Brief Academic Biography

Anthea M. Lesch is a researcher, scholar, activist and lecturer. Dr Lesch has received a number of awards over the course of her career. In 2019 she was awarded a fellowship by the Institute for Arts and Liberal Sciences at Keele University in the UK; as well as the prestigious writing fellowship at the Johannesburg Institute for Advanced Study (JIAS). Dr Lesch’s training is in Industrial Psychology, Social Psychology and Public Health. She completed her undergraduate degree at the University of the Western Cape and has obtained Masters degrees from Rhodes University (MCom), Sussex University (UK) (MSc) and the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (US) (MPH). She obtained her PhD from Stellenbosch University.

Research

Research Topics

  • Social and structural inequalities and their impact on the health and well-being of vulnerable and marginalised groups;
  • HIV/AIDS and biomedical HIV prevention research
  • Community engagement approaches and strategies,
  • Chronic illness, health and well-being,
  • Qualitative research methods and arts-based methodologies;
  • Race and racism in contemporary South Africa

About my Research

I locate my work in a community psychological paradigm and draw on my public health, social psychology and research methodology training in my teaching and research. My primary research interest is in exploring lived experiences of poverty and social inequality, and the ways in which structural inequalities impact the health and well-being of vulnerable and marginalised communities. I am particularly interested in interrogating societal narratives and representations of vulnerable and marginalised groups and in exploring creative and innovative ways of co-producing psychosocial interventions to address the needs of these groups. Over the last 15 years, my research has focussed on the social and behavioural aspects of HIV vaccine research, community engagement in biomedical HIV prevention research, subjective experiences of living with diabetes, street homelessness in urban Cape Town, and exploring race and racism in contemporary South Africa through the lens of critical whiteness. I have co-authored a number of journal articles in peer reviewed social science journals. I regularly present my work at international conferences. I am an executive committee member of the International Society for Critical Health Psychology and a member of the Global Health Community Engagement and Involvement Advisory Network of the National Institute for Health Research in the UK.

Teaching

Coordination of Programmes and Modules

Undergraduate:

  • Psychology 348 (Psychological Interventions)

Honours:

  • Honours Academic Programme Coordinator
  • Honours Research Assignment Co-ordinator
  • Community Psychology

Teaching Areas

Undergraduate & Postgraduate

  • Community Psychology

Selected Publications

De Wet, A., Swartz, L., Kagee, A., Lesch, A., Kafaar, Z., Hassan, N.R., Robbertze, D. & Newman, P. (2020). The trouble with difference: Challenging and reproducing inequality in a biomedical HIV research community engagement process. Global Public Health, 15(1), 22-30.

Barnard, Y., Lesch, A. & Cassidy, T. (2018). Motivational Interviewing for Poorly Controlled Type 2 Diabetics in a Rural South African Community. Archives of Clinical and Medical Case Reports, 2(6), 168-181.

Hassan, N., Swartz, L., Kafaar, Z, Kagee, A, De Wet, A, Lesch, A., Newman, P.A. (2018). “There is not a safe space where they can find themselves to be free”: (Un)safe spaces and the promotion of queer visibilities among township males who have sex with males (MSM) in Cape Town, South Africa. Health and Place, 49, 93-100.

Kagee, A., de Wet, A., Kafaar Z., Lesch, A., Swartz, L & Newman, P. (2017). Caveats and pitfalls associated with researching community engagement in the context of HIV vaccine trials: Some considerations. Journal of Health Psychology, 1-10.

Selected student research topics

A multimodal critical discourse analysis examining the influence of South African Hip-Hop music on the Codeine Culture amongst adolescents in South Africa.

A narrative approach to the ‘coming out’ process from the perspectives of gay Coloured sons and their parents within rural communities in the Western Cape, South Africa.

A phenomenological investigation into the experiences of Coloured women in organisational leadership in the Western Cape.

An exploration of the experiences of caregivers of children with Autism Spectrum Disorder living in low socioeconomic areas in the Western Cape, South Africa.

Begging and Non-Person Treatment: How non-person treatment affects mental well-being and perpetuates learned helplessness and existential mattering.

Clinical HIV prevention research: Examining community engagement strategies targeted at MSM in Cape Town, South Africa.

Exploring women’s lived experiences of the relational dynamics in non injection drug using couples and its influence on women’s recovery.

Exploring forensic psychiatric patients’ subjective experiences of whether a social and therapeutic horticulture intervention assists with their recovery from a serious mental illness.

Hairstory: Exploring Coloured students’ experiences and expression of identity at a historically White institution.

Street homelessness in urban Cape Town: An exploratory study of the lived experiences of people living on the streets.

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