abstract

Gender-based violence (GBV) remains a “wicked problem” in communities all over the world and requires a concerted effort from everyone to address it. While it is most often women and girls who bear the brunt of the violence, their voices are often silenced or ignored. In my work in a rural community in the Eastern Cape, South Africa, I worked with the girl participants to develop a digital dialogue tool to engage the school community in several community dialogues to address GBV, and, in so doing, make their voices heard. This article responds to the question: What are the schoolgirls’ experiences of using the digital dialogue tool in engaging rural school communities in dialogue to address GBV? To explore and understand their experiences focus group discussions were used; these were recorded, transcribed and thematically analysed. Critical audience engagement was used as a theoretical framework to make meaning of the participants’ experiences of engaging with the audience in the community dialogues. Three themes emerged from the girls’ experiences: feeling motivated to tackle the problem, creating a generative space for dialogue, and girls enabling relationships. The findings position girls as socio-political actors, which has implications for policy makers and how they might respond to communities, as well as for community-based researchers seeking to expand the ‘reach’ of the research. This study is significant as it focuses on girls’ voices in leading a community dialogue as an intervention to address GBV in a rural school community.

摘要

基于性别的暴力 (GBV) 仍然是世界各地社区的“棘手问题”，需要所有人齐心协力解决。虽然妇女和女童首当其冲受到暴力侵害，但她们的声音往往被压制或忽视。在南非东开普省一个农村社区的工作中，我与女孩参与者合作开发了一个数字对话工具，让学校社区参与几个社区对话，以解决 GBV，并在此过程中让她们的声音被听到. 本文回答了这个问题：女学生在使用数字对话工具让农村学校社区参与对话以解决 GBV 方面有什么经验？使用焦点小组讨论来探索和理解他们的经历；这些都被记录、转录和专题分析。批判性观众参与被用作理论框架，以理解参与者在社区对话中与观众互动的经验。女孩们的经历产生了三个主题：感到有动力解决问题、创造对话的生成空间以及女孩建立关系。研究结果将女孩定位为社会政治行为者，这对决策者及其对社区的反应以及寻求扩大研究“范围”的社区研究人员都有影响。这项研究很重要，因为它关注女孩在领导社区对话方面的声音，作为解决农村学校社区性别暴力的干预措施。