Researching Gender-Based Violence in South Africa in the 21st Century

This essay will combine several insights from the course Researching Africa in the 21^st Century with preliminary ideas I have about my own research and fieldwork in South Africa, where I will be dealing with the topic of gender-based violence. Firstly, I will write about gender-based violence within the framework of crisis-thinking and consider the advantages and disadvantages of naming gender-based violence a crisis. Secondly, I will explore how I can use theories of agency in my research of gender-based violence in South Africa, for instance by examining the way South African women enact their agency within existing power structures. Lastly, I will reflect on my own positionality as a student from the west coming into an African country to do research. In this discussion, I will use theoretical insights from class about hierarchies of knowledge production to evaluate what it means to study (South) Africa while attempting not to participate in a form of epistemic neo-colonialism. I will conclude this essay by connecting my analyses to establish an informed perspective on my upcoming research.

Crisis thinking

The literature and class discussions have inspired me to consider the effect of crisis-thinking when applied to gender-based violence in South Africa. The president himself, Cyril Ramaphosa, has even said that South Africa is in a ‘’national crisis of violence against women’’ (Francke 2019). Claiming that something is a crisis has advantages and disadvantages.

An advantage of considering gender-based violence a crisis, is that it is a way to force people not to look the other way and to emphasise the importance of combating gender-based violence. In the case of South Africa, gender-based violence is an example of an issue that has been around for a long time. Since it has been a problem for a long period of time without sufficient improvement, it seems as if calling it a crisis is the only strategy left to demand change. And it is with results: Ramaphosa has incited changes in legislation. He emphasised the urgency of the problem by calling it a crisis and he showed that he takes it seriously. Ramaphosa promised laws would be re-evaluated immediately and publicising the register of gender-based violence offenders would be considered (Francke 2019). Sure enough, three amendments were made to legislation in 2021 that worked to combat gender-based violence, namely the Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 13, the Criminal and Related Matters Amendment Act 12, and the Domestic Violence Amendment Act 14.

As we discussed in class, a disadvantage of crisis-thinking could be that it causes inadequate action to be taken. Urgency would then be prioritised over solutions that are well thought out, and thus long-term solutions are disregarded in favour of acting now. In the case of gender-based violence in South Africa, however, I would argue that both short-term and long-term action needs to be taken. Short-term solutions would for example be opening more shelters for survivors of gender-based violence, or providing mental health sessions for them. These short-term solutions are focused on working on symptoms of the problem; they are forms of aftercare. In my perspective, this needs to be combined with long-term solutions that go back to the root of the problem. These long-term solutions could for instance be changing legislation, but also inciting a paradigm shift within South African society to de-normalise gender-based violence. Normally, one would say that crisis-thinking does not allow focus on long-term solutions. In the case of gender-based violence in South Africa, however, I think that this problem can benefit from crisis-thinking. When South Africans keep considering gender-based violence a crisis, then perhaps more and more people will realise the intensity of the problem and institutions can work together to counter it. In this way, crisis-thinking sets the tone for conversations that follow – whether among policy makers or even simply within public discourse.

Still, we should be careful when we call gender-based violence in South Africa a crisis. As we have read, with crisis-thinking we run the risk of not sufficiently considering ‘’the complex historical processes’’ of certain problems (Giles-Vernick 2022: 1). Whereas Giles-Vernick was writing about pandemics of diseases, we can apply her writing to gender-based violence in this case as well. Violence against women is a specific issue that stems from complicated socio-cultural processes which need to be considered when thinking of solutions for it. It is therefore crucial to allow time and space for the insight that ‘’these problems are not new’’ (Giles-Vernick 2022: 1), so that proper assessment of the development of gender-based violence is done and is acted upon accordingly.

Agency

Another concept that is crucial for me to centralise when studying gender-based violence in South Africa, is agency. When looking at agency, the question arises how people navigate their agency within situations of duress. Gender-based violence is an example of a situation of duress that has become a lasting problem. One of the things that makes gender-based violence such a lasting problem, is the fact that it is something that is continued over generations due to intergenerational trauma. It is a recurring issue because those who have experienced violence in their childhood are more likely to end up committing (gender-based) violence at a later age (CSVR 2016: 11). This can be linked to the notion of ‘’layers of hardship’’, where recurring crises stack on top of one another and a society becomes shaped a certain way because of it (De Bruijn & Both 2018: 189). In South Africa, one could say that the ongoing occurrence of high statistics of gender-based violence has created a normalisation of this type of violence because people have accepted it as a fact. This leads me to consider, for my own research, ‘’to see crisis itself as context instead of placing crisis in a context’’ (Vigh in De Bruijn & Both 2018: 190). In other words, I would view gender-based violence as a violence that has for a long time been a part of South Africa’s everyday reality, and thus requires an understanding from me as a researcher that it is more than solely a crime to be eradicated.

Within the agency phenomenon, I examine ‘’the capacity of Africans (…) to deflect what appears to be their structural fate’’ (Lonsdale 2000: 5). In this case, that structural fate would be a continuation of high numbers of gender-based violence that is apparently inescapable. When discussing agency, then, I would argue that it is important to analyse the extent to which South African women can perform their agency within a pre-existing patriarchal power structure. These gendered power dynamics are an integral part of South African society’s structure, making it more difficult for women to speak out and make a change. Looking at this so-called structure-agency relationship can give insights into how women manage to advocate for themselves within a structure that seems to disable them to do so. However, I prefer to emphasise the ways in which South African women do manage to be resilient and create better situations for themselves when it comes to gender-based violence. In other words, I will be approaching the topic from this positive perspective to place attention on what South African women are capable of in the fight against gender-based violence and lay focus on how they ‘’strive to maintain human dignity in the face of overwhelming odds.’’ (Chabal 2009: 16). In this way, I aim to find out during my research what strategies of agency these women use to fight for their safety. Perhaps this fight takes place on a small-scale level, keeping the existing structures intact; perhaps their active participation in combating gender-based violence equals slowly breaking down these violent structures.

Hierarchies of knowledge

As we have learned during this course, within the field of African Studies there are ‘’competing methods for teaching and researching Africa’’ that complicate the way we approach studying Africa (De Ycaza 2015: 63). Furthermore, historically the field has developed in a way that can be seen as a form of academic imperialism, where researchers that are often from the west come into the continent to study this ‘other’ culture (De Ycaza 2015: 69). There has been this tendency to be ‘’Afro-pessimist’’, where the African continent is seen as a backwards place that is riddled with problems, leading to a neo-colonial sense of white superiority where researchers from the west need to swoop in and save Africa from its downfall (De Ycaza 2015: 69). Within this phenomenon, there is a reproduction of certain hierarchies that have come into place during colonial times. It is then a highly harmful notion to continue this mindset into the academic world of today, since seeing western knowledge as more valuable than African knowledge makes for a new form of colonialism. It is thus essential for me to grapple with this idea of studying Africa as a form of neo-colonialism, as I want to avoid falling into the trap of reifying certain hierarchies of knowledge. To do this, I plan to read (South) African literature on gender-based violence that allows me to respect the work that has already been done to combat gender-based violence. I find it important that my research inherently contributes to so-called ‘’epistemic decolonisation’’ (Grosz-Ngaté 2020: 691), and therefore I need to be aware of my own positionality as a researcher.

Another reason for the importance of setting aside my western conceptions of knowledge in favour of listening to and applying (South) African insights, is that it allows me to research in an endemic way. Learning about and using endemic approaches to gender-based violence that were produced in Africa and by Africans (in my case preferably in South Africa and by South Africans), is a way to take into account the specific context in which this specific type of violence has emerged and continues today. I think that understanding the socio-cultural and historical context of gender-based violence in South Africa is the main road towards lowering the numbers, as I believe that the solution lies in the roots of the problem. Then, to find the solution one has to know the roots. Still, it can be useful to combine western knowledge on gender-based violence with context-specific African knowledge to work together towards a solution. However, this must be done in way where both types of knowledge are equally incorporated – perhaps, even, the scale must in this case be balanced in favour of African knowledge.

Conclusion

In this essay, I have related several topics from the course Researching Africa in the 21st Century to my upcoming research on gender-based violence in South Africa. Firstly, I have contemplated the advantages and disadvantages of calling gender-based violence a crisis. I have found that at first sight, it might not seem ideal as you run the risk of focusing on short-term solutions rather than considering the effects in the long run. When taking a closer look, however, I consider that framing gender-based violence as a crisis in this case is a helpful strategy as a substantial obstacle in the fight against gender-based violence is the lack of attention and prioritisation of it. Furthermore, I have applied theories surrounding the structure-agency dialectic to my research on gender-based violence. In doing so, I have drawn parallels to South African women’s agency and the extent to which they enact this within existing power structures. Lastly, I have put my research into perspective within the notion of hierarchies of knowledge that exist between the western and African (academic) world. Most importantly, the goal for me will be to work with South African knowledge that is context-specific while also incorporating that which I have learnt in the western academic world. Overall, the theoretical insights that I have gained during this course combine into an informed perspective on my role as a researcher of Africa in the 21st century.

Word count: 1974

Literature

The Criminal Law (Sexual Offences and Related Matters) Amendment Act 13, accessed through justice.gov.za.

The Criminal and Related Matters Amendment Act 12, accessed through justice.gov.za.

The Domestic Violence Amendment Act 14, accessed through justice.gov.za.

Chabal, P.

2009  Africa: The Politics of Suffering and Smiling. ZED BOOKS.

CSVR (Centre for the Study of Violence and Reconciliation)

2016  Gender-Based Violence (GBV) in South Africa: A Brief Review.

Francke, R.

2019  South Africa in a crisis of violence against women, says president. Via The Guardian.

Giles-Vernick, T.

2022     Postscript: A pandemic read on African health and environmental histories. Health & Place: 1-2.

Grosz-Ngaté, M.

2020     Knowledge and Power: Perspectives on the Production and Decolonization of African/ist Knowledge. African Studies Review 63(4): 689-718.

Lonsdale, J.

2000     Agency in Tight Corners: Narrative and Initiative in African History. Journal of African Cultural Studies 13(1): 5-16.

De Ycaza, C.

2015     Competing Methods for Teaching and Researching Africa: Interdisciplinarity and the Field of African Studies. Ufahamu: A Journal of African Studies 38(3).

Image source: www.thedaialogue.com