Katinka de Wet completed her undergraduate studies at the University of the Free State and obtained het PhD in Sociology in 2007 at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales in Paris, France. In 2008 she took up a position as researcher at the Centre for Health Systems Research & Development and in April 2011 joined the Sociology Department of the University of the Free State. She is passionate about issues pertaining to Human Resources for Health, especially as it relates to informal care-giving practices performed by Community Health Care Workers. She also studies the demand-side of health care, notably in the public health care domain with several research projects aimed at providing a longitudinal view of HIV and AIDS services and experiences. In 2019, she published a monograph titled “The Normalization of HIV and AIDS in South Africa” with Routledge.

Since 2021, she has embarked on an exciting new venture at the UFS with her involvement in the “Interdisciplinary Centre for Digital Futures” (ICDF). Together with Herkulaas Combrink, she is the interim co-director. The vision and focus of the ICDF is to develop critical and relevant research among all UFS faculties and with industry, government, and the community in the ubiquitous domain of the “digital”.  

Four contributions accepted for the University of Bremen’s African Development Perspectives Yearbook: Edition title: Business Opportunities, Start-ups and Digital Transformation in Africa, vol. 23 (2022)

 Maritz, J, Combrink, HMVE, de Wet, K, Saba, L & Witten, CB, “Opportunities and Challenges of Improved Small-Scale Farming Using Digital Solutions in the Free State Province, South Africa”

Combrink, HMVE, de Villiers, F, Brokensha, S, Kotzé, E & de Wet, K., “Basic digital education and the digital divide in South Africa”

Combrink, HMVE & de Wet, K., “The Implications of eHealth and Data Lakes in South African Health care”

Maritz, J, Combrink, HMVE & de Wet, K., “A Possible Niche Application to Enhance the Uptake of Digital Twins in South African Agriculture”

Publications: 

Combrink, H.M.V.E., Van der Merwe, N.C., Katarya, R., de Wet, K. & Motloung, M.H. 2022 “A South African IndianPopulation Group Dataset For Breast Cancer and BRCA1/2 variants” Data in Brief, 44, 108180, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dib.2022.108180

De Wet, K., 2019 The Normalisation of HIV and AIDS in South Africa, Routledge.

De Wet, K & Wouters, E. 2016 “Identity and the body: Narrative accounts of two HIV-positive women with lipodystrophy in post-apartheid South Africa” Social Theory & Health, 14(3): 351-371.

Wouters E. & De Wet K. 2016 « Women’s experience of HIV as a chronic illness in South Africa: biographical disruption, hard-earned lives and hybrid identity” Sociology of Health and Illness, 38(4): 521-542.

Rispel, L.C., Blaauw, D., Chirwa, T. & De Wet, K. 2014. « Factors influencing agency nursing and moonlighting among nurses in South Africa”, Global Health Action, 7: 23585 (http://dx.doi.org/10.3402/gha.v7.23585)

De Wet, K. & Du Plooy, S. 2012. “’We are left in the cold’: perceptions and responses to antiretroviral treatment roll-out in the Free State, South Africa”, SAHARA Journal, 9(1): 30-40.

De Wet, K., 2012. “Redefining Volunteerism: the rhetoric of community home-based care in (the not so new) South Africa”, Community Development, 47(1): 111-125.

De Wet, K., Wouters, E. & Engelbrecht, E. 2011. “Exploring task-shifting practices in antiretroviral treatment facilities in the Free State Province, South Africa”, Journal of Public Health Policy, 32: S94-S101

Van Rensburg, H.C.J., Wouters, E. & De Wet, K. 2011. “The evolving socio-political context of CHW programmes in South Africa: Implications for historical analysis. A commentary on van Ginneken, Lewin and Berridge “the emergence of community health worker programmes in the late-apartheid era in South Africa: An historical analysis (2010)”, Social Science and Medicine, 72: 1021-1024.

De Wet, K. 2010. “The importance of ethical appraisal in social science research: reviewing a Faculty of Humanities’ Research Ethics Committee”, Journal of Academic Ethics, 8(4): 301-314.

De Wet, K. 2010. “Les trois âges de la santé communautaire en Afrique du Sud“, Sciences Sociales et Santé, 28 (3) : 85-106

De Wet, K. 2002. “La société civile sud-africaine se mobilise dans la lutte contre le sida”, Humanitaire, n° 6, pp.43-48

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• Medical Sociology/ Sociology of Health and Illness

• Qualitative Research Methodologies

• Research ethics

• Public Sociology

• Digital Sociology

SOCT3718: Social Theory. The focus of this module is on different sociological paradigms: the classical paradigms, race paradigms; Western Marxist and critical paradigms; phenomenology; post modernism; structurationist paradigms; feminism; globalisation paradigms and the multi-paradigmatic status of sociological theory.

SOCR3728: Social Research and Practice. This module deals with the research process to introduce students to the scientific world of collecting and interpreting data and understanding issues pertaining to research traditions (positivist paradigm; interpretivist paradigm; critical paradigm); as well as issues related to ethics in research. The focus of the applied exercises is on quantitative research whereas students are also introduced - albeit in a more theoretical manner - to qualitative research.

SOCT6808: Honours - Sociological Theory. The focus of this module is on theories that take a critical stance to the formation and perpetuation of centrifugal social forces in late modern societies and by making use of contemporary social realities to understand these theories.

SOCR6808: Honours – Social Research. This module develops students’ grasp of the social research processes including various methodologies. Students are expected to develop their own research project that is supervised by senior staff members.

MDOC1513: First Year MBChB students. "The Doctor and the Environment" (3 Themes covered)