Achieving the purpose of the doctoral journey through productive interaction requires that the student and supervisor engage with each other’s intellectual views, which means addressing any challenges posed by the student’s diversity. According to Vilakazi (2016), supervisors embrace democratic justice in contributing to society by supervising students, using their expertise to take care of students’ rights, enabling deliberative engagement and exposing them to critical learning. This is done through the interaction of voices, cultures, values and perspectives, amidst differences. Yet, engaging with diversity can bring about uncertainty, anxiety and other discomfort (Nieminin and Valcke 2018), which, if not handled well can be detrimental to a student’s progress. Identifying, accepting and understanding differences and similarities that exist between individual students and supervisors, to fully utilise their talents and abilities during the supervisory relationship, is an important contribution to knowledge creation. This article explores the notion of compassionate imagination2 as a cata yst to realising respect for student diversity in effective doctoral supervision.
Background Through experience and research, the Uganda government perceived the HIV/AIDS pandemic as a multi-dimensional problem and practically demonstrated that multi-sectoral and multidisciplinary interventions are the best approaches to address this. This calls for collaborative efforts among all stakeholders with respect to their mandates, areas of comparative advantage and expertise. In this study, we explored the role of ‘spaces for community dialogues’ among adults and children in the collective identification, sharing and mitigation of HIV/AIDS concerns in Uganda. Methods This was an ethnographic study conducted between 2009 and 2015 in two purposively selected districts most hit by HIV/AIDS. We employed multiple data collection methods, including participant observation, in-depth interviews, focus group discussions, participatory rural appraisal and key informant interviews. Ethics clearance was obtained from Makerere University, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, and from the two social support agencies. Data were synthesised and analysed using thematic analysis. Results Findings show that bazaars, mother or father talks, testing sites and regular spaces, banana beer parties, village meetings, school settings, and community events provided safe environments for interaction about HIV/AIDS concerns among children and adults. Children expressed their views through visual techniques with the support of adults. The use of catalysts facilitated effective interactions by harmonizing experiences of those directly impacted by HIV/AIDS and those providing the needed helping skills. Conclusion Dialogue is an act of creations that cannot be consumed by participants. Spaces for dialogue are real sites that societies use in their daily interactions. Children are active participants in the struggle to mitigate the adverse effects of HIV/AIDS. Despite differences in ways of sharing messages, spaces in a community settings were deemed appropriate for dialogue on HIV/AIDS issues.
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