Table I.
Example of thematic structural analysis.
| Meaning unit | Condensation | Sub-themes | Main themes |
|---|---|---|---|
| “Some of them, if you stun them they just look at you and cry… when it cries and then it gives me another thing, of eish (shivering). I like animals and now I am killing the animals. The first week before I started to stun, hey, it was difficult for me.” (RP10) | Slaughtering for the first time is very difficult | The mental trauma of the first kill | Becoming a slaughterer |
| “Sometimes I saw myself slaughtering the animals, but you see eyes, I saw, eyes of the animal. It's like its watching me. That thing, that dream, I didn't feel well even when I came back to work, but I keep on checking the eyes to see its watching me, because I saw it in the dream. It's not easy for a first time.” (P14) | Paranoid dreaming | Recurring dreams and nightmares | |
| “In my dream I see the bleeding line, just the cattle hanging on the line, all whose heads are off. I get this picture often. It's not nice to dream about blood; you wake up wet with sweat.” (RP9) | Waking up with fear after dreaming about work | ||
| “You rather lie than say where you work. You lie to them, you are ashamed where you work. My uncle told me you never say where you work. I was very ashamed, working with blood.” (RP4) | Feeling ashamed | Experiencing heightened emotive responses | (mal)adjusting to the slaughter work |
| “First, when I see all the blood there, when I looking, my eyes was looking at, aye, I don’t know what I must say, eyes was looking like red river, when they go inside, go to by-product. I am so scared at that time.” (RP11) | Feeling afraid | ||
| “Maximum six months then you make a change, because if he shoots continuously it will start affecting him. He gets a murderous attitude in him. He will do it to other people. He will stab you with a knife, turn around and walk away.” (RP8) | Slaughtering changes you (more aggressive; care less about your actions) | Experiencing personality changes | |
| “As time passes, you get used to it. You feel nothing. You can imagine, if you kill a thing a 1000 times over and over, you wouldn't have feelings after a while. It kills you on the inside, an abattoir, it kills you. You can be full of blood, it will not bother you.” (RP8) | Emotional detachment | Psychological defences | Coping with and maintaining the work |
| “Ensuring that the Muslim community are consuming whatever is wholesome and lawful that makes me very happy, because I’m doing something for the community on one side.” (RP13) | Doing meaningful work | Finding strength and meaning | |
| “The good thing is that I'm bringing money. I'm putting food on the table.” (RP6) | To sustain a living makes it worthwhile | Engaging in constructive coping and destructive coping tactics | |
| “Gym helps; gholf and rugby helps me to get rid of my frustrations.” (RP9) | Leisure help to cope with frustration | ||
| “There are guys who smoke dagga to get strength to do the job. Guys are so aggressive, every afternoon after work they go drinking.” (RP4) | Substance abuse | ||
| “What I was having was just to hit. I need to hit, especially my girlfriend. Sometimes, even if you think you can make a mistakes you hit him because eh you don't have a heart for him. That is why most people at stunning box, they can do it, they can hit their girlfriends. Say ‘hey, I hit my girlfriend yesterday’, or ‘I beat my wife yesterday’. That things we do it.” (RP5) | Violence from the work context spills over to personal life | Work-life spill-over | Living with the psycho-social consequence of slaughter work |
| “Some of my friends rejected me after working here. They said I'm a killer, I can't go with them. They say I have a gun and they don't trust me anymore. They were scared of me. They heard me shouting while dreaming about cattle.” (RP10) | Experiencing social rejection from friends | Experiencing social detachment and isolation |