Browsing by Author "Ayford, Jaime Lee"

Now showing 1 - 1 of 1
  • Thumbnail Image
    Item
    An intersectional study of the experiences of first-year students within residences at Stellenbosch University
    (Stellenbosch : Stellenbosch University, 2024-03) Ayford, Jaime Lee; Lester, Claire-Anne Louise; Stellenbosch University. Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences. Dept. of Sociology and Social Anthropology.
    ENGLISH ABSTRACT: In May 2022, a ‘white’ first-year student urinated on the belongings of a ‘black’ first-year student at the Huis Marias residence at Stellenbosch University (SU) this sparked outrage among the members of the university community and the larger South African society about the status of transformation at SU. This revived debate about racism at the University, initiated through the 2015 Open Stellenbosch student movement, led to the establishment of the Khampepe Commission of Inquiry. This study, conducted in 2020, engaged with first-year students living in single-sex and mixed-sex residences to explore how they made sense of belonging. I conducted seven semi-structured online interviews with first-year students coming from diverse backgrounds to explore how they experience, construct, navigate, and perform identity and belonging. Through using thematic analysis three major themes are derived from the data. The first theme was the ‘Gendered experiences’ of first-year students within university residences, and how these can create a sense of belonging if one identifies with it and a sense of exclusion if one deviates from it. The second theme was ‘living diversity’ and belonging at SU. This speaks to the various factors such as gender, race, sexuality, language, and other social identifications that impact one’s sense of belonging and how one uses one’s agency to navigate belonging within the space. The last theme was ‘Safety and safe spaces’, which draws out the many meanings of safety, such as physical safety from, as well as ‘safe spaces’ to engage with critical questions related to gender, race, and sexuality. Taking an intersectional and social constructivist approach to understanding race, gender, and sexuality, I argue that these identities are influenced by overarching historical discourses that permeate the residences and in turn generate context-specific racialised and gendered experiences.