been considered a rich feminist memory-site for examining the genesis of women's sense of self in the developed world. To date, however, only a few scholars have focused on Southern African girlhoods. Even fewer focus on methodologies for researching girlhood. This is despite the particular vulnerability of girls to gender-based violence and HIV and Aids, and the relative complexity of doing research with girls in diverse cultural contexts in this region. Thus, the book aims to take this agenda forward and to investigate a range of participatory methodological and theoretical approaches that can be adapted to study girls and girlhood in Southern Africa. These methodologies, which look at research with girls, about girls and for girls, include policy research, writing, fictional practice, and visual arts-based methods, to be used as analytical tools that should, can, and have been used to examine the lives of girls, particularly in the age of HIV and Aids in Southern Africa. Biographical note Relebohile Moletsane was Associate Professor in Curriculum Studies and Gender Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal until 2007. She is Research Director in the Gender and Development unit at the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC) and Honorary Professor in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Kwazulu-Natal. Claudia Mitchell Claudia Mitchell is a James McGill Professor in the Faculty of Education, McGill University, Montreal, Quebec, Canada and Honorary Professor in School of Language, Literacies, Media and Drama Education at the University of KwaZulu-Natal. Ann Smith taught English Literature at the University of the Witwatersrand for 23 years before becoming an independent educational consultant and contract lecturer in Communication Skills and Marketing at the Wits Business School. Linda Chisholm is a Director at the Education, Science and Skills Development research programme at the Human Sciences Research Council. She has over time been variously associated with the Universities of KwaZulu-Natal and Witwatersrand, Johannesburg.

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