Sethenjwa Bonny Nduli

This article examines my personal experiences as a Black African queer male learner attending a predominantly Indian school in KwaZulu-Natal, South Africa. Using narrative inquiry, the study explores my lived reality and illuminates how I navigated identity formation within a primarily Indian heteronormative schooling environment shaped by racial and cultural dynamics. This article was informed by the intersectional perspective, employing a phenomenological approach to understand the experiences of a Black African queer male learner within the context of a predominantly heteronormative Indian schooling system. Research indicates that Black African queer learners within predominantly Indian educational settings encounter various forms of oppression, including but not limited to racism and heterosexism. Based on the researcher’s experiences, this article highlights that predominantly Indian schools serve as environments of exclusion for Black African queer learners. This exclusion complicates the ability of these students to collectively explore and negotiate their gender and sexual identities, thereby increasing the risk of suicide. By adopting an autoethnographic approach, the researcher aims to amplify the voices of many marginalised Black African queer male learners. Central to this method is the practice of storytelling, which is not merely descriptive but a critical act that situates personal experience within broader social, historical, and political contexts. Storytelling in autoethnography allows the researcher to articulate emotions, tensions, and contradictions that conventional academic discourse often silences. The research documents the researcher’s experiences of oppression, isolation, racism, discrimination, hate crimes, hate speech, and homophobic violence within a predominantly Indian school in South Africa, all of which are influenced by their gender identity and sexual orientation.

In South Africa, a country often lauded for its progressive constitutional protections of LGBTQ+ rights, rural areas continue to be centres of entrenched heteronormativity and patriarchal traditions. These socio-cultural dynamics expose queer individuals to increased levels of discrimination, marginalisation, and violence. This paper aims to review South African scholarship by critically reviewing the relationship between rural geographies and queerphobic victimisation through the lens of queer geographies, highlighting how spatial contexts reinforce normative power structures and shape queer experiences. Methodologically, the study adopts a qualitative approach, drawing on 43 secondary sources, including peer-reviewed articles, NGO and government reports, academic theses, and seminar papers identified through a systematic search across platforms such as Google Scholar, JSTOR, and institutional databases. Content analysis was employed to identify thematic patterns related to space, identity, and violence, while gap analysis revealed underexplored areas in the current literature. The study finds that factors such as gender presentation, visibility, and “outness” significantly influence vulnerability in rural areas, where traditional values often clash with expressions of queer identity. This paper contributes to a deeper understanding of spatial injustice and the ongoing geographical disparities that shape queer lives in South Africa.

The province of KwaZulu-Natal (KZN), South Africa, is no stranger to adversities. Between 2020 and 2022, KZN faced overlapping disasters, including the COVID-19 pandemic, episodes of looting and catastrophic floods. These disasters had multifaceted consequences for low-income communities. During the disasters, social work academics/practitioners provided psycho-social support to communities while working with a community engagement research centre, the MA’AT Institute, located at the University of KwaZulu-Natal (UKZN). Adopting an autoethnographic methodology, we provide insights into the experiences of working in low-income communities during disasters. Based on these reflections, we suggest that social workers should often adopt a culturally sensitive approach to disaster response, poverty alleviation and the protection of human rights. We further highlight the complexities of community engagement in disaster-stricken areas when attempting to meet specific goals of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), such as no poverty, zero hunger and climate action. We call for adopting an Afrocentric and culturally responsive approach to strengthen the resilience of low-income communities in the face of disaster-related adversity.

The study explored the perceptions and experiences of elderly parolees transitioning back to the community. The study sample comprised 15 elderly parolees selected through purposive sampling. In-depth interviews were conducted using semi-structured interview guides. The study was situated in Durban Community Corrections, a reintegration centre under the Durban Management Area in the KwaZulu-Natal province. The study aimed to gain an in-depth understanding of elderly parolees’ experiences of transitioning from prison to the community. This study reveals that even though participants experienced loss of independence, family ties and identity, chronic health problems, and discrimination, they were able to desist from criminal activities, received religious support, and obtained short-term employment opportunities. The study concludes by proffering recommendations for the Department of Correctional Services, programme developers, coordinators, planners, social workers, as well as managers of community correctional centres who are responsible for ensuring that parolees continue to receive effective services after release from a correctional centre.