"The man can use that power", "she got courage" and "inimba": discursive resources in counsellors' talk of intimate partner violence: implications for practice
- Fleischack, Annie, Macleod, Catriona I, Böhmke, Werner
- Authors: Fleischack, Annie , Macleod, Catriona I , Böhmke, Werner
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67498 , vital:29103 , http://dx.doi.org/10.15270/52-2-550
- Description: Publisher version , Given the high rate of intimate partner violence (IPV), understanding how counsellors talk about IPV and their interventions is important. The authors conducted narrative interviews with eight counsellors from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working with IPV. Using narrative-discursive methodology, this qualitative study paid attention to the discursive resources that the participants drew upon. Two broad clusters of discursive resources and one contradictory (‘nurturing femininity’) discourse emerged. The first cluster engenders a sense of helplessness in the face of overwhelming power relations; the second enables the counsellors to foresee positive outcomes for their counselling. Implications for counselling include emphasising enabling discourses, highlighting multiplicities of gender, and wider-scale interventions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
- Authors: Fleischack, Annie , Macleod, Catriona I , Böhmke, Werner
- Date: 2017
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/67498 , vital:29103 , http://dx.doi.org/10.15270/52-2-550
- Description: Publisher version , Given the high rate of intimate partner violence (IPV), understanding how counsellors talk about IPV and their interventions is important. The authors conducted narrative interviews with eight counsellors from non-governmental organisations (NGOs) working with IPV. Using narrative-discursive methodology, this qualitative study paid attention to the discursive resources that the participants drew upon. Two broad clusters of discursive resources and one contradictory (‘nurturing femininity’) discourse emerged. The first cluster engenders a sense of helplessness in the face of overwhelming power relations; the second enables the counsellors to foresee positive outcomes for their counselling. Implications for counselling include emphasising enabling discourses, highlighting multiplicities of gender, and wider-scale interventions.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2017
(Dis)allowances of lesbians’ sexual identities: Lesbian identity construction in racialised, classed, familial, and institutional spaces
- Gibson, Alexandra, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Gibson, Alexandra , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6222 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006536 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959353512459580
- Description: This article explores how lesbian identity construction is facilitated and constrained by the raced, classed, gendered, familial, and geographical spaces that women occupy. We present a narrative-discursive analysis of eight lesbians’ stories of sexuality, told within a historically white university in South Africa. Three interpretative repertoires that emerged in the narratives are discussed. The ‘disallowance of lesbian identity in particular racialised and class-based spaces’ repertoire, deployed by black lesbians only, was used to account for their de-emphasis of a lesbian identity through the invocation of a threat of danger and stereotyping. The ‘disjuncture of the (heterosexual) family and lesbian identity’ repertoire emphasised how the expectation of support and care within a family does not necessarily extend to acceptance of a lesbian identity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
- Authors: Gibson, Alexandra , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2012
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6222 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006536 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/0959353512459580
- Description: This article explores how lesbian identity construction is facilitated and constrained by the raced, classed, gendered, familial, and geographical spaces that women occupy. We present a narrative-discursive analysis of eight lesbians’ stories of sexuality, told within a historically white university in South Africa. Three interpretative repertoires that emerged in the narratives are discussed. The ‘disallowance of lesbian identity in particular racialised and class-based spaces’ repertoire, deployed by black lesbians only, was used to account for their de-emphasis of a lesbian identity through the invocation of a threat of danger and stereotyping. The ‘disjuncture of the (heterosexual) family and lesbian identity’ repertoire emphasised how the expectation of support and care within a family does not necessarily extend to acceptance of a lesbian identity.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2012
A decade later: follow-up review of South African research on the consequences of and contributory factors in teen-aged pregnancy
- Macleod, Catriona I, Tracey, Tiffany
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Tracey, Tiffany
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6276 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008276 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/008124631004000103
- Description: In this paper, we review South African research conducted in the last 10 years on the consequences of and contributory factors in teen-aged pregnancy. We discuss research into the rates of teen-aged pregnancy, the intentionality and wantedness of pregnancy, the disruption of schooling, health issues, consequences for the children, welfare concerns, knowledge and use of contraception, timing of sexual debut, age of partner, coercive sexual relations, cultural factors and health service provision. We compare this discussion to the reviews on the same topic appearing in the South African Journal of Psychology a decade ago. We find that there are several changes in focus in the research on pregnancy amongst young women. We conclude that, in general, there has been an improvement in the breadth of data available, mostly as a result of representative national and local surveys. A better teasing out of nuances around particular issues and a grappling with theoretical issues are also evident in recent research.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Tracey, Tiffany
- Date: 2010
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6276 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008276 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/008124631004000103
- Description: In this paper, we review South African research conducted in the last 10 years on the consequences of and contributory factors in teen-aged pregnancy. We discuss research into the rates of teen-aged pregnancy, the intentionality and wantedness of pregnancy, the disruption of schooling, health issues, consequences for the children, welfare concerns, knowledge and use of contraception, timing of sexual debut, age of partner, coercive sexual relations, cultural factors and health service provision. We compare this discussion to the reviews on the same topic appearing in the South African Journal of Psychology a decade ago. We find that there are several changes in focus in the research on pregnancy amongst young women. We conclude that, in general, there has been an improvement in the breadth of data available, mostly as a result of representative national and local surveys. A better teasing out of nuances around particular issues and a grappling with theoretical issues are also evident in recent research.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2010
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
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
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
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
Beyond coming out: lesbians’ (alternative) stories of sexual identity told in post-Apartheid South Africa
- Gibson, Alexandra, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Gibson, Alexandra , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Book chapter
- Identifier: vital:6304 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016063
- Description: Over the last several decades, the ‘coming out’i story has become entrenched as the central narrative with which lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people can narrate their experiences of claiming a sexual identity and storying their lives in general (Bacon, 1998; Blackburn, 2009). It has developed into a “canonical narrative” (Bruner, 1987, p. 15), or a culturally recognisable story for LGB people, in that it involves the recounting of a series of familiar events in moving from a place of shame to one of self-acceptance about one’s sexual identity (Cohler & Hammack, 2007; Plummer, 1995). The ‘coming out’ canonical narrative additionally operates as a counter-narrative, which has enabled LGB people to voice their sexuality within heterosexist and heteronormative confines (Blackburn, 2009). Nevertheless, there are limitations (and limiting effects) to this narrative, and further refinement of how we understand sexual identity narratives is required. To illustrate this argument, we draw on a narrative-discursive study of eight lesbians’ stories of sexual identity in post-apartheid South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Gibson, Alexandra , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Book chapter
- Identifier: vital:6304 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016063
- Description: Over the last several decades, the ‘coming out’i story has become entrenched as the central narrative with which lesbian, gay and bisexual (LGB) people can narrate their experiences of claiming a sexual identity and storying their lives in general (Bacon, 1998; Blackburn, 2009). It has developed into a “canonical narrative” (Bruner, 1987, p. 15), or a culturally recognisable story for LGB people, in that it involves the recounting of a series of familiar events in moving from a place of shame to one of self-acceptance about one’s sexual identity (Cohler & Hammack, 2007; Plummer, 1995). The ‘coming out’ canonical narrative additionally operates as a counter-narrative, which has enabled LGB people to voice their sexuality within heterosexist and heteronormative confines (Blackburn, 2009). Nevertheless, there are limitations (and limiting effects) to this narrative, and further refinement of how we understand sexual identity narratives is required. To illustrate this argument, we draw on a narrative-discursive study of eight lesbians’ stories of sexual identity in post-apartheid South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Child sexual abuse: South African research on incidence, prevalence and intervention (1984 - 1990)
- Levett, A, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Levett, A , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 1991
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6283 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014347 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16826108.1991.9631452
- Description: This article was co-written with A Levett in association with the Child Guidance Clinic, University of Cape Town. , Full text available on publisher website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16826108.1991.9631452
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1991
- Authors: Levett, A , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 1991
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6283 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014347 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16826108.1991.9631452
- Description: This article was co-written with A Levett in association with the Child Guidance Clinic, University of Cape Town. , Full text available on publisher website: http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/16826108.1991.9631452
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1991
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
Cracks in reproductive health rights: knowledge of abortion legislation stipulations amongst learners in Buffalo City, South Africa
- Macleod, Catriona I, Seutlwadi, Lebogang, Steele, Gary I
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Seutlwadi, Lebogang , Steele, Gary I
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6296 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014772
- Description: Background: The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy (CTOP) Act legalised abortion on request in South Africa until up to 12 weeks of gestation and thereafter under specified conditions. Within the context of liberal legislation, accurate information is a necessary (although not sufficient) requirement for women to exercise their reproductive rights. Objectives: This research investigated Grade 11 learners’ knowledge of the CTOP Act and its stipulations. Methods: Survey research was conducted with respondents drawn from a range of schools in Buffalo City, South Africa. Multi-stage sampling was used, namely stratified random sampling of schools and purposive sampling of grades used within schools. The data were collected by means of self-administered questionnaires in group situations. Results: Results indicate that knowledge of the legal status of abortion, as well as of the various stipulations of the law, was poor. Various misunderstandings were evident, including that spousal approval is required in order for married women to have an abortion. Significant differences between the knowledge of respondents at the various schools were found, with those learners attending schools formerly designated for African learners during Apartheid having the least knowledge. Conclusion: Given the multiple factors that may serve as barriers to women accessing abortion, it is imperative that at least the most fundamental aspect of reproductive rights, that is, the right to information, is not undermined.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Seutlwadi, Lebogang , Steele, Gary I
- Date: 2014
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6296 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014772
- Description: Background: The Choice on Termination of Pregnancy (CTOP) Act legalised abortion on request in South Africa until up to 12 weeks of gestation and thereafter under specified conditions. Within the context of liberal legislation, accurate information is a necessary (although not sufficient) requirement for women to exercise their reproductive rights. Objectives: This research investigated Grade 11 learners’ knowledge of the CTOP Act and its stipulations. Methods: Survey research was conducted with respondents drawn from a range of schools in Buffalo City, South Africa. Multi-stage sampling was used, namely stratified random sampling of schools and purposive sampling of grades used within schools. The data were collected by means of self-administered questionnaires in group situations. Results: Results indicate that knowledge of the legal status of abortion, as well as of the various stipulations of the law, was poor. Various misunderstandings were evident, including that spousal approval is required in order for married women to have an abortion. Significant differences between the knowledge of respondents at the various schools were found, with those learners attending schools formerly designated for African learners during Apartheid having the least knowledge. Conclusion: Given the multiple factors that may serve as barriers to women accessing abortion, it is imperative that at least the most fundamental aspect of reproductive rights, that is, the right to information, is not undermined.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2014
Culture as a discursive resource opposing legal abortion
- Macleod, Catriona I, Sigcau, Nomakhosi, Luwaca, Pumeza
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Sigcau, Nomakhosi , Luwaca, Pumeza
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6293 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014721 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2010.492211
- Description: The notion of ‘culture’ features in the abortion literature to explicate, first, contestation of the meaning of abortion (as in the ‘culture wars’ about abortion), second, the normalisation of abortion in certain countries (as in ‘abortion culture’), third, the response of women to abortion within a particular social milieu and fourth, cross-cultural variability in attitudes towards and experiences of abortion. What is missing is an exploration of how ‘culture’ may be deployed as a discursive resource to oppose legal abortion. In this article, we report on a study conducted in a rural area of South Africa. We conducted focus group discussions utilising hypothetical vignettes to stimulate talk. Although, inconsistencies were evident in participants’ talk, in the context of cultural discussions, abortion was constructed as killing and inevitably destructive of cultural values and traditions. Abortion was equated with colonialist interventions and as something that should be opposed in the preservation of culture. Furthermore, cultural opposition to abortion was rooted in fears around the breakdown of gendered and generational power relations. Examples of how culture may be used in everyday interactions to induce shame and negative experiences are also discussed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Sigcau, Nomakhosi , Luwaca, Pumeza
- Date: 2011
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6293 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014721 , http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2010.492211
- Description: The notion of ‘culture’ features in the abortion literature to explicate, first, contestation of the meaning of abortion (as in the ‘culture wars’ about abortion), second, the normalisation of abortion in certain countries (as in ‘abortion culture’), third, the response of women to abortion within a particular social milieu and fourth, cross-cultural variability in attitudes towards and experiences of abortion. What is missing is an exploration of how ‘culture’ may be deployed as a discursive resource to oppose legal abortion. In this article, we report on a study conducted in a rural area of South Africa. We conducted focus group discussions utilising hypothetical vignettes to stimulate talk. Although, inconsistencies were evident in participants’ talk, in the context of cultural discussions, abortion was constructed as killing and inevitably destructive of cultural values and traditions. Abortion was equated with colonialist interventions and as something that should be opposed in the preservation of culture. Furthermore, cultural opposition to abortion was rooted in fears around the breakdown of gendered and generational power relations. Examples of how culture may be used in everyday interactions to induce shame and negative experiences are also discussed.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2011
Danger and disease in sex education : the saturation of ‘adolescence’ with colonialist assumptions
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article , text
- Identifier: vital:6252 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007870
- Description: The United Nations Development Programme’s Millennium project argues for the importance of sexual and reproductive health in the achievement of all Millennium Development Goals. Sex education programmes, aimed principally at the youth, are thus emphasised and are in line with the specific Millennium Development Goals of reducing the incidence of HIV and improving maternal health. In this paper I analyse recent South African sex education and Life Orientation (a learning area containing sex education) manuals. Danger and disease feature as guiding metaphors for these manuals, with early reproduction and abortion being depicted as wholly deleterious and non-normative relationships leading to disease. I argue, firstly, that these renditions ignore well-designed comparative research that calls into questions the easy assumption of negative consequences accompanying ‘teenage pregnancy’ and abortion, and, secondly, that the persistence of danger and disease in sex education programmes is premised on a discourse of ‘adolescence’. ‘Adolescence’ as a concept is always already saturated with the colonialist foundation of phylogeny re-capitulating ontogeny. Individual development is interweaved with collective development with the threat of degeneration implied in both. This interweaving allows for the instrumentalist goal of sex education in which social changes are sought through changing individuals’ sexual attitudes and behaviour.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article , text
- Identifier: vital:6252 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007870
- Description: The United Nations Development Programme’s Millennium project argues for the importance of sexual and reproductive health in the achievement of all Millennium Development Goals. Sex education programmes, aimed principally at the youth, are thus emphasised and are in line with the specific Millennium Development Goals of reducing the incidence of HIV and improving maternal health. In this paper I analyse recent South African sex education and Life Orientation (a learning area containing sex education) manuals. Danger and disease feature as guiding metaphors for these manuals, with early reproduction and abortion being depicted as wholly deleterious and non-normative relationships leading to disease. I argue, firstly, that these renditions ignore well-designed comparative research that calls into questions the easy assumption of negative consequences accompanying ‘teenage pregnancy’ and abortion, and, secondly, that the persistence of danger and disease in sex education programmes is premised on a discourse of ‘adolescence’. ‘Adolescence’ as a concept is always already saturated with the colonialist foundation of phylogeny re-capitulating ontogeny. Individual development is interweaved with collective development with the threat of degeneration implied in both. This interweaving allows for the instrumentalist goal of sex education in which social changes are sought through changing individuals’ sexual attitudes and behaviour.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
Deconstructing developmental psychology twenty years on : reflections, implications and empirical work
- Callaghan, Jane, Andenæs, Agnes, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Callaghan, Jane , Andenæs, Agnes , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6315 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020934 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959353515583702
- Description: Editorial
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Callaghan, Jane , Andenæs, Agnes , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6315 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020934 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959353515583702
- Description: Editorial
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Deconstructive discourse analysis: extending the methodological conversation
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2002
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6259 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007877 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/008124630203200103
- Description: Discourse analysis is increasingly becoming a methodology of preference amongst qualitative researchers. There is a danger, however, of it being viewed as a bounded and uncontested domain of research practice. As discourse analysis is inextricably linked with theoretical issues, it is a dynamic practice that is constantly in a process of revision. In this paper I reflect on some of the conceptualisations undergirding the notion of discourse – conceptualisations that have important implications in terms of how the practice of discourse analysis proceeds. I highlight some of the dualisms that may plague discourse analysis, and offer some solutions to these. Finally, I outline the deconstructive discourse analysis that I utilised in my doctoral work. The purpose of the latter is not to provide a recipe of methodology, but to illustrate how elements of various theorists’ work (in this case Foucault, Derrida and Parker) may be profitably drawn together to perform specific discourse analytic work. , Rhodes University
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2002
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6259 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007877 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/008124630203200103
- Description: Discourse analysis is increasingly becoming a methodology of preference amongst qualitative researchers. There is a danger, however, of it being viewed as a bounded and uncontested domain of research practice. As discourse analysis is inextricably linked with theoretical issues, it is a dynamic practice that is constantly in a process of revision. In this paper I reflect on some of the conceptualisations undergirding the notion of discourse – conceptualisations that have important implications in terms of how the practice of discourse analysis proceeds. I highlight some of the dualisms that may plague discourse analysis, and offer some solutions to these. Finally, I outline the deconstructive discourse analysis that I utilised in my doctoral work. The purpose of the latter is not to provide a recipe of methodology, but to illustrate how elements of various theorists’ work (in this case Foucault, Derrida and Parker) may be profitably drawn together to perform specific discourse analytic work. , Rhodes University
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
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
Economic security and the social science literature on teenage pregnancy in South Africa
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2002
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6253 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007871
- Description: Feminists have argued that the association made between teenage childbearing and long-term lower socioeconomic status hides a multitude of socially constructed inequalities. I extend this position by analysing how the association is linked in the South African literature on teenage pregnancy to economic security. I utilise Foucault’s conceptualization of the method of security. Security refers to institutions and practices that defend and maintain a national population as well as secure the economic, demographic, and social processes of that population. I analyse how the traits of the method of security are deployed with regard to teenage pregnancy; how reproductive adolescents are viewed as disrupting the production of the economic self and fracturing population control, thereby threatening economic security; and how the invocation of economic security allows for the legitimation of various regulatory practices. , Rhodes University
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2002
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6253 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007871
- Description: Feminists have argued that the association made between teenage childbearing and long-term lower socioeconomic status hides a multitude of socially constructed inequalities. I extend this position by analysing how the association is linked in the South African literature on teenage pregnancy to economic security. I utilise Foucault’s conceptualization of the method of security. Security refers to institutions and practices that defend and maintain a national population as well as secure the economic, demographic, and social processes of that population. I analyse how the traits of the method of security are deployed with regard to teenage pregnancy; how reproductive adolescents are viewed as disrupting the production of the economic self and fracturing population control, thereby threatening economic security; and how the invocation of economic security allows for the legitimation of various regulatory practices. , Rhodes University
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
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
Feedback of research results : reflections from a community-based mental health programme
- Macleod, Catriona I, Masilela, Thulani C, Malomane, Elizabeth
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Masilela, Thulani C , Malomane, Elizabeth
- Date: 1998
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6287 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014527 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/008124639802800404
- Description: The lack of feedback of research results to research participants, or the lack of reflection on the feedback process where it does occur, is problematic. Some fundamental issues appear to inform the feedback process, these being the approach adopted by the researchers to research and the uses envisaged for the research and feedback. In this paper, we reflect on feedback sessions conducted with research participants and local community in a community-based mental health programme in a rural area of South Africa. The results of a comprehensive needs assessment were discussed in four different meetings. This paper reflects upon, amongst others, practical/logistical issues, attendance and non-attendance, the issue of language, group dynamics, challenges from participants, and social and cultural constructions of knowledge. It is concluded that when feedback of research results is seen as part of an on-going process of programme development and engagement with various stakeholders, it is a potential point of growth on a number of levels. , This article was written by Catriona Macleod in affiliation with the Health Systems Development Unit, Department of Community Health, University of the Witwatersrand and the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Zululand , Full text available on publisher website: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/008124639802800404
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1998
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Masilela, Thulani C , Malomane, Elizabeth
- Date: 1998
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6287 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014527 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/008124639802800404
- Description: The lack of feedback of research results to research participants, or the lack of reflection on the feedback process where it does occur, is problematic. Some fundamental issues appear to inform the feedback process, these being the approach adopted by the researchers to research and the uses envisaged for the research and feedback. In this paper, we reflect on feedback sessions conducted with research participants and local community in a community-based mental health programme in a rural area of South Africa. The results of a comprehensive needs assessment were discussed in four different meetings. This paper reflects upon, amongst others, practical/logistical issues, attendance and non-attendance, the issue of language, group dynamics, challenges from participants, and social and cultural constructions of knowledge. It is concluded that when feedback of research results is seen as part of an on-going process of programme development and engagement with various stakeholders, it is a potential point of growth on a number of levels. , This article was written by Catriona Macleod in affiliation with the Health Systems Development Unit, Department of Community Health, University of the Witwatersrand and the Department of Educational Psychology, University of Zululand , Full text available on publisher website: http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/008124639802800404
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1998
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