3. Electronic Theses and Dissertations (ETDs) - All submissions
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Item Violence in prison: a situational design perspective(2013) Heron, Elizabeth ClareThis study examined prison violence that takes place in male correctional centres (prisons) in South Africa. Prison violence is examined as a product of situational design factors within the prison environment, where such factors motivate and provide opportunity for incidents of violence among offenders. Acts of violence among offenders are evaluated and contextualized in terms of forms, motivations, distribution and frequency of violence, following which prison violence is evaluated from a situational design perspective. The research areas in this study determined the directives that govern prison architecture and examined the benchmarks that measure effectiveness in terms of prison design; determined the governing principles of environmental psychology theories and practices; evaluated the forms of violence that take place in maximum security prisons in South Africa and further determined the design features and construction materials adopted in prison design, that motivate and provide opportunities for violent behaviour which in turn jeopardize offender and staff safety. Literature review in this study presented the history and evolution of prisons particularly the relationship between prison form and function, as well as the role of prisons in meeting the historical and current philosophies of punishment. In addition, literary theories surrounding environmental psychology and situational design were presented. Following this, literature was presented on the theoretical debate on the effectiveness of prison design on human behaviour, particularly violent behaviour that occurs in prisons. This study examined the situational impact on prison violence within four correctional centres in South Africa namely, Johannesburg Correctional Centre, Pretoria Central Correctional Centre, Modderbee and CMax. The data collection process included discussions with prison personnel, assessment of historical data, participant observation, unstructured interviews with officials, surveys in the form of interviews and questionnaires with offenders. Findings of this study presented prison violence from a situational perspective by identifying the specific locations within prisons that presented higher propensity for violence. Analysis of results demonstrated how prison design and construction material choice in prison design impacts on violence in prisons. Findings further indicated that specific geographic locations within the prison environment motivated and provided opportunities for prison violence; that design features and material choice adopted in the prison environment motivated prison violence among offenders in male prisons and that design features applied in prison design motivated frustrations among offenders and in turn perpetuated violence among offenders. The findings are presented from the perspective of the users of prisons, namely male offenders, and findings expose prison violence from the South African context.Item Othering and the media: a critical discourse analysis of articles about African migrants and health issues in two South African daily newspapers (from April 2008 to August 2015)(2018) Buker, LindaBackground: South-Africa has a long standing history of migration. Yet in 2008 the country experienced unprecedented waves of xenophobic violence against foreigners in a number of townships around the province of Gauteng. In the aftermath negative sentiments seemed to have developed against foreign nationals. The media is a power tool in the creation of such sentiments. Through images, language, voices and representation of individuals and groups media outlets may have significant impact on the perception of its audiences on their realities. This research aimed to investigate in what ways two South-African newspapers have depicted African migrants in relation to their health and healthcare services. In resource scare settings such as South-Africa, a competition for limited services in combination with an increase of users may have contributed to a xenophobic environment. To examine this hypothesis, articles were investigated for their language use and underpinning discourses. Methods: For the analysis two Gauteng English-speaking newspapers were selected (The Star, The Sowetan). Data were retrieved from the online archive of Wits University library and selected through inclusion and exclusion criteria. Using a Jäger’s structural and fine analysis approaches, a form of critical discourse analysis, articles were analyzed according to their use of rhetoric, metaphors, subjects, voices, power relations and institutional forms of power. Furthermore, authors were investigated and all articles summarized as well as examined for their tone and atmosphere. Moreover, articles’ data were checked for their accuracy. Results and Discussion: Publications in the two newspapers on the subject of health and migration were infrequent with 38 articles between 2008 and 2015. The overall impressions of articles varied but the majority did not frame migrants negatively. Information on the authors was not readily available. Metaphors were framed around the supposedly high numbers of migrants entering the country (waves, masses, etc.). A significant word choice was the word illegal which was often used to imply a criminal act. However, many articles conveyed equally empathic views on the difficult positions of migrants. Moreover, othering through the creation of inside and outside groups were a recurrent form of presenting migrants. Several terms around foreign nationals were used interchangeably to speak about migrants irrespective of their legal status. The majority of migrants articles referred to were Zimbabweans (68%) which was often associated with a negative image. Data use in articles was difficult to confirm or reject as accurate data were not easily accessible. Both newspapers allowed various voices to be heard. There was no evidence for misuse of institutional forms of power. Overall, the main discourses in the articles were around cross-border migration and health risks, the poor management of migration, the use of resources by migrants and the health status of migrants living in South-Africa. Results are limited by the researcher’s bias based on her gender, nationality and social background which also limited the choice of data sources to English speaking newspapers. As a non-native English speaker, linguistic nuances may have gone unnoticed. Moreover, certain information was not available, including data on the authors or the layout of the articles. Lastly, this research limited itself to xenophobia against cross-border migrants and not internally displaced people or xenophobia between ethnic groups. Conclusion and Recommendations: Both newspapers fail to account for the different stories behind cross-border movements. Neither of the newspapers gave particular space to the subject itself.Item The role of social media in immigrants' response to xenophobic violence in South Africa(2018) Borman, Jan WillemXenophobia and other forms of discrimination and prejudice has long been a problem in South Africa. When it reached a boiling point in 2008, the country could have been forgiven for thinking that the worst has happened. But since then the country has seen incident after incident and wave after wave of violence against foreigners. Despite all of these incidents, research around xenophobia and responses to it has neglected spending time focusing on the victims themselves. There are bodies of research exploring the responses of government, civil society and other institutions such as the police to xenophobia. By failing to examine the responses of immigrants to xenophobia, research treats them as passive victims. Through resistance and attempts to fight back against the perpetrators of xenophobic violence in recent years, we know that is not the case. Migrants and migrant communities have agency and are active role players in society. Mobilising and responding to xenophobic violence might take different forms including traditional forms such as word of mouth at regular places of gathering and the use of social media. This research not only examines the responses of immigrants to xenophobic violence, but also examines the role social media plays in responding to xenophobic violence.Item Dedates around xenophobia in university spaces through the context of decolonisation and transformation(2017) Murombedzi, Tapuwanashe Kudzai MichelleThe emergence of xenophobic violence is linked directly to the dissemination and development of certain ideas and perceptions. This paper will examine perceptions of xenophobic violence held by university students looking particularly at the University of the Witwatersrand. The research attempts to understand the perceptions and understandings of the university students, and how they conceptualize their individual perceptions in the context of university unrest and university transformation. These perceptions will be discussed and analysed through individual interviews in conjunction with questioners. Questions of perceived identity and the evolution of identity will be tackled in an aim to fully understand these perceptions. This focus on the tertiary institution serves to increase the analysis of xenophobic violence through the analysis of perception and debates. The dominant discourse around xenophobia is often focused on how the xenophobic attacks occurred and what drove the xenophobic attacks. However, there is limited focus on what drives xenophobia and the discourse that emerges in the xenophobic attacks. This paper will provide an analysis of this discourse to develop an understanding of the origins of xenophobic mentalities and the differing perceptions of foreign nationals held by university students.Item Post-traumatic stress and dimensions of exposure to violence: the individual response(1996) Esprey, YvetteAt a primary level the current study sought to investigate the post-traumatic stress responses of a sample of black township residents who were victims and witnesses of continuous civil violence [Abbreviated abstract. Open document to view full version]