Faculty of Humanities (ETDs)
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Item Breaking the Chains of Intergenerational Childhood Poverty: A Narrative Retrospective Study of Resilience(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2024) Wong , Caitlyn; Jithoo, Vinitha; Besharati, SahbaThe experience of poverty is well-documented, however, there is a notable gap in the existing research concerning the unique narratives of university students who have undergone experiences of poverty during childhood. These students have been successful in gaining admission into university despite facing major financial hardships stemming from their experiences of intergenerational childhood poverty. These university students identified with having experiences of childhood poverty as well as resilience, thus becoming an important and under-researched sample. This qualitative study aims to explore these students’ narratives of childhood impoverishment, with an emphasis on the identification and understanding of resilience within these experiences. This topic was investigated through the utilisation of the resilience theoretical framework. The study employed a Narrative Analysis (NA) to assess the experiential and retrospective narrative accounts of emerging adults within the university student demographic using semi-structured interviews. Three overarching themes were identified: (1) narratives within the living environment; (2) the nexus of poverty, education, and opportunity; and (3) participants’ constructions of resilience. The results illustrated that the narrative experience of childhood poverty contained great levels of experienced difficulties within the home and schooling environment, and with emotional implications of poverty resulting in difficulties with coping and social exclusion. However among this plethora of hardship, participants constructions of resilience related to motivation, strength, acceptance, adaptation, and rewriting the narrative towards positive meaning-making. Therefore this study provided further subjective insight into the topic of poverty and resilience by way of presenting the data as experienced by the research participants, as well as having made recommendations for future research.Item Socio-technical factors impacting youth perspectives on digital transformation in resource-constrained environments: A study of Diepsloot youth(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2023-06) Matanda, Lorraine; Ochara, Nixon Muganda; Abrahams, LucienneThere has been a proliferation of tech hubs in Africa, with more than 80 in South Africa, forming a foundation for more inclusive digital innovation. However, we do not sufficiently understand the relationships between tech hubs, digital inclusiveness and poverty. This study explores the sociotechnical factors influencing access and use of the Internet to achieve social inclusion in resource-constrained environments. The literature reviewed focused on social influences on digital adoption, tech hub infrastructure, digital skills, and trends in Information Communication Technologies (ICT) policies. The study’s findings are categorised into themes using the sociotechnical systems (STS) theoretical framework. Each of the seven STS theoretical components (goals, culture, people, processes, infrastructure, technology and environment) were used as a lens to explore the social and technical factors that influence the perspectives of the youth on digital transformation. These themes were then mapped to the four dimensions of the research questions (social influence of digital adoption, institutional infrastructure for access, digital skills, and ICT policies for digital enablement) to highlight key findings and interpretations of the study. Under social influences, the youth demonstrated resilience driven by a need to improve their standard of living in a challenging environment. The institutional infrastructure, designed to support youth to access digital technologies, is constrained by a lack of resources. Tech hubs are using creative ways with the limited resources to cater to all their patrons, although there is room for improvement. In terms of digital skills, four youth profiles are highlighted to demonstrate a solid existence of digital skills and pursuit of tangible outcomes among the youth. In addition, the youth want to pursue entrepreneurship, meaning that tech hubs can potentially become mass training centres for digital entrepreneurship. Finally, a review of ICT policies revealed a chasm between the ICT policy objectives and activities on the ground, pointing to a lack of implementation and monitoring of ICT policies. Acting as a platform for digital foundations, tech hubs in marginalised environments must engage policymakers and reinforce their role in digital empowerment to influence policy development. This research is located in the qualitative interpretivist paradigm. A total of 21 in-depth interviews were conducted with 18 youth, with an equal representation of male and female, and three tech hub managers. Based on the researcher's analysis, access to the Internet offers the resilient youth a view into "a new world" that make them feel they can achieve anything they want. The high literacy level among the youth puts them in good stead for digital upskilling, and they are motivated to participate in the digital economy. However, ICT policy objectives concerning universal access look good on paper, but in reality, poor people are still offline. They are still excluded.Item The role of the Community Work Programme (CWP) in poverty alleviation: a case of Naledi Local Municipality in Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District, North West Province(University of the Witwatersrand, Johannesburg, 2022) Mongale, OntiretseSouth Africa is of a typical example of countries which adopted development welfare services. Social development approach has been practiced since 1994 in South Africa. Evidently development policies, projects and programmes illustrate such. The Community Work Programme (CWP) was adopted in 2009 to contribute towards poverty alleviation in South Africa. CWP is a Public Employment Programme (PEP) led by government which provide regular employment and social protection to people vulnerable to poverty. Therefore, this study aimed to explore contributions of CWP in poverty alleviation in Naledi Local Municipality (NLM) in Dr Ruth Segomotsi Mompati District, North West Province. The research approach was qualitative in nature, and an instrumental case study design was applied. This research is rooted in interpretivism paradigm hence purposive sampling technique was used to select participants who could provide in-depth examination of the topic. The sample consisted of twenty research participants. These include thirteen CWP participants, four field supervisors and three participants from the office staff and implementing agent. Three different semi-structured interview guides were used to collect data. Data was collected through in-depth face to face interviews to collect data from CWP participants and field supervisor while visual platform called Zoom was used to collect data from office staff members. Covid19 protocols were adhered to during face to face interviews with respondents. Thematic analysis was used to analyse data. The main conclusion derived from the study is that the CWP provides sufficient benefits to its participants and community of NLM that accelerate government efforts to alleviate poverty and reduce unemployment. The study also established that the CWP has the potential to improve provision of basic social needs and skills required to enter in the job market only if multiple stakeholder partnerships and collaborations are enhanced. The study concludes with an optimistic view that social protection directly reduces the effect of unemployment across South Africa.