The voices of Izwi Lethu: Interview reflections on a newsletter collaboration between researchers and sex worker activists in South Africa and its life beyond the academy

ABSTRACT

This piece features the voices of sex worker participants in a collaborative project between the African Centre for Migration and Society (ACMS) at the University of the Witwatersrand and the Sisonke National Sex Workers Movement in South Africa. The ACMS and Sisonke envisioned the Izwi Lethu newsletter project as an opportunity for researchers to learn more about sex workers’ lived experiences and for activists to gather stories to inform their work promoting social justice. The newsletter partnership began in 2015 and continued until Sisonke took over in 2019, fulfilling the newsletter’s tagline ‘a newsletter by sex workers for sex workers.’ But did the collaboration help Sisonke promote social justice or benefit the participants? The authors brought together Izwi Lethu writers who are still active in Sisonke to reflect on the project. While this discussion and critique of the transcript were meant to take place in person, as in Izwi Lethu workshops, the global pandemic limited meetings. Revision of the discussion was still collaborative, conducted over the phone, e-mail, and WhatsApp. The discussion reveals some of the successes, challenges, and unintended consequences of the use of creative writing to promote social justice and the collaboration of researchers and activists.

KEYWORDS:

• Sex work
• social justice
• participatory research
• creative writing

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 Monthly meetings that Sisonke hosts to bring members together.

2 Workshops ran from three to five days depending on the year. The number of participants also varied from workshop to workshop, from the fewest being three and the most being fifteen.

3 This decision was made by the activist-led team after the ACMS had left the project.

4 Issues of Izwi Lethu are posted online. Collaborative issues with the ACMS are available on the MoVE: methods:visual:explore Issuu site (www.issuu.com) and issues since 2019 are available on Sisonke’s resources page (www.sisonke.org.za).

5 Here ‘voice notes’ refers to the voice recording feature on WhatsApp, which is free and popular in South Africa.

6 A community space in a high-density suburb of Johannesburg near where many Sisonke members live and work.

7 Braamfontein is another suburb in Johannesburg near the central business district. Gandhi Square is in the city’s central business district.

8 A province in South Africa.

9 Cape Town is where Sisonke’s national office is.

10 Sisonke has provincial coordinators in five of South Africa’s nine provinces.

11 A slang term for bone marrow but what the Izwi Lethu writers used to describe the meat or juicy part of a story.

12 Sbuda wrote about his calling as a traditional healer in an issue of Izwi Lethu.

13 The South African Broadcasting Corporation, which means it was on a local TV station.

14 A sub-Saharan African direct broadcast satellite service.

Additional information

Funding

The Open Society Foundation for South Africa, the Wellcome Trust, and the Sisonke National Sex Workers Movement in South Africa provided funding for this research.