the magnitude and characteristics of those in chronic versus transitory poverty using data from the KwaZulu-Natal Income Dynamics Study. The results show that the incidence and depth of poverty have increased steadily between 1993 and 1998, a trend that is pronounced in rural localities and for female-headed households. Though the majority of households (30.7%) were found to be experiencing transitory poverty, a significant proportion of households, in lieu of the expected small minority suggested by previous empirical research, were chronically poor. / Thesis (M.Sc.U.R.P.)-University of Natal, Durban, 2000.

In the last four decades social scientists have been preoccupied with the process of modernisation and development. Theorists who emphasised a normative perspective distinguished between value systems relating to individuals they termed urban-based and modern, and those they classified as rural-based and traditional. Research for this dissertation was undertaken in order to study value systems as they relate to the development process, and in particular to test assumptions underlying the modernisation theory. Data were collected in two stages; semi-structured, focused group discussions were held in two marginal rural areas of KwaZulu, and personalised interviews were conducted within metropolitan Durban by means of a predesigned questionnaire. Results were content-analysed in order to examine values within the broad categories of work, the family and leadership within the community. In addition, a factor analysis was applied to the urban survey data to assess general patterns of value orientations. The results of the study did not support the widely held views of modernisation theorists, namely that traditional values are not compatible with modern values, that they are mutually exclusive and in conflict with each other. It was found that traditionalism and modernism, as defined by modernisation theorists, were compatible, and coexisted and permeated both rural- and urban-based people. Although traditional reactions appeared to dominate in the sphere of the family, in terms of work and leadership no clear distinction was evident, and the traditional and modern were closely interrelated. In addition, a simple rural-urban continuum of values did not emerge. On the basis of the findings and of criticisms directed at the modernisation theory in general, it was recommended that further research be undertaken in order to develop a more appropriate theoretical framework for development in South Africa. An holistic approach, incorporating not only the existing values of people but also broader factors which impinge on such values, need be taken into consideration in future explanations of underdevelopment and development planning. / Thesis (M.Dev.Studies)-University of Natal, Durban, 1990.

Since HIV/AIDS is closely connected with adult sexuality, children in early schooling are often overlooked in debates around the pandemic. However the growing number of children who are infected or affected by HIV/AIDS cannot be ignored. This qualitative study gives voice to young childrens' experiences and understanding of HIV/AIDS in Savannah Park, province of KwaZulu-Natal. The study also explores how HIV/AIDS intersects with other barriers to learning and development and the effect this has upon childrens' lives. Twenty learners between the ages of 8-9 years who come from low income families were selected as participants in this study. They were interviewed using focus group interviews. During the focus group interviews, various participatory research techniques such as drawing, story telling, projection, games and movement evaluation exercises were employed. One of the key findings that emerged was that the participants consistently identified HIV/AIDS as a deadly disease. There was also a deep sense of fear amongst participants that their family members will contract HIV/AIDS rendering them vulnerable to the devastating impacts of the disease. Another important finding was that many participants were able to correctly identify symptoms of the disease revealing intimate knowledge and personal experience of the disease. Some modes of transmission of HIV/AIDS were also particularly well known amongst participants such as touching blood and sharing infected needles. This study however highlights the need for children in early schooling to be given accurate information on the sexual transmission of HIV/AIDS. Participants were also restricted in their knowledge of preventative measures against the HIV/AIDS virus and did not have any specific knowledge of anti retroviral drugs. Another key finding was the high levels of awareness amongst participants of the challenges experienced by HIV/AIDS infected and affected children. Lack of money, food, clothing and support coupled with sickness and high rates of absenteeism within a HIV/AIDS context impeded learning from their perspective. The views participants express also reveal that HIV/AIDS affected and infected children are still subject to prejudice, isolation and stigmatization within educational settings. However there is hope in that many participants expressed warmth and friendship towards HIV/AIDS infected children. Support structures such as family members, neighbours, teachers, social workers, church and medical personnel were also regarded as having a positive effect on the lives of HIV/AIDS affected and infected children. / Thesis (M.Ed.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Pietermaritzburg, 2007.

This thesis recognises that quantitative research distances the researcher from the people who form part and parcel of squatter settlements. Therefore, in the course of analysing whether upgrading is a realistic option for the Ntchaweni squatter settlement, this qualitative study has not concerned itself with the activities of the inhabitants alone, or only with the buildings which house squatters, but investigates those units of experience within which physical form, activities and the degree of attachment that squatters have for the settlement of Ntchaweni are amalgamated to form place. A contention of this thesis if we are to plan successfully for squatter areas, it is necessary to understand that squatters have the potential to think and plan ahead for themselves. Squatter settlements are not necessarily the domain of criminals and unemployed people. The Ntchaweni squatter settlement is a complex place in which the inhabitants exhibit a strong attachment to the place.This validates the methodological emphasis on a people-place study of the squatter settlement, as does the acknowledged importance of community participation in upgrading schemes. In contrast, the "top-down" re-organising of squatter settlements into idealistic settlements conforming rigidly to some grand theory developed by technocrats cannot possibly help to alleviate the severe physical and social problems experienced in squatter areas. It is therefore necessary to arrive at a realistic option for the improvement of the Ntchaweni squatter settlement by analysing what the squatters perceive to be a suitable living environment. Any upgrading option for the Ntchaweni squatter settlement must also take into account the system which perpetrated the poor conditions evident in the study area. Within this context, the areal expansion of the Ntchaweni squatter settlement into its present size qualifies the notion that this place has an important function from a social, cultural and economic perspective. The historical development and the present political situation in the study area are both important considerations in a study which aims at investigating the betterment options for the area, be it site and service schemes or in situ upgrading. In order to gain a better understanding of squatter settlements, we must record both objective and subjective aspects of place. Together, these investigations put us into a position to discuss the possibilities for generating realistic options for designing and producing places suitable for human habitation in Ntchaweni. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1992.

This dissertation aims to examine the impact that HIV / AIDS is having on children in South Africa by focusing on two case study areas in KwaZulu-Natal. The research study examines impacts such as increased poverty, emotional stress, vulnerability, stigma, deprivation of education and criminal behaviour and the coping mechanisms put into place to address these impacts. HIV / AIDS is impacting on children in several different ways. HIV / AIDS increases child vulnerability and poverty and has a detrimental impact on child health and welfare as well as education and socialisation. The impacts discussed in this research study have been highlighted through data obtained from key stakeholders working with children in the HIV / AIDS field. The research will argue that insufficient support is being provided for the future generation of South Africa and if the country is to minimise the damage, which will inevitably be caused as a result of this epidemic, policies aimed at child welfare must be implemented immediately. The future development of South Africa is at stake and it is the children of this nation who will feel the consequences of the present governmental failure to provide for the people, should they continue to ignore the severity of the epidemic. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, 2005

This is a transdisciplinary study of how ‘popular cultures of survival’ regenerate and rehumanise township residents and communities whose social fabric and intergenerational bonds have been violently torn by endemic suffering. I focus specifically on township mothers’ and daughters’ lifeworlds with the aim of recentering these marginalised lives so that they can inform us about retheorising marginality and in this way enrich our limited academic discourses on the subjectivities of poor urban African women. Located in the interdisciplinary field of popular culture studies, the study draws on and synthesises theoretical insights from a number of disciplines such as sociology, political-science, anthropology, history, literary studies, womanist and feminist studies and indigenous studies, while using a variety of methods and sources such as interviews, reports, observation, newspapers, field notes, photo-albums, academic articles and embodied expressions to create a unique theory on the lived and embodied suffering and healing experiences of township women. I have called this situated conceptual framework that is theoretically aligned to African womanism and existential phenomenology, but principally fashioned out of township mothers and daughters ways of understanding the world and their place in it--Township mothers’ and daughters’ lived and embodied ‘cultures of survival’. And in order to surface their popular cultural survival strategies I have adopted an African womanist interpretative phenomenological methodological framework. This suggested conceptual and methodological framework has allowed me to creatively explore the dialectical tensions of the everyday township philosophies, aesthetics and moralities of ‘ukuphanta’, to hustle and ‘ukuhlonipha’, to respect, and show how they create the moral-existential ground for township mothers and daughters not only to continue to survive, but to reclaim lives of dignity and sensuality amidst repeated negation and historical hardships. / Sociology / D.Litt. et Phil. (Sociology)

No abstract available. / Thesis (M.A.)-University of Natal, Durban, 1974.

This thesis is an analysis of a creative design HIV/AIDS communication programme named Siyazama (we are trying) that works in association with rural traditional beaded cloth doll makers from KwaZulu-Natal province in South Africa. As a reflective thesis it represents a hermeneutic opportunity to ascertain the extent to which an interdisciplinary programme of HIV/AIDS education and training impacted on the lives of the women involved and how their expert skills of craftswomen were employed to understand and address the growing HIV/AIDS epidemic. What began in 1996 on invitation from the African Art Centre in Durban as a simple intervention to upgrade craft techniques and craft construction developed of its own accord into a unique HIV/AIDS intervention in 1999. The communication mode in which the rural women were skilled - beadwork - was long used by women in KwaZulu-Natal as a mode of communication to circumvent the Zulu cultural taboo on discussion of matters of emotional and sexual intimacy called hlonipha. In the modern era of HIV/AIDS, this same mode has been revived and reworked as a means for affecting communication about the many sensitive and taboo issues that surround this disease. There is much scientific evidence which points to the fact that women in this part of the world are far more susceptible than men to HIV infection, largely due to their lower social status, their economic dependence on men and their need to manage the large-scale poverty that affects them and their families. All of this contributes to increasing their vulnerability to AIDS. Ethnographic analysis of the experience of HIV/AIDS amongst Zulu-speaking craftswomen in KwaZulu-Natal has also revealed the nature of the complex cultural belief system that is alive and articulated in the local art and AIDS interface. This thesis describes the myriad ways in which a particular group of rural women of KwaZulu-Natal, owing to certain customary prescriptions, appear as largely silenced on sexual and sensitive relationship issues. Yet, their expert abilities in beadwork have afforded these women the opportunity to express innermost concerns about the epidemic in three dimensional forms. The historical record of KwaZulu-Natal shows us how beadwork was often used traditionally by women to take the place of speaking. The Siyazama Project beadwork exhibit, comprising over 300 pieces of individual beaded artifacts and collected between 1999 and 2005, provides verification of the continued existence of this form of expression. It is an archive of the fields of inquiry which were covered in the Siyazama educational programme starting with 'breaking the silence on AIDS' in 1999 and ending with anti-retroviral therapies (ART) in 2005. The relationship between the beaded crafts and the AIDS educational information which was received during the course of the Siyazama AIDS educational programme is explained through an analysis of this beaded collection. As an in depth qualitative study of the experiences and impact of the HIV/AIDS intervention with women beadworkers from rural communities in KwaZulu-Natal, this thesis represents an attempt to account for how a creative design HIV/AIDS communication programme has impacted on the lives of the women reached by the programme, and how their skills as craftswomen have been utilized to make sense of the local HIV/AIDS epidemic whilst raising awareness about AIDS in their communities. The overall aim of the study is to interpret the effect and effectiveness of beadwork craft as a visual metaphoric mode of expression, and to define the way the project sought to circumvent particular cultural taboos on the discussion of sexuality and other matters of personal intimacy. The study describes some of the common beliefs and attitudes that persisted at the time at which the project commenced and demonstrates how these have been 're-written and re-corded' in beadwork throughout the six-year duration of the intervention. My focus throughout is on assessing the value of this project through proposing the medium of beadwork as a contemporary and unique cultural archive that speaks to the complexities of HIV/AIDS in Southern Africa. / Thesis (Ph.D.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2006.

"One of the central tenets of critical approaches to social science is that we should not only understand society theory), but use such understanding as a basis for a programme of action (practice) to change society, change...is only possible through an endless cycle of theory and practice. The feminist approach changes and deepens our analysis" (IBG Women's Group 1984:38). A fundamental issue for planners and planning is the question of 'development.' how does it occur, for whom, and with what result? One of the South Africa State's policies which is couched in development terms is that of Industrial Decentralization. This policy is having an impact on both the organization and the location of industry. In this thesis we explore the significance of gender-relations and the geography of gender relations in the reorganization of industry and employment. Our specific orientation is towards drawing the links between gender and industrial decentralization and in order to do this we look at life experiences in Isithebe, an industrial decentralization point in KwaZulu near Stanger. Below we outline the contents of each chapter. The choice of structure and the reasons behind it are discussed in the section on Methodology in Part 1. In brief the process moves from women's personal experience of life (part 2) in Isithebe to the broader social context of this experience (Part 3). / Thesis (M.T.R.P.)-University of Natal,Durban, 1986.

In any country where there are informal settlements, crime prevention and combat is, to a great extent, determined by the availability of reliable information about crime and about the physical environment in which it occurs. Of equal importance in reducing crime is accurate reporting on the behalf of the public and accurate mapping of crime incidences on the part of the police. Informality makes such information gathering, reporting and mapping extremely challenging. Street level geocoding match rates are lower in informal settlements areas compared to formal urban areas, due to the fact that these areas are unplanned without any road networks or proper address points. To determine the success or otherwise of measures taken to control crime in informal settlements, it is necessary for a system to be in operation whereby crime can be geocoded to a specific location. The integration of community local knowledge with Geographic Information Systems can help populate urban-based geospatial databases for informal settlement crime mapping, and a mental mapping exercise can contribute by the identification of landmarks which can be geocoded. The aim of this research was to establish how community understandings and constructions of their local geography can contribute to ‘official’ police crime mapping and, consequently, to the improvement of policing in informal settlements. In order to achieve this research objective, community ‘mind maps’ were explored through focus groups and these were correlated with police geocoding and mapping systems. The aim here was to explore whether and how these systems can work together in dealing more effectively with crime and in enhancing police-community relations in informal settlement areas. A key finding of this research was that, coming together or integration between community generated mapping information and conventional GIS methodologies, has the potential to completely transform the way in which informal settlements crimes are mapped. / Thesis (M.Soc.Sc.)-University of KwaZulu-Natal, Durban, 2012.