‘It’s tough being gay’: gay, lesbian and bisexual students’ experiences of being ‘at home’in South African university residence life
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Munyuki, C
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141734 , vital:38000 , DOI: 10.20853/31-2-869
- Description: In the post-apartheid era, a variety of commentators invoked the idea of making university campuses a ‘home for all’ so as to depict a vision of what transformed, inclusive higher education institutional cultures, might look like. In this article, we discuss the experiences of students who self-identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual of being ‘at home’ in university residence life on a largely residential South African campus. Drawing from many different disciplines, including anthropology, history, philosophy, geography, psychology, architecture and sociology, we distil the essential features of ‘at-homeness’ as incorporating comfort, privacy, security, acceptance, companionship, recognition and community – all of which are central to human flourishing. We find that while some participants reported being afforded the advantages of feeling at home in university residence life, others are routinely denied many of the essential comforts associated with being ‘at home’ that heterosexual students have the privilege of taking for granted as a component of their experience of university residence life.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Vincent, Louise , Munyuki, C
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141734 , vital:38000 , DOI: 10.20853/31-2-869
- Description: In the post-apartheid era, a variety of commentators invoked the idea of making university campuses a ‘home for all’ so as to depict a vision of what transformed, inclusive higher education institutional cultures, might look like. In this article, we discuss the experiences of students who self-identified as gay, lesbian or bisexual of being ‘at home’ in university residence life on a largely residential South African campus. Drawing from many different disciplines, including anthropology, history, philosophy, geography, psychology, architecture and sociology, we distil the essential features of ‘at-homeness’ as incorporating comfort, privacy, security, acceptance, companionship, recognition and community – all of which are central to human flourishing. We find that while some participants reported being afforded the advantages of feeling at home in university residence life, others are routinely denied many of the essential comforts associated with being ‘at home’ that heterosexual students have the privilege of taking for granted as a component of their experience of university residence life.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Of no account?: South Africa's electoral system (non) debate
- Authors: Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141657 , vital:37994 , DOI: 10.1080/02589000500513796
- Description: Accountability can be summarised simply as ‘answerability’ (James and Hadland 2002:1) and is a vital cornerstone of representative democracy. Without accountability, an electorate, once having put into power a particular representative, has no recourse to explanations, justifications or reviews of how that person has performed and whether or not they have fulfilled the promises which secured their election in the first place. In a representative democracy mechanisms of accountability are necessarily multiple and must include both formal and informal dimensions. The electoral system is but one of these. Other key lynchpins in the accountability engine include the role of opposition parties, the committee system, the media, civil society, the courts, and what in South Africa are referred to, on the basis of the 1996 Constitution, as the ‘Chapter Nine Institutions’: the Public Protector, Human Rights Commission, Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, Commission for Gender Equality, Auditor-General, and the Electoral Commission.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/141657 , vital:37994 , DOI: 10.1080/02589000500513796
- Description: Accountability can be summarised simply as ‘answerability’ (James and Hadland 2002:1) and is a vital cornerstone of representative democracy. Without accountability, an electorate, once having put into power a particular representative, has no recourse to explanations, justifications or reviews of how that person has performed and whether or not they have fulfilled the promises which secured their election in the first place. In a representative democracy mechanisms of accountability are necessarily multiple and must include both formal and informal dimensions. The electoral system is but one of these. Other key lynchpins in the accountability engine include the role of opposition parties, the committee system, the media, civil society, the courts, and what in South Africa are referred to, on the basis of the 1996 Constitution, as the ‘Chapter Nine Institutions’: the Public Protector, Human Rights Commission, Commission for the Promotion and Protection of the Rights of Cultural, Religious and Linguistic Communities, Commission for Gender Equality, Auditor-General, and the Electoral Commission.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
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