Katinka de Wet | University of the Free State (original) (raw)

Papers by Katinka de Wet

Volume 23 (2022/2023) of the African Development Perspectives Yearbook focusses on the issues of ... more Volume 23 (2022/2023) of the African Development Perspectives Yearbook focusses on the issues of digital entrepreneurship, digital start-ups, and digital business opportunities in Africa. It investigates links between digitalization and development of productive capacities. It deals with business opportunities created by the digital transformation. It discusses the role of universities in the digital transformation process. It also presents book reviews and book notes. Country case studies include Senegal, Ghana, Ivory Coast, and South Africa.

International health trends and perspectives, Nov 29, 2023

Reverse innovation is the flow of ideas from lower to higher income countries. This has received ... more Reverse innovation is the flow of ideas from lower to higher income countries. This has received growing attention in healthcare research for its potential to provide cost-effective solutions to pervasive health inequities, human resource shortages and rising health expenditures. Even though the underlying premise has its merits, the use of the term itself has become controversial as some argue it implies that innovation normally flows in the other direction. In this commentary, we first discuss some of the criticisms voiced against the term. With these in mind, we subsequently make the case for an alternative approach and describe how we work to implement this in our own research project. More specifically, we suggest a move towards reciprocal innovation as a more equitable, mutually beneficial form of learning and knowledge sharing. We present the COMPASS (Community Health Workers for Primary Care Access) project which will provide an empirically grounded example of reciprocal innovation in practice. The aim of the COMPASS project is to adapt a community health worker intervention from Brazil and South Africa for implementation in Belgium. The project has the potential to provide valuable lessons for all parties involved.

The tabular and visual dataset focuses on South African basic education and provides insights ... more The tabular and visual dataset focuses on South African basic education and provides insights into the distribution of schools and basic population statistics across the country. This tabular and visual data are stratified across different quintiles for each provincial and district boundary. The quintile system is used by the South African government to classify schools based on their level of socio-economic disadvantage, with quintile 1 being the most disadvantaged and quintile 5 being the least disadvantaged. The data was joined by extracting information from the debarment of basic education with StatsSA population census data. Thereafter, all tabular data and geo located data were transformed to maps using GIS software and the Python integrated development environment. The dataset includes information on the number of schools and students in each quintile, as well as the population density in each area. The data is displayed through a combination of charts, maps and tables, al...

Data in Brief

The South African Indian population represents a different genetic admixture compared to that of ... more The South African Indian population represents a different genetic admixture compared to that of mainland India. To date, comprehensive BRCA1/2 screening for this population group was not conducted. Furthermore, no information about the type of genetic abnormalities present within these genes are known. From this dataset, twenty-eight different pathogenic heterozygotes were detected in 32 of the 223 patients. The information was published with the recommendation that comprehensive familial breast cancer testing for South African Indian patients as the pathogenic variants seem to be family- rather than population-specific. However, a series of singly nucleotide polymorphisms and variants with an unknown clinical significance was also collected. Finally, clinical information was also supplied in addition to the genetic information about the tumour characteristics.

rhetoric of community home-

Sociology of Health and Illness, 2020

Qualitative Sociology Review, 2017

African family life in South Africa’s post-apartheid context is shaped by the socio-political his... more African family life in South Africa’s post-apartheid context is shaped by the socio-political history of the country. Despite various attempts to address the remnants of poverty, unequal distribution of resources and the lack of livelihood services still exist. African families from resource poor areas of townships in South Africa are still faced with poverty and deprivation. Black African women, often with minimum schooling, suffer the most from these scourges. This article aims to explore the everyday life narratives of precarity at various levels and the manner in which women from Mangaung Township in Bloemfontein cope with this. They talk about the fragile relationships within the family, about the gendered dynamics of the household, and about the importance of support networks.

African family life in South Africa's post-apartheid context is shaped by the socio-political his... more African family life in South Africa's post-apartheid context is shaped by the socio-political history of the country. Despite various attempts to address the remnants of poverty, unequal distribution of resources and the lack of livelihood services still exist. African families from resource poor areas of townships in South Africa are still faced with poverty and deprivation. Black African women, often with minimum schooling, suffer the most from these scourges. This article aims to explore the everyday life narratives of precarity at various levels and the manner in which women from Mangaung Township in Bloemfontein cope with this. They talk about the fragile relationships within the family, about the gendered dynamics of the household, and about the importance of support networks.

Social Theory & Health, 2016

South Africa has the highest number of HIV-positive people in the world and also boasts the most ... more South Africa has the highest number of HIV-positive people in the world and also boasts the most comprehensive antiretroviral treatment (ART) programme to date. Long-term ART adherence requires a range of identity negotiations in order for treatment success to materialise in the long term. However, some patients on ART develop a treatment side effect known as ‘lipodystrophy’, which is a condition that can severely undermine a person’s sense of self and identity given the bodily alterations that take place given notions of anticipated, felt or internalised stigma. In this article, we explore two women’s narratives who suffer from this side effect of ART. Their narratives are used as an ‘instrumental case study’ inasmuch as these instances provide insights into their contextual realities of being on ART in post-apartheid South Africa. Both these women are black African, have limited means and resources, and already face serious everyday challenges despite their HIV infection and lipodystrophy. We subsequently conclude that this embodied experience is a reflection of individual and social realities of multiple layers of precarity that characterise the HIV/AIDS and ART landscape in South Africa. The article also emphasises the corporeal aspects of chronic disease that has not been amply studied in the context of HIV and ART, especially in developing countries where HIV infection is disproportionately high. Moreover, studying lipodystrophy interpretatively has also been largely neglected.

Journal of Academic Ethics, 2010

Research Ethics Committees (RECs) or Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are rapidly becoming indi... more Research Ethics Committees (RECs) or Institutional Review Boards (IRBs) are rapidly becoming indispensable mechanisms in the overall workings of university institutions. In fact, the ethical dimension is an important aspect of research governance processes present in institutions of higher learning. However, it is often deemed that research in the social sciences do not require ethical appraisal or clearance, because of

The Normalization of the HIV and AIDS Epidemic in South Africa, 2019

Caring for the majority of HIV-positive people is characterised by an approach which the governme... more Caring for the majority of HIV-positive people is characterised by an approach which the government would call "community health care". This study aims to contribute to the understanding of the greater context which illustrâtes the "quest for therapy" of those seeking medical care, as well as those caring for them. We take into account the history of the country as1 a whole, especially the history of its healthcare system, to highlight the changing situations for both those seeking healthcare, and those providing it. Two chapters deal with historical aspects: the first concentrating on the country as a whole, the second comparing three approaches, in three different periods, of community health care. Three chapters are dedicated to fieldwork: a description and an interpretation of care by nurses in a public health care institution; an analysis of the call of the government to its citizens to engage in volunteering activities; and a study of the role of traditiona...

It is commonly thought that breast cancer, like many other cancers, is an illness equivalent to a... more It is commonly thought that breast cancer, like many other cancers, is an illness equivalent to a death sentence. Though this may be true in some cases, the majority of women diagnosed with breast cancer do survive this illness. Breast cancer is a growing illness and is continuing to affect women worldwide, including developing countries like South Africa. Furthermore, this country's medical system operates in terms of a duality. Here, hospitals and healthcare are mainly situated in either state operated institutions or in privately run practices. This duality emphasizes the inequality within the socioeconomic classes, treatment regimens, and ethic-of-care. This article deals with how women from the higher socioeconomic stratum of the deeply polarized South Africa deal with breast cancer. The aim is to understand how each participant renegotiates and transforms her self-perception, her identity, and issues around femininity. In addition, the authors also seek to understand if this medical encounter influences the participants' sense of embodiment, as well as how the medical encounter impacts on their everyday lifeworld.

Background: We evaluated brief combination interventions to simultaneously reduce sexual and inje... more Background: We evaluated brief combination interventions to simultaneously reduce sexual and injection risks among female sex workers who inject drugs (FSW-IDUs) in Tijuana (TJ) and Ciudad Juarez (CJ) Mexico during 2008-2010, when harm reduction was expanding in TJ, but not CJ. Methods: FSW-IDUs ]18 years reporting recently sharing injection equipment and unprotected sex with clients participated in a randomized factorial trial comparing four brief, single-session combinations of active motivational-interviewing and didactic interventions focused on negotiating safer-sex in the context of drug use and safer-injection skills. The injection intervention included a video made by FSW-IDUs. Women underwent quarterly interviews and testing for HIV, syphilis, gonorrhea, Chlamydia and