The ethics of human
development as
transformation
IIDE conference: “Emerging perspectives on the
ethics of development and transformation”.
Bloemfontein. 17 September 2008.
landmc@unisa.ac.za
Prof. Christina Landman
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Research – development - transformation
Ethical practices in deconstructing
religious and cultural discourses
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To
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Securing health systems
Securing social systems
Establishing recreation facilities
Enhancing moral fabric
Stimulating enterpreneurship
Protecting the environment
add
Shifting mind sets
Development is
exhibition
David before
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Subject:
10 September 2008 11:24 AM
"heinb@agrinet.co.za".mime.Mime; E Nell; Annamarie; bfineberg@mweb.co.za; Buys, Bets; N J Coetzee; 'D
FW: The return of DAVID ...
The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York
City were delighted to welcome Michelangelo's
sculpture of David for a two year "all American"
exhibition
After a two year visit to the United States ,
Michelangelo's David is returning to Italy . .
His Proud Sponsors were:
Michelangelo’s David after two
years on exhibition in New York...
A discourse is a grand narrative that is
believed by a majority of a society and
has consequences for the development of
people whether it is “true” or not.
Religious discourse: God has made man to
rule over woman
Cultural discourse: Aids is caused by
having sex within 6 months after your
parents died
Ethical practices in shifting
people’s minds...
Deconstruction means
Shifting the discourse from harmful to
healthy (in the language of counselling)
Shifting the discourse from trapping people
in underdevelopment to transforming
them towards development
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Deconstructing discourses
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The faces of the problem:
Three research populations:
1 Patients at Kalafong (“township”)
2 Farm labourers in Hoedspruit (“rural”)
3 University students (“urbanised”)
Discourses trapping human
development
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Patients at Kalafong Hospital
75% black (variety of cultures)
74% women
97% Christian – more than half belong to
born-again churches
52% unemployed (others minimum inc)
Research populations
Problems that keep patients from
developing their potential
1 Losses
2 Loneliness
3 Lack of money
Discourses strengthening these problems:
1 Power discourses
2 Body discourses
3 Identity discourses
4 Otherness discourses
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“Township” problems
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Illness/misfortune is caused by
bewitchment
Illness is caused by God
Illness is caused by Satan
Aids is caused by a virus
Medicine alone can make you healthy
Only prayer can make you healthy
Religio-cultural discourses
identified by patients as harmful
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The church says divorce is sin
God purifies me through punishment
Dreams are divine visitations/warnings
The pastor said my child died because we
do not give enough money to the church.
My pastor said my depression was a bad
spirit.
I am a man and God has made me so (to
beat my wife)
My mother must listen to me. I am the
man in the house
Power discourses
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No marriage without lobola
Being gay is sinful
The belongings of a deceased man belong
to his family and not to his widow
A woman who does not want sex, is a
witch
Tradition forbids that a man cries for his
still-born baby
The sangoma has placed a spell on me to
make my husband think I am useless
More power discourses
More than half of the women who came for
counselling were severely beaten by their
partners
• I was not raised to say no
• Adoption is a sin against the forefathers
• Abortion is a sin (more than half of the
women reporting for abortion were 35+)
• Masturbation is not for a real man (Don’t
you think I can get a partner?!)
Body discourses
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My church does not allow me to use
medicine
My church only provides for families, and
I am single.
My church says I am evil because I am
gay.
My church says I must accept God has
made me a woman/poor
Because I was raped, I am a bad woman
Identity discourses
A good Christian woman does not work or
speak to the neighbour
 A good Christian man must have a house
and be the breadwinner
 My mother told me to pretend to be
stupid in order to get a good husband
 I must have a child before twenty: If I die
without children, I shall not be buried
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Gender identity, moral identity
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My church claims that it is HIV free
If you wear traditional clothes, you will be
cured from AIDS
I think my husband is HIV positive, but
God does not want me to deny him
My son was killed with a cork opener
because of the jealousy of the ancestors
The pastor has prophesied that my child,
who committed suicide, is not in heaven
Otherness discourses
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180 interviews
40% male, 60% female
Extremely poor (R500 per month)
First 40 interviewed belonged to 23
churches)
20% illiterate, 40% can write their names
Shangaan and Pedi (all migrants)
2 Farm labourers, Hoedspruit
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Blyde River, Hoedspruit
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Abused woman
Desperately poor
Migrant
No transport
No access to state protection
Rendered powerless by the gender
constructs of her faith/culture
Connie
Johnnie
Poor
Migrant
Illiterate
HIV status unclear
Exposed to the cultural discourse that
Aids is caused by bewitchment and/or
God’s punishment
 Exposed to religious discourses that
render him powerless/voiceless
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Johnnie
All farm workers interviewed are in an
intimate relationship except
5men/5women (widows, baruthi, one man
who said he was a virgin).
• Shame to be without a relationship.
• 100% of interviewees reacted against
masturbation – “Do you think I cannot
find a partner?”
• Beatings:
53 women reported physical abuse
12 men confessed to beating their partners
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How do the churches deal with
beatings?
Third of relationships are physically
abusive (women beaten)
 One man said: “I beat my girl friend.
That is normal. She beats me back. That
is normal.”
 “He slaps me that I can wake up. He
does not beat me till there is blood.”
 “I beat her because she did not respect
me. She confessed she made a mistake”.
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Beatings
Only 2 of the women who were beated
ran away from their partners:
“My boyfriend beats me. I have been with
him for 19 years. I love him. He is
married. I shall not leave him. It is not a
sin to have a married boyfriend, because I
am not married.”
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Reactions to beatings
Induna
 Family
 No police
 90% of women indicated that they go to
the church for healing, but not for
intimate violence
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Indigenous handling of beatings
“When there is conflict in your relationship,
do not beat your wife. Teach her what the
Bible says about an obedient wife”.
 “Correct her according to the Bible”.
 “You may not divorce your husband even
when he beats you”.
 The government has given too many
rights to women
Teachings on gender relations
A prevalence study indicated that 28,8% of
the farm workers in the Hoedspruit area
are HIV positive
Conflicting discourses
Baruthi teach that condoms are sin and
against God’s will, while more than
80% of the farm workers indicate that
they think condoms are good. (“The
Lord will condomise you”)
 Baruthi teach that circumcision is bad,
while more than 70% of the farm
workers indicate that they think it is
good. (“Circumcision is bad. You suffer
a lot, and you don’t even get a
certificate for it”.)
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Teachings on condoms etc
The baruthi interviewed all indicated that
they are able to heal HIV/Aids
 85% of the interviewees indicated that
they believe that the church can heal
HIV/Aids
 The baruthi felt that the government
should compensate them for healing
HIV/Aids
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Church and HIV/Aids
Call in community to help solve problem
 Call induna
 Call family
 (But don’t call police)
Two of the younger women (teenagers, new
generation) said that if their partners
would beat them, they would call the
police
 Do not go to baruthi for healing of
intimate relationships
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Further indigenous reactions
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Students held captive by unhealthy
discourses keeping them from
transformation:
1 Discourses on gender, race and sexual
identities
2 Discourses on how to deal with their
present suffering
3 They are part of a society “who is not
free to be moral” in terms of the
discourses of church and politics
3rd Research Population
Ethical practices in deconstructing
discourses:
 Mapping the past: from problemsaturated to indigenous healing
 Externalising the problem
 Empowerment against the problem from
indigenous knowledge
 Thickening the alternative story
MEET process
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Ethical transformation as the
deconstruction of discourses towards
indigenous insights and skills
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The example of the man who was not
allowed to mourn his still-born child...
Ethics: The indigenous way