Using Cellphilms to Understand Vulnerability and Agency in Relation to Gender-Based Violence in Rural South Africa

• In Event: Engaging Young People Through the Arts and Visual Practices to Address Sexual Violence

Abstract

Objectives: In this paper, we explore the use of cellphilms produced by girls to understand sexual violence in rural South Africa. Through a critical analysis of these visual texts, and of post-screening conversations with co-researcher participants about their work, we investigated how participatory visual methodologies can be used to understand adversity, vulnerability and agency in relation to sexual violence and how this nuanced understanding of violence could support our goal to catalyze social and policy change to address sexual violence in this context.
Perspectives and theoretical framework: Increasingly, researchers approach community participants as partners in the research process, who have expert knowledge of the life issues under study and the power to change these issues should they so choose. Our work was framed within the interdisciplinary field of Girlhood Studies, an area of research that is characteristically directly informed by girls and is carried out with girls, for girls and by girls (Greenwood & Levin, 2006; Mitchell & Reid-Walsh, 2008; Kirk et al., 2010). We employed cellphilming as a visual, community-based participatory research method, to reach out to a group of rural South African girls and young women, to learn from their understandings of sexual violence and to work towards sustainable and girl-led social change.
Methods and data sources: We analysed cellphilms and transcripts of the discussions with co-researcher participants from a series of workshops from two neighbouring communities in rural KwaZulu-Natal. The workshops focused on girls’ safety in their communities. Following Fiske (1989), these data were subjected to three layers of analysis, including an analysis of: (1) the primary text, the visual artifact produced by the co-researcher participants; (2) the production text, the co-researcher participants’ views of the primary text; (3) and the audience text, the community and core research team’s views of the primary text. The analysis focused not only on what was said and by whom, but also on what was not said, or the silences in the data.
Findings: Our three-tiered analysis revealed that poverty, cultural norms and practices, and unequal gendered power dynamics work together in complex ways to fuel the vulnerability of girls and young women in relation to sexual violence in this setting. Moreover, these adverse circumstances were found to limit the ability of girls and young women to prevent this violence from occurring and to seek relevant health or justice services when it does. We argue that this nuanced understanding of the workings of sexual violence in these communities is of key relevance to social and policy change to address sexual violence in this setting.
Scholarly significance of study: The process of producing and discussing the cellphilms created a safe space in which girls and young women were able to engage with this sensitive issue and to share their knowledge and understanding of adversity, vulnerability and agency in relation to sexual violence in their communities. This study is a good example of how participatory methods can help to address difficult health and social problems and can support social change.

Authors

• Lisa Wiebesiek, University of KwaZulu-Natal

• Astrid Treffry-Goatley, University of KwaZulu-Natal

• Relebohile Moletsane, University of KwaZulu-Natal