From discomfort to collaboration: teachers screening cellphilms in a rural South African school
Abstract
South Africa continues to contend with an HIV pandemic. Teachers have the potential
to address prevention and treatment with their learners but they struggle to
implement HIV and AIDS education. Cellphilm projects—using cellphones to create
videos, and then screening these—is one example of how digital technology can be
used to address barriers to teacher-implemented HIV education. In this article we
focus on the work of nine teachers who screened their cellphilms to three youth
audiences. We explore how teachers can integrate cellphilm screenings into their
teaching practice to address HIV and AIDS, and we consider what this integration tells
us about the potential and challenges of teachers dealing with this issue in rural South
Africa. Informed by a framework of discomfort, we analyse participant observation
notes, fieldnotes, and pre- and post-event interviews. We argue that moments of
discomfort during the events reveal the difficulties and strategies that teachers use to
negotiate multiple—sometimes contradictory—sexual health education policies. The
cellphilm screening events provided an opportunity for teachers and youth to learn
from each other, even as it contributed to a more nuanced response to the teaching
that addresses HIV and AIDS.