Working with partners across Southern Africa (South Africa, Zimbabwe, Malawi, and Zambia), Nanette De Jong, Professor of Socially Engaged Ethnomusicology at Newcastle University, has developed and implemented arts-based interventions in the fight against gender-based violence (GBV) and HIV-stigma.
Tackling HIV-stigma and GBV requires changing attitudes within communities themselves. Drawing on her research, Professor De Jong recognises how music and the arts are exceptionally well-placed to accomplish that goal.
Through community-based projects, this work gives HIV-stigma and GBV a voice, sound, and image, enabling what are regarded as taboo topics to be discussed and debated within communities.
The impact of this work has included improving the response services of NGOs working in areas of HIV and GBV, in addition to strengthening legal and policy frameworks around health and gender inequality, and improving the outlook for, and economic power of, women in Southern Africa.
In May 2025, Professor De Jong will work with communities in Eastern Cape province, South Africa to address a key, yet so far intractable problem: violence against women accused of witchcraft, where elderly women are the frequent targets. Physical features common to ageing—wrinkled skin, thinning hair, missing teeth—when associated with women, are routinely equated with ‘being a witch’. If accused, these women are pushed into social isolation, many beaten, maimed, raped, or murdered.
Building upon an already impactful music intervention that addressed witchcraft-related violence in the AmaZizi chiefdom of Eastern Cape, this current project will engage an additional 10 chiefdoms in the province and over one million new user-stakeholders in the fight against witchcraft-related violence.