Did young women in South African informal settlements display increased agency after participating in the Stepping Stones and Creating Futures intervention? A qualitative evaluation
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 4594964 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Samantha Willan (0000-0001-8629-887X, South African Medical Research Council, corresponding author), A Gibbs (0000-0003-2812-5377, South African Medical Research Council), Nwabisa Shai (0000-0003-4171-9129, South African Medical Research Council), Nolwazi Ntini (South African Medical Research Council), Inge Petersen (0000-0001-8057-8336, University of KwaZulu-Natal), Rachel Jewkes (0000-0002-4330-6267, South African Medical Research Council) |
| Year | 2020 |
| Volume | 265 |
| Pages | 113302 |
| Publication date | 2020-11-01 |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Social Science & Medicine (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0277-9536 • E-ISSN: 1873-5347 |
| Publisher | Elsevier BV (PUBLISHER) |
| DOI | 10.1016/j.socscimed.2020.113302 |
| PMID | 32890814 |
| OpenAlex | W3082725163 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 9 |
| References cited | 27 |
This paper investigates the impact of the Stepping Stones Creating Futures (SSCF) intervention on young women in informal settlements in eThekwini, South Africa. Specifically, whether following participation in the intervention the young women experienced a reduction in intimate partner violence, strengthened agency and shifted gender relations. Where changes occurred, it examines how they occurred, and barriers and enablers to change. SSCF is a gender transformative and livelihoods strengthening intervention using participatory, reflective small groups. Qualitative research was undertaken with fifteen women participating in the SSCF randomised control trial between 2015 and 2018. The women were followed over 18 months, participating in in-depth interviews at baseline, 12- and 18-months post intervention. To supplement these, eight women were involved in Photovoice work at baseline and 18 months and seven were included in ongoing participant observation. Data were analysed inductively. Data revealed many women changed their behaviours following SSCF, including: having more power within relationships, improved communication and relationship skills, increased resistance to controlling partners, shifting relationship expectations, emergence of new femininities and improved livelihoods. Despite these important shifts many women did not report a reduction in IPV. Nonetheless we argue most of the women, following the intervention, became more agentic. Drawing on the notion of 'distributed agency' as developed by Campbell and Mannell (2016), we show that SSCF bolstered the women's distributed agency. Distributed agency recognizes small agentic acts that women take, acts which to them are significant, it further notes that agency is temporal, fluid, dynamic and context specific. Women do not 'either have agency or not', rather being agentic depends on time, context and the particular incident. These findings provide an important contribution to the limited application of distributed agency and femininities work in informal settlements and are critical for policy and intervention science to reduce IPV and support women's agency
Agency (philosophy · Business · Economic growth · Economics · Futures contract · Geography · Human settlement · Informal settlements · Intervention (counseling · Qualitative research · Social science · Sociology · Children's Rights and Participation · Gender Studies · Medicine · Nursing · Participatory Visual Research Methods · Poverty, Education, and Child Welfare
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Relationship-level factors influencing intimate partner violence and relationship quality among young couples in an urban informal settlement in South Africa
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| Citations per year | 1.5 |
|---|---|
| Citation span | 2020 - 2026 (7) |
| Highly cited | No |