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Item Open Access Capital, habitus and symbolic violence in the field of reproductive rights: women and HIV(University of the Free State, 2009) Du Plessis, Gretchen; Bezuidenhout, FransEnglish: Critical ethnographic research methods are used in this article to suggest that the concepts of capital, field, habitus and symbolic violence as conceptualised by Bourdieu offer powerful ways to understand the experiences of HIV-positive women dependent on public health-care facilities in Gauteng, South Africa. It is shown that power relations, yielded by biomedical hegemony, androcentric sociocultural practices, material deprivation, fear, discrimination and stigma demarcate the experiences of women living with HIV, and potentially undermine their abilities to become empowered.Item Open Access Independent and interdependent concepts of self: a meeting of worlds(University of the Free State, 2009) Costandius, ElmarieEnglish: This article argues for a re-evaluation of pedagogical methods to integrate an interdependent concept of self with an independent concept of self in order to enhance teaching and learning. The influence of an African communal or interdependent system in comparison with the dominant independent individual system is investigated by means of interviews with students at the Arts Department. The socialconstructivist learning perspective with the concept of communities of practice as a framework is used for the study. Based on the findings, the article advocates teaching and learning methods that are more multiculturally sensitive and that incorporate “other” voices and alternative ways of dialogue in order to improve interaction and information sharing.Item Open Access Biographical disruption, HIV/AIDS and chronic poverty(University of the Free State, 2009) Chisaka, Janet; Coetzee, JanEnglish: The concept of biographical disruption speaks about refers to the ontological uncertainty and questioning that accompanies the suffering experienced when one is living with a serious or chronic illness. Most studies on biographical disruption have been conducted among Western individuals. The few qualitative illness studies among individuals living in chronic poverty and/or other debilitating social circumstances indicate that such individuals sometimes experience the phenomenon of biographical disruption differently. This is evident in a Grahamstown biographical study on six women living with and affected by AIDS and generational poverty. This finding echoes other empirical studies on women living with HIV/AIDS and chronic poverty in sub-Saharan Africa, India and the USA.Item Open Access The notion of cause in science and politics(University of the Free State, 2009) Faure, MurrayEnglish: This article explores some of the features and implications of causality and how the use of this contested concept may be understood and appraised as it applies to the world of politics and, in more detail, the scientific study thereof. In the teaching and learning of politics serious attention is seldom paid to the nature, implications, uses and limitations of causality as a fundamental ontological category in our quest for understanding and explanation. The article explores the conventional as well as some alternative notions of causality, and concludes with an appraisal of the significance of understanding causality.