When veiled silences speak: reflexivity, trouble and repair as methodological tools for interpreting the unspoken in discourse-based data
- Morison, Tracy, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Morison, Tracy , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6220 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006280 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468794113488129
- Description: Researchers who have attempted to make sense of silence in data have generally considered literal silences or such things as laughter. We consider the analysis of veiled silences where participants speak, but their speaking serves as ‘noise’ that ‘veils’, or masks, their inability or unwillingness to talk about a (potentially sensitive) topic. Extending Lisa Mazzei’s ‘problematic of silence’ by using our performativity-performance analytical method, we propose the purposeful use of ‘unusual conversational moves’, the deployment of researcher reflexivity, and the analysis of trouble and repair as methods to expose taken-for-granted normative frameworks in veiled silences. We illustrate the potential of these research practices through reference to our study on men’s involvement in reproductive decision-making, in which participants demonstrated an inability to engage with the topic. The veiled silence that this produced, together with what was said, pointed to the operation of procreative heteronormativity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Morison, Tracy , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6220 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006280 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1468794113488129
- Description: Researchers who have attempted to make sense of silence in data have generally considered literal silences or such things as laughter. We consider the analysis of veiled silences where participants speak, but their speaking serves as ‘noise’ that ‘veils’, or masks, their inability or unwillingness to talk about a (potentially sensitive) topic. Extending Lisa Mazzei’s ‘problematic of silence’ by using our performativity-performance analytical method, we propose the purposeful use of ‘unusual conversational moves’, the deployment of researcher reflexivity, and the analysis of trouble and repair as methods to expose taken-for-granted normative frameworks in veiled silences. We illustrate the potential of these research practices through reference to our study on men’s involvement in reproductive decision-making, in which participants demonstrated an inability to engage with the topic. The veiled silence that this produced, together with what was said, pointed to the operation of procreative heteronormativity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
A performative-performance analytical approach: infusing Butlerian theory into the narrative-discursive method
- Morison, Tracy, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Morison, Tracy , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6212 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003065 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1077800413494344
- Description: Judith Butler’s theory of performativity provides gender theorists with a rich theoretical language for thinking about gender. Despite this, Butlerian theory is difficult to apply, as Butler does not provide guidance on actual analysis of language use in context. In order to address this limitation, we suggest carefully supplementing performativity with the notion of performance in a manner that allows for the inclusion of relational specificities and the mechanisms through which gender, and gender trouble, occur. To do this, we turn to current developments within discursive psychology and narrative theory. We extend the narrative-discursive method proposed by Taylor and colleagues, infusing it with Butlerian theory in order to fashion a dual analytical lens, which we call the performativity-performance approach. We provide a brief example of how the proposed analytical process may be implemented.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
- Authors: Morison, Tracy , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2013
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6212 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1003065 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/1077800413494344
- Description: Judith Butler’s theory of performativity provides gender theorists with a rich theoretical language for thinking about gender. Despite this, Butlerian theory is difficult to apply, as Butler does not provide guidance on actual analysis of language use in context. In order to address this limitation, we suggest carefully supplementing performativity with the notion of performance in a manner that allows for the inclusion of relational specificities and the mechanisms through which gender, and gender trouble, occur. To do this, we turn to current developments within discursive psychology and narrative theory. We extend the narrative-discursive method proposed by Taylor and colleagues, infusing it with Butlerian theory in order to fashion a dual analytical lens, which we call the performativity-performance approach. We provide a brief example of how the proposed analytical process may be implemented.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2013
Stigma resistance in online child free communities : the limitations of choice rhetoric
- Morison, Tracy, Macleod, Catriona I, Lynch, Ingrid, Mijas, Magda, Shivakumar, Seemanthini T
- Authors: Morison, Tracy , Macleod, Catriona I , Lynch, Ingrid , Mijas, Magda , Shivakumar, Seemanthini T
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6311 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019799 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0361684315603657
- Description: People who are voluntarily childless, or ‘‘childfree,’’ face considerable stigma. Researchers have begun to explore how these individuals respond to stigma, usually focusing on interpersonal stigma management strategies. We explored participants’ responses to stigma in a way that is cognisant of broader social norms and gender power relations. Using a feminist discursive psychology framework, we analysed women’s and men’s computer-assisted communication about their childfree status. Our analysis draws attention to ‘‘identity work’’ in the context of stigma. We show how the strategic use of ‘‘choice’’ rhetoric allowed participants to avoid stigmatised identities and was used in two contradictory ways. On the one hand, participants drew on a ‘‘childfree-by-choice script,’’ which enabled them to hold a positive identity of themselves as autonomous, rational, and responsible decision makers. On the other hand, they mobilised a ‘‘disavowal of choice script’’ that allowed a person who is unable to choose childlessness (for various reasons) to hold a blameless identity regarding deviation from the norm of parenthood. We demonstrate how choice rhetoric allowed participants to resist stigma and challenge pronatalism to some extent; we discuss the political potential of these scripts for reproductive freedom.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Morison, Tracy , Macleod, Catriona I , Lynch, Ingrid , Mijas, Magda , Shivakumar, Seemanthini T
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6311 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019799 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/10.1177/0361684315603657
- Description: People who are voluntarily childless, or ‘‘childfree,’’ face considerable stigma. Researchers have begun to explore how these individuals respond to stigma, usually focusing on interpersonal stigma management strategies. We explored participants’ responses to stigma in a way that is cognisant of broader social norms and gender power relations. Using a feminist discursive psychology framework, we analysed women’s and men’s computer-assisted communication about their childfree status. Our analysis draws attention to ‘‘identity work’’ in the context of stigma. We show how the strategic use of ‘‘choice’’ rhetoric allowed participants to avoid stigmatised identities and was used in two contradictory ways. On the one hand, participants drew on a ‘‘childfree-by-choice script,’’ which enabled them to hold a positive identity of themselves as autonomous, rational, and responsible decision makers. On the other hand, they mobilised a ‘‘disavowal of choice script’’ that allowed a person who is unable to choose childlessness (for various reasons) to hold a blameless identity regarding deviation from the norm of parenthood. We demonstrate how choice rhetoric allowed participants to resist stigma and challenge pronatalism to some extent; we discuss the political potential of these scripts for reproductive freedom.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Men's pathways to parenthood: Silences and heterosexual gender norms
- Morison, Tracy, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Morison, Tracy , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Book
- Identifier: vital:548 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018815 , http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2332
- Description: How does the decision to become a parent unfold for heterosexual men? Is becoming a father a 'decision' at all or a series of events? These questions are the starting point for this critical book, in which the authors unravel the social and interpersonal processes – shaped by deeply entrenched socio-cultural norms – that come to bear on parenthood decision-making in the South African context. Drawing on the narratives of white, Afrikaans women and men, Men's Pathways to Parenthood uses an innovative discursive method to illuminate the roles masculinity, whiteness, class, and heteronormativity play in these accounts. Men's Pathways to Parenthood addresses an under-researched topic in gender studies – namely, men and reproductive decision-making – and will be an important resource for scholars in gender studies, sexualities, and reproductive health, as well as those interested in innovative approaches to discursive research.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Morison, Tracy , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Book
- Identifier: vital:548 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018815 , http://www.hsrcpress.ac.za/product.php?productid=2332
- Description: How does the decision to become a parent unfold for heterosexual men? Is becoming a father a 'decision' at all or a series of events? These questions are the starting point for this critical book, in which the authors unravel the social and interpersonal processes – shaped by deeply entrenched socio-cultural norms – that come to bear on parenthood decision-making in the South African context. Drawing on the narratives of white, Afrikaans women and men, Men's Pathways to Parenthood uses an innovative discursive method to illuminate the roles masculinity, whiteness, class, and heteronormativity play in these accounts. Men's Pathways to Parenthood addresses an under-researched topic in gender studies – namely, men and reproductive decision-making – and will be an important resource for scholars in gender studies, sexualities, and reproductive health, as well as those interested in innovative approaches to discursive research.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Feminist health psychology and abortion : towards a politics of transversal relations of commonality
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: Text
- Identifier: vital:6303 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015959
- Description: In 1992 Speckhard and Rue argued in the Journal of Social Issues for the recognition of a diagnostic category, post-abortion syndrome (PAS). This term was first used in 1981 by Vincent Rue in testimony to the American Congress, but was only formalised in a published paper a decade later. Speckhard and Rue (1992) posit that abortion is a psychosocial stressor that may cause mild distress through to severe trauma, creating the need for a continuum of categories, these being post-abortion distress, post-abortion syndrome and post-abortion psychosis. PAS, which is the main focus of their paper, and which has taken root in some professional language as well as lay anti-abortion discourse, is described as a type of post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Feminist health psychology and abortion : towards a politics of transversal relations of commonality
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: Text
- Identifier: vital:6303 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015959
- Description: In 1992 Speckhard and Rue argued in the Journal of Social Issues for the recognition of a diagnostic category, post-abortion syndrome (PAS). This term was first used in 1981 by Vincent Rue in testimony to the American Congress, but was only formalised in a published paper a decade later. Speckhard and Rue (1992) posit that abortion is a psychosocial stressor that may cause mild distress through to severe trauma, creating the need for a continuum of categories, these being post-abortion distress, post-abortion syndrome and post-abortion psychosis. PAS, which is the main focus of their paper, and which has taken root in some professional language as well as lay anti-abortion discourse, is described as a type of post-traumatic stress disorder.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
Developing principles for research about young women and abortion: a feminist analysis of difficulties in current South African studies
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6292 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014716
- Description: Soon after the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy (CTOP) Act of 1996, which legalised abortion for the first time, was passed. Since the introduction of the CTOP, a number of studies have been conducted on abortion in South Africa. Many have taken a health-related focus, but some research on young women and abortion has also been conducted, and it is to this (published) research that this article speaks. Two facts highlight the importance of this kind of research in the context of the abortion debate. Firstly, data from the Department of Health indicate that from 1997 to mid-2006, 12% of women undergoing terminations in the provinces in which age-related data are available were under the age of 18 (Department of Health: 2006). Secondly, the subsection of the Act allowing minors to request abortions without parental consent has caused some controversy. For example, the Christian Lawyers Association filed a suit in the Pretoria High Court in 2003, arguing that the above-mentioned subsection was unconstitutional. Their application was not successful. The research conducted on young women and abortion is etched against a background of change and contradiction in young people’s lives in South Africa. In addition to enabling legislation on termination of pregnancy, which is premised on the rights-based approach of the first democratically elected government of South Africa, various opportunities and challenges define the lives of young women. Specifically in relation to sexual and reproductive health, the Department of Health’s National Adolescent Friendly Clinic Initiative aims to make family planning and other services more accessible and acceptable to young women (Dickson-Tetteh et al., 2001). However,HIV/AIDS and “safe sex” programmes define sex as dangerous and individual young women as responsible for close monitoring of heterosexual spaces. The Child Support Grant, shown to enable functional mothering (Case et al., 2005), has sparked controversy in terms of providing perverse incentives for poor young women to conceive (a claim refuted by the research – Makiwane & Udjo, 2005). Young, black and poor women who conceive are, in particular, stigmatised and teenage pregnancy is in many respects racialised (Macleod & Durrheim, 2002). In this paper I highlight some of the problems in the research conducted on young women and abortion in South Africa since the legalisation of abortion. The specific aim of the paper is, through this analysis, to draw out feminist principles that should be considered in this kind of research. My argument draws on postcolonial feminisms that theorise the multiplicity of oppression along gender and, inter alia, race, class, age and location lines (Macleod, 2006). The paper is premised on the assumption that, in a field as fraught with gendered, race and class politics as abortion, regardless of the method used, researchers need to inspect the ideological implications of their work, and to be vigilant about their scholastic practices, and any claims legitimately made.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6292 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014716
- Description: Soon after the first democratic elections in South Africa in 1994, the Choice on Termination of Pregnancy (CTOP) Act of 1996, which legalised abortion for the first time, was passed. Since the introduction of the CTOP, a number of studies have been conducted on abortion in South Africa. Many have taken a health-related focus, but some research on young women and abortion has also been conducted, and it is to this (published) research that this article speaks. Two facts highlight the importance of this kind of research in the context of the abortion debate. Firstly, data from the Department of Health indicate that from 1997 to mid-2006, 12% of women undergoing terminations in the provinces in which age-related data are available were under the age of 18 (Department of Health: 2006). Secondly, the subsection of the Act allowing minors to request abortions without parental consent has caused some controversy. For example, the Christian Lawyers Association filed a suit in the Pretoria High Court in 2003, arguing that the above-mentioned subsection was unconstitutional. Their application was not successful. The research conducted on young women and abortion is etched against a background of change and contradiction in young people’s lives in South Africa. In addition to enabling legislation on termination of pregnancy, which is premised on the rights-based approach of the first democratically elected government of South Africa, various opportunities and challenges define the lives of young women. Specifically in relation to sexual and reproductive health, the Department of Health’s National Adolescent Friendly Clinic Initiative aims to make family planning and other services more accessible and acceptable to young women (Dickson-Tetteh et al., 2001). However,HIV/AIDS and “safe sex” programmes define sex as dangerous and individual young women as responsible for close monitoring of heterosexual spaces. The Child Support Grant, shown to enable functional mothering (Case et al., 2005), has sparked controversy in terms of providing perverse incentives for poor young women to conceive (a claim refuted by the research – Makiwane & Udjo, 2005). Young, black and poor women who conceive are, in particular, stigmatised and teenage pregnancy is in many respects racialised (Macleod & Durrheim, 2002). In this paper I highlight some of the problems in the research conducted on young women and abortion in South Africa since the legalisation of abortion. The specific aim of the paper is, through this analysis, to draw out feminist principles that should be considered in this kind of research. My argument draws on postcolonial feminisms that theorise the multiplicity of oppression along gender and, inter alia, race, class, age and location lines (Macleod, 2006). The paper is premised on the assumption that, in a field as fraught with gendered, race and class politics as abortion, regardless of the method used, researchers need to inspect the ideological implications of their work, and to be vigilant about their scholastic practices, and any claims legitimately made.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
Abortion in legal, social, and healthcare contexts
- Marecek, Jeanne, Macleod, Catriona I, Hoggart, Lesley
- Authors: Marecek, Jeanne , Macleod, Catriona I , Hoggart, Lesley
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68478 , vital:29262 , https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353516689521
- Description: Publisher version , From Introduction: The subject of abortion is both timely and of high relevance to feminists. In the past few months, women’s access to abortion has been contested in various parts of the world. In many countries in Latin America, the Zika outbreak raised the demand for abortions among pregnant women who had contracted (or feared contracting) the virus, with its risk of severe foetal abnormalities. In Poland, mass demonstrations by women succeeded in turning back proposed legislation prohibiting abortions. The outcome of the U.S. elections in late 2016 raised grave concerns about the future of American women’s access to abortion, which was already limited by stringent regulations and funding restrictions. We chose the title ‘‘Abortion in Context’’ to signal that we sought to publish work that moved beyond examining abortion as a ‘‘stress experience’’ encountered by individual women or as a possible precursor of mental illness. Our goal was to assemble a set of articles that would prompt readers to think critically about practices and discourses surrounding abortion. We further hoped to include work that would address the meanings and practices of abortion in the global South and among minoritized groups in the global North. We were pleased by the enthusiastic response to our Call for Papers. We note that Eklund and Purewal (2017, this issue) address abortion in China and India. Thoradeniya’s (2017, this issue) review of Abortion in Asia (Whittaker, 2010) provides a glimpse of the complex and varied practices, policies, and experiences of abortion in parts of South and Southeast Asia. Chiweshe, Mavuso, and Macleod (whose work will appear in Part 2 of the Special Issue) take up abortion in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Le Grice and Braun (whose work will also appear in Part 2), examine Maori perspectives on abortion. In this Part 1 of the Special Issue, we present work that locates abortion practices and policies in legal, social, and healthcare contexts. Women’s efforts to exercise agency with regard to bodily integrity in the context of pregnancy are shaped most obviously by the legal regulations in the jurisdictions where they live, but they are also shaped by social and cultural issues, biotechnological advances, and healthcare systems. The articles offer detailed examinations of some of these complex contextual framings of abortion.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Marecek, Jeanne , Macleod, Catriona I , Hoggart, Lesley
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/68478 , vital:29262 , https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353516689521
- Description: Publisher version , From Introduction: The subject of abortion is both timely and of high relevance to feminists. In the past few months, women’s access to abortion has been contested in various parts of the world. In many countries in Latin America, the Zika outbreak raised the demand for abortions among pregnant women who had contracted (or feared contracting) the virus, with its risk of severe foetal abnormalities. In Poland, mass demonstrations by women succeeded in turning back proposed legislation prohibiting abortions. The outcome of the U.S. elections in late 2016 raised grave concerns about the future of American women’s access to abortion, which was already limited by stringent regulations and funding restrictions. We chose the title ‘‘Abortion in Context’’ to signal that we sought to publish work that moved beyond examining abortion as a ‘‘stress experience’’ encountered by individual women or as a possible precursor of mental illness. Our goal was to assemble a set of articles that would prompt readers to think critically about practices and discourses surrounding abortion. We further hoped to include work that would address the meanings and practices of abortion in the global South and among minoritized groups in the global North. We were pleased by the enthusiastic response to our Call for Papers. We note that Eklund and Purewal (2017, this issue) address abortion in China and India. Thoradeniya’s (2017, this issue) review of Abortion in Asia (Whittaker, 2010) provides a glimpse of the complex and varied practices, policies, and experiences of abortion in parts of South and Southeast Asia. Chiweshe, Mavuso, and Macleod (whose work will appear in Part 2 of the Special Issue) take up abortion in South Africa and Zimbabwe. Le Grice and Braun (whose work will also appear in Part 2), examine Maori perspectives on abortion. In this Part 1 of the Special Issue, we present work that locates abortion practices and policies in legal, social, and healthcare contexts. Women’s efforts to exercise agency with regard to bodily integrity in the context of pregnancy are shaped most obviously by the legal regulations in the jurisdictions where they live, but they are also shaped by social and cultural issues, biotechnological advances, and healthcare systems. The articles offer detailed examinations of some of these complex contextual framings of abortion.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
Theory and South African developmental psychology research and literature
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Book chapter
- Identifier: vital:6300 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015326
- Description: In this chapter we shall examine the theoretical assumptions that drive developmental psychology research and literature in South Africa. The basic underlying models utilised in developmental research may be described as (a) mechanistic; (b) organismic; (c) contextual and (d) social constructionist. A description of the fundamental premises of each of these will be followed by examples of research that utilise the particular approach. In the discussion, some of the controversies that plague developmental psychology research will be highlighted.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Book chapter
- Identifier: vital:6300 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015326
- Description: In this chapter we shall examine the theoretical assumptions that drive developmental psychology research and literature in South Africa. The basic underlying models utilised in developmental research may be described as (a) mechanistic; (b) organismic; (c) contextual and (d) social constructionist. A description of the fundamental premises of each of these will be followed by examples of research that utilise the particular approach. In the discussion, some of the controversies that plague developmental psychology research will be highlighted.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
A discourse of disconnect : young people from the Eastern Cape talk about the failure of adult communications to provide habitable sexual subject positions
- Jearey-Graham, Nicola, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Jearey-Graham, Nicola , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6308 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018864 , http://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC171669
- Description: Face-to-face adult communication with young people about sexuality is, for the most part, assigned to two main groups of people: educators tasked with teaching schoolbased sexuality education that is provided as part of the compulsory Life Orientation (LO) learning area, and parents. In this paper, we report on a study conducted with Further Education and Training College students in an Eastern Cape town. Using a discursive psychology lens, we analysed data from, first, a written question on what participants remember being taught about sexuality in LO classes and, second, focus group discussions held with mixed and same-sex groups. Discussions were structured around the sexualities of high school learners and the LO sexuality education that participants received at high school. We highlight participants’ common deployment of a ‘discourse of disconnect’ in their talk. In this discourse, the messages of ‘risk’ and ‘responsibility’ contained in adult face-to-face communications, by both parents and LO teachers, are depicted as being delivered through inadequate or nonrelational styles of communication, and as largely irrelevant to participants’ lives. Neither of these sources of communication was seen as understanding the realities of youth sexualities or as creating habitable or performable sexual subject positions. The dominance of this ‘discourse of disconnect’ has implications for how sexuality education and parent communication interventions are conducted.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Jearey-Graham, Nicola , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6308 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1018864 , http://0-hdl.handle.net.wam.seals.ac.za/10520/EJC171669
- Description: Face-to-face adult communication with young people about sexuality is, for the most part, assigned to two main groups of people: educators tasked with teaching schoolbased sexuality education that is provided as part of the compulsory Life Orientation (LO) learning area, and parents. In this paper, we report on a study conducted with Further Education and Training College students in an Eastern Cape town. Using a discursive psychology lens, we analysed data from, first, a written question on what participants remember being taught about sexuality in LO classes and, second, focus group discussions held with mixed and same-sex groups. Discussions were structured around the sexualities of high school learners and the LO sexuality education that participants received at high school. We highlight participants’ common deployment of a ‘discourse of disconnect’ in their talk. In this discourse, the messages of ‘risk’ and ‘responsibility’ contained in adult face-to-face communications, by both parents and LO teachers, are depicted as being delivered through inadequate or nonrelational styles of communication, and as largely irrelevant to participants’ lives. Neither of these sources of communication was seen as understanding the realities of youth sexualities or as creating habitable or performable sexual subject positions. The dominance of this ‘discourse of disconnect’ has implications for how sexuality education and parent communication interventions are conducted.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Counsellors’ constructions of intimate partner violence (IPV) during pregnancy and their interventions with women suffering such IPV:
- Fleischack, Annie, Macleod, Catriona I, Böhmke, Werner
- Authors: Fleischack, Annie , Macleod, Catriona I , Böhmke, Werner
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143716 , vital:38276 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: South African research reveals a high prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) yet little research exists regarding IPV during pregnancy. In this paper we present data collected through narrative interviews with eight counsellors from two NGOs working with women experiencing IPV during pregnancy. Using a narrative-discursive analytical lens, attention was given to the construction of subject positions and power relations between the men and women in the counsellors’ narratives. Men were largely positioned as subscribing to violent patriarchal behaviour whilst women were mostly positioned as nurturing, and as victims. The counsellors saw IPV during pregnancy as occurring for a variety of reasons, including conflicts around abortion, and male partners finding the women physically unattractive. It was noted that IPV during pregnancy is managed by women in complex ways. Counsellors’ emphasis on individual counselling and leaving the IPV relationship suggests that women are ultimately responsible for their own wellbeing and success.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Fleischack, Annie , Macleod, Catriona I , Böhmke, Werner
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143716 , vital:38276 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: South African research reveals a high prevalence of intimate partner violence (IPV) yet little research exists regarding IPV during pregnancy. In this paper we present data collected through narrative interviews with eight counsellors from two NGOs working with women experiencing IPV during pregnancy. Using a narrative-discursive analytical lens, attention was given to the construction of subject positions and power relations between the men and women in the counsellors’ narratives. Men were largely positioned as subscribing to violent patriarchal behaviour whilst women were mostly positioned as nurturing, and as victims. The counsellors saw IPV during pregnancy as occurring for a variety of reasons, including conflicts around abortion, and male partners finding the women physically unattractive. It was noted that IPV during pregnancy is managed by women in complex ways. Counsellors’ emphasis on individual counselling and leaving the IPV relationship suggests that women are ultimately responsible for their own wellbeing and success.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
The intersection of culture and gender in constructions of ukuzila’ (spousal mourning) among AmaXhosa in the Eastern Cape:
- Ngqangweni, Hlonelwa, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Ngqangweni, Hlonelwa , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143615 , vital:38267 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Mourning is a universal and culturally specific practice following the death of a significant other. The Xhosa equivalent of the mourning process is ukuzila. Very little has been written on the subject of ukuzila in spite of the detrimental effects of the practice on the widows’ health and safety, as well as the discriminatory nature of the practice. This paper presents the findings of a discourse analytic qualitative study conducted among isiXhosa speaking men and women in South Africa. The study revealed ukuzila as a practice put in place to show respect to the deceased. However, the showing of respect revealed a historically gendered cultural practice, imbued with power relations and centred on ‘visibility’. In light of this finding, the authors propose further research which includes exploring people’s willingness to change to a non-gendered practice of ukuzila, and alternate expressions of ukuzila that suit women rather than ‘culture’ and society.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Ngqangweni, Hlonelwa , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143615 , vital:38267 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Mourning is a universal and culturally specific practice following the death of a significant other. The Xhosa equivalent of the mourning process is ukuzila. Very little has been written on the subject of ukuzila in spite of the detrimental effects of the practice on the widows’ health and safety, as well as the discriminatory nature of the practice. This paper presents the findings of a discourse analytic qualitative study conducted among isiXhosa speaking men and women in South Africa. The study revealed ukuzila as a practice put in place to show respect to the deceased. However, the showing of respect revealed a historically gendered cultural practice, imbued with power relations and centred on ‘visibility’. In light of this finding, the authors propose further research which includes exploring people’s willingness to change to a non-gendered practice of ukuzila, and alternate expressions of ukuzila that suit women rather than ‘culture’ and society.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Women’s micro-narratives of the process of abortion decision-making: justifying the decision to have an abortion
- Mavuso, Jabulile, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Mavuso, Jabulile , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143893 , vital:38292 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: What is missing from abortion research is research that explores women’s narratives of the processes of abortion decision-making in a way that acknowledges the constraints placed on ‘choice’. This study sought to explore, using Foucauldian feminist post-structuralism and a narrative-discursive approach, women’s micro-narratives of the abortion decision-making process. Purposive sampling was used to recruit a total of 25 participants from three abortion facilities in the Eastern Cape. Participants were unmarried ‘Black’ women between the ages of 19 and 35, and were mostly unemployed. Narrative interviews were done with the women. Analysis revealed an over-arching narrative in which women described the abortion decision as something that they were ‘forced’ into by their circumstances. To construct this narrative, women justified the decision to have an abortion by drawing on discourses that normalise certain practices located within the husband-wife and parent-child axes and make the pregnancy a problematic, unsupported and unsupportable one. Gendered and generational power relations reinforced this and contributed to the obstruction of reproductive justice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Mavuso, Jabulile , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143893 , vital:38292 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: What is missing from abortion research is research that explores women’s narratives of the processes of abortion decision-making in a way that acknowledges the constraints placed on ‘choice’. This study sought to explore, using Foucauldian feminist post-structuralism and a narrative-discursive approach, women’s micro-narratives of the abortion decision-making process. Purposive sampling was used to recruit a total of 25 participants from three abortion facilities in the Eastern Cape. Participants were unmarried ‘Black’ women between the ages of 19 and 35, and were mostly unemployed. Narrative interviews were done with the women. Analysis revealed an over-arching narrative in which women described the abortion decision as something that they were ‘forced’ into by their circumstances. To construct this narrative, women justified the decision to have an abortion by drawing on discourses that normalise certain practices located within the husband-wife and parent-child axes and make the pregnancy a problematic, unsupported and unsupportable one. Gendered and generational power relations reinforced this and contributed to the obstruction of reproductive justice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
A narrative-discursive analysis of abortion decision making in Zimbabwe:
- Chiweshe, Malvern T, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Chiweshe, Malvern T , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143882 , vital:38291 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: The available research on abortion-decision-making tends to focus on the ‘factors’ or ‘influences’ that are seen to affect abortion decision-making. This approach is rarely able to account for the complex, multi-faceted nature of abortion decision-making, and is often not located within a framework that can unpick the complex array of power relations that underpin the ‘process’ of abortion decision-making. Data reported on in this paper were collected from three sites in Zimbabwe. Narrative interviews were conducted with 18 women who had terminated pregnancies (six at each site) and semi-structured interviews were conducted with six service providers. The women employed discursive resources around stigma, religion, health and culture in telling stories around abortion shame, abortion as justified and the fearful, secretive act of abortion. Comparisons of the way women positioned themselves and how they were positioned by health service providers point to the availability and embeddedness of social discourses and power relations that work to enable/constrain reproductive justice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Chiweshe, Malvern T , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143882 , vital:38291 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: The available research on abortion-decision-making tends to focus on the ‘factors’ or ‘influences’ that are seen to affect abortion decision-making. This approach is rarely able to account for the complex, multi-faceted nature of abortion decision-making, and is often not located within a framework that can unpick the complex array of power relations that underpin the ‘process’ of abortion decision-making. Data reported on in this paper were collected from three sites in Zimbabwe. Narrative interviews were conducted with 18 women who had terminated pregnancies (six at each site) and semi-structured interviews were conducted with six service providers. The women employed discursive resources around stigma, religion, health and culture in telling stories around abortion shame, abortion as justified and the fearful, secretive act of abortion. Comparisons of the way women positioned themselves and how they were positioned by health service providers point to the availability and embeddedness of social discourses and power relations that work to enable/constrain reproductive justice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Reconsidering research ethics in ethnographic research: bearing witness to ‘irreparable harm’
- Barker, Kim, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Barker, Kim , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143805 , vital:38284 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Research with persons who have experienced trauma requires careful consideration. In preparing the ethics protocol for an ethnographic study of an anti-rape protest, we thought carefully about how the first author would manage ethical decisions in accordance with the University ethics code. However, this process did not prepare us for the dynamic and reciprocal positioning the first author encountered in the field. Nor was she prepared for her sense of the ethical duty of response when entrusted with the narratives of women who had suffered ‘irredeemable harm’. Drawing on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, and examples from the research, we show how ethical decision-making in ethnographic research is always relational and dialogical; extending beyond our direct interactions with participants to the ways in which we approach our ‘data’. We argue that ethics cannot be reduced to a cognitive-rational process and propose ways to acknowledge and draw on the ‘affective’ and ‘transcendent’ in our ethical decision-making.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Barker, Kim , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143805 , vital:38284 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Research with persons who have experienced trauma requires careful consideration. In preparing the ethics protocol for an ethnographic study of an anti-rape protest, we thought carefully about how the first author would manage ethical decisions in accordance with the University ethics code. However, this process did not prepare us for the dynamic and reciprocal positioning the first author encountered in the field. Nor was she prepared for her sense of the ethical duty of response when entrusted with the narratives of women who had suffered ‘irredeemable harm’. Drawing on the philosophy of Emmanuel Levinas, and examples from the research, we show how ethical decision-making in ethnographic research is always relational and dialogical; extending beyond our direct interactions with participants to the ways in which we approach our ‘data’. We argue that ethics cannot be reduced to a cognitive-rational process and propose ways to acknowledge and draw on the ‘affective’ and ‘transcendent’ in our ethical decision-making.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
‘Victim’ or ‘survivor’?: language, identity and ethics revisited
- Barker, Kim, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Barker, Kim , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143738 , vital:38278 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Initially in feminist circles, and subsequently in more common usage, the term ‘survivor’ came to signify those who have been (sexually) violated and live on, and even thrive. The passivity implied by the term ‘victim’ therefore gave way to the more agentic connotations of ‘survivor’. However, neither term adequately captures the complexity and fluidity of subject positions taken up by and ascribed to women who have been subjected to sexual violence. The selection of an inadequate word is not neutral: each identifier calls forth particular identity constructions which have real effects. Reducing women’s experiences to one pole of this simple binary can diminish and totalise those experiences. In this paper we re-consider the use of these terms with reference to research conducted with protestors participating in an annual anti-rape protest held at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. We focus on the perspectives of women who are ‘survivors’ of sexual violence.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Barker, Kim , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143738 , vital:38278 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Initially in feminist circles, and subsequently in more common usage, the term ‘survivor’ came to signify those who have been (sexually) violated and live on, and even thrive. The passivity implied by the term ‘victim’ therefore gave way to the more agentic connotations of ‘survivor’. However, neither term adequately captures the complexity and fluidity of subject positions taken up by and ascribed to women who have been subjected to sexual violence. The selection of an inadequate word is not neutral: each identifier calls forth particular identity constructions which have real effects. Reducing women’s experiences to one pole of this simple binary can diminish and totalise those experiences. In this paper we re-consider the use of these terms with reference to research conducted with protestors participating in an annual anti-rape protest held at Rhodes University, Grahamstown, South Africa. We focus on the perspectives of women who are ‘survivors’ of sexual violence.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Exploring the emancipatory potential of nursing practice in relation to sexuality: a systematic literature review of nursing research 2009-2014
- Nhamo-Murire, Mercy, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Nhamo-Murire, Mercy , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143650 , vital:38270 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Nurses play an important role in disseminating health information and in the provision of counselling concerning sexuality healthcare settings. There is some evidence, however, that nurses do not always consider issues relating to sexualities in their general practice, and when they do, may feel some discomfort in addressing sexuality. In this paper we report on a systematic review of research on nursing practice in relation to sexualities that appeared in nursing journals in the Web of Science database from 2009-2014. Thirty nine articles, which were published in English and reported on nursing practice in relation to sexualities, were thematically analysed. We focus on what research has been done and how this research may be used in the development of emancipatory nursing practice in relation to sexualities. Despite increasing attention being paid to social justice issues in nursing, the implications of this for nursing practice needs further exploration.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Nhamo-Murire, Mercy , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143650 , vital:38270 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Nurses play an important role in disseminating health information and in the provision of counselling concerning sexuality healthcare settings. There is some evidence, however, that nurses do not always consider issues relating to sexualities in their general practice, and when they do, may feel some discomfort in addressing sexuality. In this paper we report on a systematic review of research on nursing practice in relation to sexualities that appeared in nursing journals in the Web of Science database from 2009-2014. Thirty nine articles, which were published in English and reported on nursing practice in relation to sexualities, were thematically analysed. We focus on what research has been done and how this research may be used in the development of emancipatory nursing practice in relation to sexualities. Despite increasing attention being paid to social justice issues in nursing, the implications of this for nursing practice needs further exploration.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Pecha Kucha 1: Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143915 , vital:38294 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Despite enabling legislation and policies in the areas of sexualities and reproduction in South Africa, multiple challenges persist, including: forced sexual debut, sexual coercion and violence; HIV infection; hate crimes against lesbian women and gay men; unwanted and unsupportable pregnancies. While it is acknowledged that interventions (e.g., sexuality education programmes, the promotion of antenatal care use and the promotion of non-discrimination) have the potential to improve men’s and women’s sexual and reproductive lives. There are also multiple ways in which such programmes and the surrounding public discourses concerning sexuality and reproduction can serve in often unintended and unwitting ways to perpetuate oppressive heteronormative, gendered, racialised and class-based power relations. The Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction research programme focuses on how particular discourses, narratives, and practices promote inclusion or exclusion, belonging or marginalisation, equity or inequity, justice or injustice, access to, or denial of, sexual and reproductive rights.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143915 , vital:38294 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Despite enabling legislation and policies in the areas of sexualities and reproduction in South Africa, multiple challenges persist, including: forced sexual debut, sexual coercion and violence; HIV infection; hate crimes against lesbian women and gay men; unwanted and unsupportable pregnancies. While it is acknowledged that interventions (e.g., sexuality education programmes, the promotion of antenatal care use and the promotion of non-discrimination) have the potential to improve men’s and women’s sexual and reproductive lives. There are also multiple ways in which such programmes and the surrounding public discourses concerning sexuality and reproduction can serve in often unintended and unwitting ways to perpetuate oppressive heteronormative, gendered, racialised and class-based power relations. The Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction research programme focuses on how particular discourses, narratives, and practices promote inclusion or exclusion, belonging or marginalisation, equity or inequity, justice or injustice, access to, or denial of, sexual and reproductive rights.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Young people’s use of ‘peer pressure/normalization’ as discursive resources to justify gendered youth sexualities: implications for Life Orientation sexuality education programmes
- Jearey-Graham, Nicola, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Jearey-Graham, Nicola , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143749 , vital:38279 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: ‘Peer pressure’ has been associated in the scientific literature with a range of risky sexual behaviors, thereby undermining safe sex messages delivered in Life Orientation (LO) classes. LO texts warn against peer pressure. Taking a discursive psychology perspective, we show how young people, in contrast, use the discourses of ‘peer pressure to have sex’ and ‘peer normalization of sex’ to justify youth sexual activity. Using data from focus group discussions about youth sexualities with students at a Further Education and Training College in South Africa, we show how participants outlined a need for young people to be socially recognizable through engaging in, and being able to talk about sex, and how they implicated peer norms in governing individual sexual behavior. Both discourses pointed to a gendering of sexual norms. The deployment of these discourses by young people themselves has implications for Life Orientation programmes. Nuanced engagement with ‘peer group’ narratives is indicated.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Jearey-Graham, Nicola , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143749 , vital:38279 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: ‘Peer pressure’ has been associated in the scientific literature with a range of risky sexual behaviors, thereby undermining safe sex messages delivered in Life Orientation (LO) classes. LO texts warn against peer pressure. Taking a discursive psychology perspective, we show how young people, in contrast, use the discourses of ‘peer pressure to have sex’ and ‘peer normalization of sex’ to justify youth sexual activity. Using data from focus group discussions about youth sexualities with students at a Further Education and Training College in South Africa, we show how participants outlined a need for young people to be socially recognizable through engaging in, and being able to talk about sex, and how they implicated peer norms in governing individual sexual behavior. Both discourses pointed to a gendering of sexual norms. The deployment of these discourses by young people themselves has implications for Life Orientation programmes. Nuanced engagement with ‘peer group’ narratives is indicated.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Precocious little monsters and the birth of puberty science: tracing early puberty as a health matter
- Pinto, Pedro, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Pinto, Pedro , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143626 , vital:38268 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Over the last two decades, early puberty has been increasingly portrayed in scientific and popular arenas as an alarming health issue. Changes in pubertal timing are frequently accorded a range of medical and moral dangers, suggesting individual degeneracy and social crisis. In our presentation – the first output of a Foucauldian genealogical investigation on pubertal knowledge in medical journals – we show that today’s problematisations of early puberty are rooted in the figure of the child monster, as produced in early nineteenth century medical discourse. Drawing on doctors’ clinical encounters with the pubescent body as represented in medical journals during that period, we argue that puberty, understood as a scientific construct, has been ‘praecox’ since the beginning. From this genealogical viewpoint, we explore the ways in which our present ‘pubertal complex’ talks to an old medical dilemma: the confusion of maturity and immaturity within the young body.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Pinto, Pedro , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143626 , vital:38268 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Over the last two decades, early puberty has been increasingly portrayed in scientific and popular arenas as an alarming health issue. Changes in pubertal timing are frequently accorded a range of medical and moral dangers, suggesting individual degeneracy and social crisis. In our presentation – the first output of a Foucauldian genealogical investigation on pubertal knowledge in medical journals – we show that today’s problematisations of early puberty are rooted in the figure of the child monster, as produced in early nineteenth century medical discourse. Drawing on doctors’ clinical encounters with the pubescent body as represented in medical journals during that period, we argue that puberty, understood as a scientific construct, has been ‘praecox’ since the beginning. From this genealogical viewpoint, we explore the ways in which our present ‘pubertal complex’ talks to an old medical dilemma: the confusion of maturity and immaturity within the young body.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Health Psychology and the framing of abortion in Africa: a critical review of the literature
- Macleod, Catriona I, Chiweshe, Malvern T, Mavuso, Jabulile
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Chiweshe, Malvern T , Mavuso, Jabulile
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143871 , vital:38290 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Despite 97% of abortions performed in Africa being classifiable as unsafe, there has been virtually no engagement in knowledge production about abortion in Africa from psychologists, outside of South Africa. Taking a feminist health psychology approach, we conducted a systematic review of published research on this topic featured in PsycINFO over a six year period. We analysed the 39 articles included in the review in terms of countries in which the research was conducted, types of research, issues covered, framings, and main findings. The results show that apart from a public health framing, perspectives that foreground contextual, social, cultural, gendered perspectives dominate. While abortion services, unsafe abortion and the incidence of abortion were well researched, so too were attitudes and public discourses on abortion. Clinical psychological, reproductive justice or rights and medical framings received little attention. We outline the implications of this knowledge base for feminist health psychology in Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Chiweshe, Malvern T , Mavuso, Jabulile
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143871 , vital:38290 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Despite 97% of abortions performed in Africa being classifiable as unsafe, there has been virtually no engagement in knowledge production about abortion in Africa from psychologists, outside of South Africa. Taking a feminist health psychology approach, we conducted a systematic review of published research on this topic featured in PsycINFO over a six year period. We analysed the 39 articles included in the review in terms of countries in which the research was conducted, types of research, issues covered, framings, and main findings. The results show that apart from a public health framing, perspectives that foreground contextual, social, cultural, gendered perspectives dominate. While abortion services, unsafe abortion and the incidence of abortion were well researched, so too were attitudes and public discourses on abortion. Clinical psychological, reproductive justice or rights and medical framings received little attention. We outline the implications of this knowledge base for feminist health psychology in Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015