Disability, cash transfers and family practices in South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 39 (4) ◽  
pp. 541-559
Author(s):  
Gabrielle Kelly
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Household Composition ◽  
Household Dynamics ◽  
Family Practices ◽  
Care Outcomes ◽  
Disability Grant ◽  
Household Members

Relative to other low and middle-income countries, South Africa provides a generous set of cash transfers (social grants) targeted at people with disabilities. This article explores the influence of disability-related grants on family practices and configurations, care arrangements and household composition in the Western Province of South Africa. The article draws on the findings of two studies: 1) an ethnographic study of disability grant recipients and applicants in a low-income Cape Town community and; 2) a study of interactions between healthcare staff, disability grant applicants and their families. Findings show that disability grant income is shared within households and the contribution of a stable income provides opportunities for people with disabilities to exercise agency, be seen as valuable household members and secure care and support from other household members. However, conflicts may arise over how income is shared and may lead to the extortion, abuse and neglect of people with disabilities, particularly in cases of severe disablement. Given the lack of adequate social provisioning for those who are able-bodied and unemployed, disability also becomes highly valued in households and the potential suspension or cancellation of a grant can interfere with adherence to treatment. The study emphasises the influence of policy structures and economic conditions on household dynamics and care outcomes and contributes to the sparse international evidence-base on the role that disability welfare benefits play in household dynamics and care outcomes.

scholarly journals Disability Grant: a precarious lifeline for HIV/AIDS patients in South Africa

2015 ◽  
Vol 15 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Veloshnee Govender ◽  
Jana Fried ◽  
Stephen Birch ◽  
Natsayi Chimbindi ◽  
Susan Cleary
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Aids Patients ◽  
Disability Grant ◽  
Hiv Aids

Pluralistic Tendencies in Healing Abantu Illness in the Contemporary South Africa

2020 ◽  
pp. 986-1005
Author(s):  
Kholekile Hazel Ngqila
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Traditional Healers ◽  
Causal Link ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
The Body ◽  
Ethnographic Research ◽  
Eastern Cape ◽  
Socially Constructed ◽  
Biomedical Practitioners ◽  
Social Causes

Ukuhanjwa illness was used as an example to understanding abantu illnesses. With attributional theory ukuhanjwa illness is attributed to spiritual and social causes rather than biomedical causes, whereby causal link is socially constructed between ukuhanjwa illness and entry into the body by familiars. Issues explored included conceptualisation of ukuhanjwa illness. The focus of the chapter is on the reasons for continued pluralistic tendencies in healing regardless of the expectation by the West that people should be focusing on the use of the fast evolving biomedical healing methods. The ethnographic study took place among the Southern Nguni people of OR Tambo District Municipality (ORTDM) in the Eastern Cape, South Africa. Data was collected using qualitative and ethnographic research methods amongst a sample group of 50 participants. The sample was composed of traditional healers, mothers of children who have experienced ukuhanjwa illness, elderly people (male and female), biomedical practitioners and nurses.

scholarly journals People with disabilities and income-related social protection measures in South Africa: Where is the gap?

2017 ◽  
Vol 6 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jill Hanass-Hancock ◽  
Tamlyn C. McKenzie
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Social Protection ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Household Survey ◽  
Severe Disabilities ◽  
Protection Measures ◽  
Increased Risk ◽  
Protection Mechanisms ◽  
Social Grants ◽  
Out Of Pocket Costs

Background: People with disabilities are at increased risk of poverty, particularly in low-and middle-income countries. However, recent evidence suggests that this association is more nuanced than previously anticipated and that we need better data to understand the opportunity and out-of-pocket costs that diverse groups of people with disabilities may experience.Objective: This paper discusses if disability is associated with opportunity cost and loss of income both on the individual and household level in South Africa, and if these costs differ depending on disability type and severity.Methods: For this purpose, the paper analyses General Household Survey 2011 data (people between 15 and 59) using descriptive statistics disaggregated via disability type and severity. The paper also assesses if social grants counteract these costs and reduce economic vulnerability.Results: The analysis of the data reveals that people with disabilities are affected by issues relating to multidimensional poverty such as lower educational attainment and fewer employment opportunities. In addition, households of people with disabilities (with the exception of milder visual problems) earn significantly less than households without people with disabilities, and this particularly applies to households with people with severe disabilities. This vulnerability also varies by disability type. The country’s social protection mechanisms, in terms of social grants, counteract economic vulnerability to some extent but do not consider the nuanced economic impact of diverse conditions nor the increased out-of-pocket costs related to disability.Conclusions: This calls for more equitable social protection mechanisms that include accessible services, livelihood programmes and disability benefits.

Implications for Conducting Special Education Research Drawn From the Reflexive Accounts of a Deaf With Disabilities Professor and Three Student Researchers

2020 ◽  
Vol 44 (2) ◽  
pp. 73-87
Author(s):  
Steven Singer ◽  
Kimberly Cacciato ◽  
Julianna Kamenakis ◽  
Allison Shapiro
Keyword(s):  
Special Education ◽  
Education Research ◽  
Teacher Candidates ◽  
Research Team ◽  
People With Disabilities ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Female Teacher ◽  
C Language ◽  
Student Researchers ◽  
Male Professor

AbstractA Deaf with disabilities (DWD) male professor, 2 hearing female teacher candidates, 11 parents (4 of whom were immigrants), and 6 DWD children sought to better understand the experiences of parents of DWD children by conducting an ethnographic study (Singer, Kamenakis, Shapiro, & Cacciato, in press). The research team recorded reflexive journals as a way to analyse their methodology. In this essay, we reflect on 3 themes developed from the reflexive journals: (a) researcher positionality, (b) negotiating power in research, and (c) language variation in practice. We discuss our experiences and contextualise these accounts within relevant scholarship, attempting to locate some amount of resolution to the very human experiences upon which we reflect. We provide key takeaways for doing research with and among people with disabilities in special educational settings, particularly focusing on people who communicate in nonnormative ways. We conclude with a culminating discussion of the significance of creating emancipatory special education research.

scholarly journals Whose fault is failure? Contested perspectives of academic support in tertiary educational institutions in South Africa

2019 ◽  
Vol 14 (3) ◽  
pp. 376-393
Author(s):  
David Jeffery ◽  
David Johnson
Keyword(s):  
Higher Education ◽  
South Africa ◽  
Support Services ◽  
Student Support Services ◽  
Academic Support ◽  
Student Support ◽  
Ethnographic Study ◽  
Educational Institutions ◽  
Unexpected Finding ◽  
Participation In Higher Education

This paper explores the argument that to widen participation in higher education, educational institutions should bear a greater responsibility for students’ learning. Central to this debate is the notion of ‘academic support’. There are many perspectives on what works to scaffold student participation and learning but rarely are the perspectives of those receiving support taken into account. This paper reports the findings of an exploratory ethnographic study in which students in a vocational college in South Africa reflected on the nature of academic support and access to it. Student narratives that underpin their understandings of how the support system ‘worked’, and what responsibilities they and the college respectively bore for their studies, are compared to the official prescript on student support services in South Africa – the so-called ‘Student Support Services Manual’ which was developed by the South African Department of Higher Education and Training (DHET). The data indicate sharp incongruences in thinking. While the student support services manual maintains that students are a product of their disadvantaged contexts and therefore require an institutional form of academic support, students themselves placed much less responsibility for the provision of academic support on the colleges. Instead, they attributed their success or failure to ‘character’ and their own dispositions towards learning. This is an unexpected finding in the context of an often highly charged debate on the factors that constrain learning and learning outcomes. This paper argues that it is this ‘locus of control’ that undermines the idea that student success is dependent on prescription alone.

scholarly journals Is there a rationale for conditional cash transfers for children in South Africa?

2009 ◽  
Vol 70 (1) ◽  
pp. 70-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
Francie Lund ◽  
Michael Noble ◽  
Helen Barnes ◽  
Gemma Wright
Keyword(s):  
South Africa ◽  
Cash Transfers ◽  
Conditional Cash Transfers
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