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Adolescents and men are two populations that perform poorly within the HIV cascade of care, having worse AIDS-related health outcomes, and experiencing higher levels of HIV-related stigma. This paper explores institutional health system discrimination as experienced by adolescent boys with perinatally-acquired HIV, situating them within the social and gendered contexts of the Eastern Cape Province, South Africa. Life history narratives (n = 36) and in-depth semi-structured interviews (n = 32) with adolescent boys living with HIV aged 13–22 were conducted in 2017-2018. In-depth semi-structured interviews with biomedical and traditional health practitioners (n = 14), analysis of health facility files (n = 41) and clinic observations were also conducted. Together, triangulated sources point to an incongruence between the complex needs of adoelscent boys and young men living with HIV and their experiences within the health system. Two institutional discrimination-related deterrents to retention in care were identified: (1) lack of confidentiality due to health facility layouts and practices that visibilised people living with HIV; and (2) mistreatment in the form of shouting. This article contributes to the limited literature on the experiences of young men within the HIV continuum of care, focusing on how stigma influences how young men experience and engage with the health sector. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper explores how HIV-positive abakhwetha (young male initiates) undergoing ulwaluko (traditional Xhosa initiation and circumcision) engage with HIV-related biomedical care and treatment. Health-focused life history narratives (n = 36), semi-structured interviews (n = 32) and analysis of health facility files (n = 41) with adolescent boys and young men (ages 13–24) living with HIV, and semi-structured interviews with traditional and biomedical health practitioners (n = 14) were conducted in 2017 and 2018. This research was part of the Mzantsi Wakho study, a longitudinal, mixed methods study of adolescents living with HIV (n = 1060). Findings demonstrate that ulwaluko rules of not engaging with biomedical care and treatment pose a challenge for initiates who are taking chronic medicine. Fears of inadvertent disclosure of their HIV-positive status collide with the pressure to successfully complete ulwaluko in order to be legitimised as men. In response to this dilemma, they engage a variety of strategies – including taking medicine in secret by hiding them, having a trusted person deliver them discretely, and stopping medicine-taking altogether. The three months following ulwaluko also pose a challenge in accessing biomedical treatment and care. In this time of high surveillance, amakrwala (new men) do not present at health facilities for fear of being thought to have had a botched circumcision or to have contravened 'manhood rules' and left ulwaluko before having healed properly. To get around this, those who continued taking medicine engaged caregiver pick-ups. Beyond suggesting that ulwaluko is a high-risk time for disengagement from biomedical treatment and care, this paper builds on a robust scholarship on the importance of locality and context in gender and health research. It documents the creativity, agency and resilience of initiates and their families as they subvert and re-signify health-related masculine norms. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Policy processes in contemporary South Africa draw attention to a phenomenon that is both common in policymaking and under-theorised in the anthropology of policy: the tendency for policy to be made both through legislative and administrative fora, and through litigation and the threat of litigation, often concurrently. Given South Africa's robust legal frameworks mandating public participation in policymaking, there is an unexpectedly productive dialectical relationship between administrative and legal processes, where failures of participation create openings for court challenges that may limit the scope for top-down policymaking. These legal actions likewise reflect responses to the country's apartheid history: they rely upon legal oppositional strategies developed to challenge the apartheid state, often by the same actors and organisations, and they rely upon legal institutions that have been deliberately structured to prevent past injustices from being repeated. This paper illustrates these points with two cases from South Africa: first, a local policy implementation process concerned with the issuing of permits for subsistence fishing in the Dwesa-Cwebe Marine Protected Area (MPA) in the Eastern Cape and, second, a national process concerned with the re-opening of claims under South Africa's land restitution programme. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper explores the mediating effect of workplace social support on the relationship between organizational citizenship behaviour and employee mental health amongst public service employees in South Africa. A survey approach was utilized amongst a sample of 289 conveniently selected public service employees in the Eastern Cape Province of South Africa. The results confirm that a direct relationship exists between organizational citizenship behaviour and employee mental health. Further, the association is made significant only through the mediation effect of workplace social support. The study focuses on the importance of intra-organizational behaviours such as organizational citizenship in promoting employee mental health aspects. Such a focus becomes essential, especially when the South African public service is noted to be in a state of flux and often affects employee work behaviours, including their health. The findings heighten focus on the importance of developing behaviours such as those that promote organizational citizenship coupled with efforts related to workplace social support. In essence, by serving others within the workplace and the entire organization, employees contribute to their mental health. The findings are a valuable precursor to interventions that assist not only the organization but also employees. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During a xenophobia and social cohesion research project conducted by the Safety and Violence Initiative (SaVI) of the University of Cape Town (UCT) and Freedom House USA, researchers found an overwhelming perception that foreign nationals were taking things that belong to South Africans. This perception was most prevalent in the male population, and antiforeigner resentment was mainly aimed toward male foreign nationals. This paper uses ethnographic research in the form of qualitative interviews from Motherwell and Makhanda in the Eastern Cape province to find out how constructions of hegemonic masculinities at the local level contribute to antiforeigner resentment. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]