Rural resilience and historically disadvantaged young women’s negotiations for protection against gender-based violence

Abstract

Research on gender-based violence proliferates. Yet there is little research on the resilience of young women faced with gender-based violence. The aim of my research study is to understand how social ecologies can best support the resilience of historically disadvantaged young women living in a rural area in South Africa and challenged by gender-based violence. My study foregrounds the voices of these young historically disadvantaged women regarding the protective mechanisms which their community can make available to provide better protection from gender-based violence. From a social ecological perspective, resilience, or the ability to function normatively despite risks (such as gender-based violence), is a co-constructed process between young historically The negotiations, which occurred with members of the community identified by the historically disadvantaged women as being able to provide protective resources, provided a platform for dialogue between the young women and the community members in attendance. This led to the local police office inviting the young women to a screening of a video within the community regarding domestic violence. At this meeting the police (SAPS) introduced the young women to existing support networks within the community. The sense of empowerment the young women experienced as they engaged with the community echoes literatures that resilience occurs when both the individual and their social ecology partner to support protective mechanisms. These findings therefore suggest that community-based participatory video has the potential to facilitate contextually sensitive insights to what youth voices identify as resilience resources. Disadvantaged women and their social ecology. This phenomenological study employed a participatory process that engaged multiple visual methods (draw and talk/write, no editing required video, collage). In particular, the video research process I used allowed these historically disadvantaged young women to identify and integrate contextually relevant and valuable information as they entered into dialogue with their community regarding protective mechanisms to gender-based violence. I used a participatory analysis process to analyse the visual and narrative data which the young women generated. In so doing, my study prioritises the voices of historically disadvantaged young women"s own understanding of what they need in order to reduce the risk of gender-based violence. Results showed that in particular, the young women were unanimous in their belief that "the community, they can...". In other words they believed that their community had the capacity to better protect them against gender-based violence. This capacity included that the community had capacity to safeguard, equip and support young women challenged by gender-based violence.