Helenard Louw
Biographic Data
| ID | 259774 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Helenard Louw |
| GIVEN NAMES | Helenard |
| FAMILY NAME | Louw |
| SIGNATURE | LOUW H |
| AFFILIATIONS | Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam |
| ORCID | 0000-0002-3334-3806 |
| VERIFIED | Yes |
| TOTAL WORKS | 7 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 1 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 7 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2021 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2026 |
| H-INDEX | 1 |
“We are still men: ” A Study on Communities of Practice(s) (Re)producing Gender and Disability Norms
Men with spinal cord injuries (SCIs) often experience tensions pertaining to enactments of hegemonic masculinity. This paper examines the impact of gender and ableist norms on a few “coloured” men with SCIs in peri-urban areas of Cape Town, South Africa. Through a “community of practice” framework and adopting a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, specifically photo-voice, the findings reveal tensions between sustaining hegemonic ideals…
Conversations through the rear-view mirror: Uber drivers’ narratives on the precarity of work, ‘belonging’, and violence
There has been a rapid increase in crimes against e-hailing drivers in South Africa (SA) since the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. This study explores the narratives about interpersonal violence among black and migrant Uber drivers who navigate through peri-urban neighborhoods in Cape Town, SA. Their narratives unearth the cultural and socio-geographic understandings of violence within increasingly impoverished, violent, and marginalized area…
Morphing masculinity: A Photo-Voice Study Addressing Interpersonal Violence and Resilience by Wounded Bodies
This research paper encapsulates photo-stories created by men who hail from poor and marginalized communities on the periphery of Cape Town, South Africa. These men, who self-identify as coloured gangsters and former gangsters, embody a form of hegemonic masculinity characterized by strength, violence, resilience, and pluck. They sustained permanent spinal cord injuries (SCIs) through gang-related violence. As a means of resisting violence in the…
Sitting Through Discomfort: Reflexivity on Research With Dangerous Men in Danger Zones
This work draws on the methodological complexities of listening to, and holding space, for 32 coloured men who self-identify as gangsters and who subsequently sustained a permanent spinal cord injury (SCI) as a result of violence. The men all reside in peri-urban neighbourhoods in Cape Town, South Africa (SA). Life story interviews focused on their journeys of becoming violent men, and the meanings they attached to constructions of masculinities,…
Every slap demeans me’: At the intersection of disability, masculinity and intimate partner violence in the Global South
The experiences of heterosexual men with paraplegia who are the victims of intimate partner violence remains an under-researched area. This article responds to the call for more research and offers an analysis of the narratives of five working-class coloured men in Cape Town, South Africa, who acquired spinal cord injuries and then fell victim to intimate partner violence. Narrative interviews were conducted with men and their wives. Drawing on T…
Reframing masculinity and fatherhood: Narratives on faith-based values in (re)shaping ‘coloured’ fathers
Stereotypes of ‘coloured’ men from marginalised communities in the Western Cape, South Africa, portray these men as violent, lazy, alcoholics, domestic and substance abusers and absent in the lives of their children. Although extensive research has been conducted on fathers and fatherhood, there is still a lack of positive constructions and representations of fatherhood. In narrative interviews with 11 fathers who reside in the Cape Flats, faith-…
Half a man? Still a human’: Photo-stories to dismantle unsettling representations and re-define the self-identities of men living with paraplagia
Disability in anglophone media, film and culture is often depicted in ways that rarely recognise people with disabilities as whole human beings. This creates deficit perceptions on what it means to live with a disability. Through the use of photo-voice, fifteen working-class coloured men living with paraplegia in the townships of Cape Town - South Africa, created photo-stories depicting the ways in which they think main-stream society sees them a…
Morphing masculinity: A Photo-Voice Study Addressing Interpersonal Violence and Resilience by Wounded Bodies
This research paper encapsulates photo-stories created by men who hail from poor and marginalized communities on the periphery of Cape Town, South Africa. These men, who self-identify as coloured gangsters and former gangsters, embody a form of hegemonic masculinity characterized by strength, violence, resilience, and pluck. They sustained permanent spinal cord injuries (SCIs) through gang-related violence. As a means of resisting violence in the…
Half a man? Still a human’: Photo-stories to dismantle unsettling representations and re-define the self-identities of men living with paraplagia
Disability in anglophone media, film and culture is often depicted in ways that rarely recognise people with disabilities as whole human beings. This creates deficit perceptions on what it means to live with a disability. Through the use of photo-voice, fifteen working-class coloured men living with paraplegia in the townships of Cape Town - South Africa, created photo-stories depicting the ways in which they think main-stream society sees them a…
Reframing masculinity and fatherhood: Narratives on faith-based values in (re)shaping ‘coloured’ fathers
Stereotypes of ‘coloured’ men from marginalised communities in the Western Cape, South Africa, portray these men as violent, lazy, alcoholics, domestic and substance abusers and absent in the lives of their children. Although extensive research has been conducted on fathers and fatherhood, there is still a lack of positive constructions and representations of fatherhood. In narrative interviews with 11 fathers who reside in the Cape Flats, faith-…
Every slap demeans me’: At the intersection of disability, masculinity and intimate partner violence in the Global South
The experiences of heterosexual men with paraplegia who are the victims of intimate partner violence remains an under-researched area. This article responds to the call for more research and offers an analysis of the narratives of five working-class coloured men in Cape Town, South Africa, who acquired spinal cord injuries and then fell victim to intimate partner violence. Narrative interviews were conducted with men and their wives. Drawing on T…
Conversations through the rear-view mirror: Uber drivers’ narratives on the precarity of work, ‘belonging’, and violence
There has been a rapid increase in crimes against e-hailing drivers in South Africa (SA) since the coronavirus pandemic in March 2020. This study explores the narratives about interpersonal violence among black and migrant Uber drivers who navigate through peri-urban neighborhoods in Cape Town, SA. Their narratives unearth the cultural and socio-geographic understandings of violence within increasingly impoverished, violent, and marginalized area…
Morphing masculinity: A Photo-Voice Study Addressing Interpersonal Violence and Resilience by Wounded Bodies
This research paper encapsulates photo-stories created by men who hail from poor and marginalized communities on the periphery of Cape Town, South Africa. These men, who self-identify as coloured gangsters and former gangsters, embody a form of hegemonic masculinity characterized by strength, violence, resilience, and pluck. They sustained permanent spinal cord injuries (SCIs) through gang-related violence. As a means of resisting violence in the…
Sitting Through Discomfort: Reflexivity on Research With Dangerous Men in Danger Zones
This work draws on the methodological complexities of listening to, and holding space, for 32 coloured men who self-identify as gangsters and who subsequently sustained a permanent spinal cord injury (SCI) as a result of violence. The men all reside in peri-urban neighbourhoods in Cape Town, South Africa (SA). Life story interviews focused on their journeys of becoming violent men, and the meanings they attached to constructions of masculinities,…
“We are still men: ” A Study on Communities of Practice(s) (Re)producing Gender and Disability Norms
Men with spinal cord injuries (SCIs) often experience tensions pertaining to enactments of hegemonic masculinity. This paper examines the impact of gender and ableist norms on a few “coloured” men with SCIs in peri-urban areas of Cape Town, South Africa. Through a “community of practice” framework and adopting a Participatory Action Research (PAR) approach, specifically photo-voice, the findings reveal tensions between sustaining hegemonic ideals…
Sociology (6 works) · Gender Studies (5 works) · Psychology (5 works) · Narrative (4 works) · Art (3 works) · Disability Rights and Representation (3 works) · Masculinity (3 works) · Medicine (3 works) · Social Psychology (3 works) · Aesthetics (2 works)