INVITATION - IDC Lunch Session on Fatherhood and Incarceration
Date: 20 August 2024 – 12:30 – 13:30
Location: Campus Aula - Emile Braunschool - IRCP Large Meeting Room (06.18.130.003) – LIBERTY (Solvay)
The event is free, but registration is required: https://event.ugent.be/registration/IDCLunchSession
In this lunch session Prof. Marlize Rabe from University of the Free State, South Africa will present and discuss work from current interdisciplinary research on fatherhood and incarceration in relation to families and communities. Prof. Rabe is currently visiting scholar at Ghent University invited by Prof. Tom Vander Beken (Faculty Law and Criminology) in cooperation with the IDC Crime, Criminology and Criminal Policy.
Marlize Rabe joined The Humanities Faculty at the University of the Free State in April 2024 as Vice-Dean: Teaching and Learning. Prior to this position, she was a professor in Sociology at the University of the Western Cape, where she also served as the head of the department. She has two main research Interests which includes, firstly, inclusive family policies with a focus on how the state, families and the non-profit sector, including faith-based organisations, are linked to issues of care. Secondly, non-residential fatherhood in South Africa. Flowing from the latter interest, a project on fatherhood and incarceration developed which forms the basis of current research. She is currently an associate editor of the Journal of Family Issues, and she serves on the board of the Committee of Family Research (RC06) of the International Sociological Association.
As part of an ongoing qualitative project on fatherhood and incarceration in relation to their families and communities in the Western Cape, South Africa, two themes of the preliminary findings will be presented. The first section focuses on five formerly incarcerated men and their reflections on being fathers from a life course perspective. The working title for this article is: ‘The prisoner, the breadwinner, the man, the father’. The research participants were respectively incarcerated for fraud, various violent offences, armed robbery, cash-in-transit heists and sexual offences against minors. The second section relates to alternatives to mass incarceration through diversion with a preliminary title: ‘Mass incarceration, division and diversion in South Africa’. Here, the role of a specific NGO is of importance, especially as it relates to their work from an attachment theory perspective. All the research is based on face-to-face or online semi-structured interviews conducted during 2023 and 2024. The three interviewers have different backgrounds: Marlize Rabe, a sociologist with a particular interest in non-residential fatherhood in South Africa; Marcel Londt, a retired academic but active social worker who specialises in programmes offered to (formerly) incarcerated people, especially sex offenders; and, Chris Malgas, a retiree who has spent over four decades as a correctional officer with a particular passion and expertise in the re-integration of incarcerated men into their families and communities. Ethical clearance has been obtained from the University of the Western Cape for the project.
For any questions or more information contact crime@ugent.be