Rethinking professional identity formation amidst protests and social upheaval: a journey in Africa

This study uses interviews with medical students to explore PIF within the context of social upheaval during the 2015 –2016 protests that rocked South Africa when students challenged asymmetries of power and privilege that persisted long after the country’s democratic transition. The combination of the primary author’s autoethnographic story, weaved into the South African sociohistorical context and ubuntu ph ilosophy, contributes to this study of PIF in the South African context. The use of an African metaphor allowed the reorientation of PIF to reflect the influence of an ubuntu-based value system. Using the calabash as a metaphor, participants’ experiences were framed and organized in two ways: a ca labash worldview and the campus calabash. The calabash worldview is a multidimensional mixture of values that include ubuntu, reflections of traditional childhoods, and the image of women as igneous rocks, which recognizes the power and influence on PIF of the women who raised the participants. Intr oducing an African ubuntu-based perspective into the PIF discourse may redirect the acknowledgement of context and local reality in developing professional identity.
Source: Advances in Health Sciences Education - Category: Universities & Medical Training Source Type: research