Search

During South Africa's apartheid era, the social and political ideology of Afrikaner nationalism Othered those who disrupted an idealised vision of white heteronormative Afrikaner masculinity. While protections from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation were enshrined in the post-apartheid constitution in 1996, anti-LGBTQ violence remains a reality. It is common for young LGBTQ individuals to exercise the personal freedoms associated with leaving home to attend university to express their sexual orientations and/or gender identities more readily. This paper applies interpretive phenomenology to interview data with members of the LGBTQ student community at a rural university town in an overwhelmingly white Afrikaans region. It explores the complex and ill-defined relationships between LGBTQ student experiences, local heteronormative values, and shifting institutional identities in an era of social transformation.

The recent South African student movements calling for 'decolonized' university curricula and campuses are the most audible and visible symptoms of the failure to transform the country's higher education system since the democratic dispensation of the early 1990s. Specifically focusing on the role of music scholarship, practice, and departments within South Africa's higher education institutions, this paper discusses the implementation of socially aware and critically engaged music research in a historically white university. It does so through the lens of a new institute for music practice and research that is committed to challenging the prevailing Eurocentric cultural hierarchy within its host institution, encourages meaningful interaction with the South African arts, and is informed by decolonial thought. The author writes from the perspective of a researcher who has been intimately involved in the direction and governance of the newly opened institute, and has witnessed the various institutional frustrations and barriers that have obstructed the institute's progress. The paper concludes that the transformation of embedded institutional cultures of exclusion depends on transforming institutional structures in which academic disciplines are practiced. Research institutes could be pivotal in effecting such change.

Despite the often-crucial roles played by music within theatre-based public health promotion strategies, theoretical explorations regarding music within applied theatre literatures remain largely underdeveloped. This article highlights musicking – a reconceptualization of music from an object to a participatory act that can profoundly influence relationships and spaces – as an approach to understanding the various roles that music can play within applied theatre programmes. The article draws from ethnographic accounts of an HIV/AIDS applied theatre group in South Africa to advocate for increased recognition of musicking as a robust theoretical and methodological component within applied theatre praxis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In 2005, an applied theatre community outreach programme was launched to address low levels of HIV/AIDS awareness among farm workers in the Cape Winelands of South Africa. In cooperation with HIV testing organizations, the Lucky , the Hero mini-musical promoted regular HIV testing, condom use and acceptance of people living with HIV until being retired in 2017. Applying principles of the health belief model to interview data collected in 2015 from former Lucky, the Hero participants, this paper examines the effectiveness of the theatre production to achieve the behavioural outcomes of (i) encouraging regular HIV testing and ongoing awareness of HIV serostatus, and (ii) reducing AIDS-related social stigma. The findings suggest that the interventions were successful in persuading participants to know their HIV status immediately following the shows, as well as potentially contributing to a reduction of community-based external social stigma. However, the interventions were unable to maintain engagement with these behavioural outcomes in the years following the performances, resulting in low adherence to regular HIV testing and inconsistent condom use. Additionally, ongoing social and structural barriers to regular HIV testing and the potential for self-imposed HIV-related stigma were highlighted during the discussions. While applied theatre can be an effective avenue for HIV awareness and prevention, the paper demonstrates the importance of creating and maintaining strong community networks to support continued engagement with health-related behavioural outcomes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Early in South Africa's HIV/AIDS crisis, entertainment education emerged as a powerful vehicle for communicating health and social messaging to combat the epidemic. Applied theatre now accounts for the majority of arts-based HIV interventions in sub-Saharan Africa, and continues a history of theatre for social change in South Africa in particular. While much has been written about the dramaturgical and communication theories that support such interventions, the role of music, a formidable tool in the applied theatre intervention arsenal, has received considerably less attention within applied arts intervention scholarship. This paper draws from Durkheim's collective effervescence to propose a theoretical approach to music within the creation and maintenance of effervescent assemblies that is being employed by HIV/AIDS interventions to encourage participation in HIV testing. The theoretical model of musical effervescence is situated within ethnographic fieldwork conducted while accompanying an applied HIV/AIDS theatre company on a national tour of South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

During South Africa's apartheid era, the social and political ideology of Afrikaner nationalism Othered those who disrupted an idealised vision of white heteronormative Afrikaner masculinity. While protections from discrimination on the basis of sexual orientation were enshrined in the post-apartheid constitution in 1996, anti-LGBTQ violence remains a reality. It is common for young LGBTQ individuals to exercise the personal freedoms associated with leaving home to attend university to express their sexual orientations and/or gender identities more readily. This paper applies interpretive phenomenology to interview data with members of the LGBTQ student community at a rural university town in an overwhelmingly white Afrikaans region. It explores the complex and ill-defined relationships between LGBTQ student experiences, local heteronormative values, and shifting institutional identities in an era of social transformation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa recorded and estimated 230,000 new infections in 2020, and low levels of AIDS risk awareness remain prevalent among the nation's youth. While public health awareness initiatives continue to be necessary, the large quantity of AIDS-related content that has permeated the media landscape since the start of the epidemic has resulted in increasing indifference to health messaging. Drawing from the concept of referent emotional responses, this article analyzes the reception of "Sing," an HIV/AIDS awareness music video characterized by emotive visual representations of AIDS. The data highlight ongoing fatigue towards HIV/AIDS messaging and the potential of highly emotive media to engage target audiences in a climate of indifference to AIDS awareness. The article recommends that future awareness and prevention campaigns consider the role of emotive content in effective AIDS-related health promotion in South Africa. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

South Africa has the highest number of HIV infections in the world, with more than five million people receiving anti-retroviral (ARV) therapies (UNAIDS 2019). However, during the early stages of the epidemic, there was no provision for ARVs through the state-run public health system, effectively limiting access to life-saving drugs. In response, the AIDS activist group the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC) and their HIV positive choir, The Generics, were established to mobilise South African civil society towards pressuring the government into deploying a national ARV programme. This article analyses and compares three culturally significant songs that were appropriated by The Generics. The analyses are socially and historically contextualised by interview data with current and former TAC members. The article suggests that songs facilitated collective mourning and psychosocial healing at a time when HIV treatments were largely unavailable. They further provided a catalyst for mobilisation that was steeped in the recent history of racial oppression against a virus that affected a disproportionate number of black South Africans. By appropriating struggle songs for their cause, The Generics tapped into emotional reservoirs of resistance culture to propel their agenda of government accountability and access to HIV medication. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The recent South African student movements calling for 'decolonized' university curricula and campuses are the most audible and visible symptoms of the failure to transform the country's higher education system since the democratic dispensation of the early 1990s. Specifically focusing on the role of music scholarship, practice, and departments within South Africa's higher education institutions, this paper discusses the implementation of socially aware and critically engaged music research in a historically white university. It does so through the lens of a new institute for music practice and research that is committed to challenging the prevailing Eurocentric cultural hierarchy within its host institution, encourages meaningful interaction with the South African arts, and is informed by decolonial thought. The author writes from the perspective of a researcher who has been intimately involved in the direction and governance of the newly opened institute, and has witnessed the various institutional frustrations and barriers that have obstructed the institute's progress. The paper concludes that the transformation of embedded institutional cultures of exclusion depends on transforming institutional structures in which academic disciplines are practiced. Research institutes could be pivotal in effecting such change. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

With 3 million people receiving anti-retroviral therapies (ARV) in South Africa, it has the largest public ARV programme in the world. The implementation of this programme was made possible by the efforts of AIDS advocacy groups that lobbied the government to make ARV available. Chief among these was the Treatment Action Campaign (TAC). The group mobilised South Africans across socio-economic and racial lines against the AIDS denial of key members of the African National Congress (ANC). Through interviews with TAC members and ethnographic accounts of ©current activism, this paper examines song as a method of mobilisation against HIV/AIDS-related injustices. As instrumental components of the liberation struggle, songs have become ubiqioutus within protest action, as demonstrated by the recent hashtag student movements. By utilising similar forms of rights-based activism found in the country's liberation struggle, TAC is able to tap into reservoirs of emotional potential rooted in political struggle. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]