A formative evaluation and critical analysis of an alcohol and pregnancy intervention in the Eastern Cape of South Africa
- Authors: Graham, Nicola Susan Jearey
- Date: 2023-10-13
- Subjects: Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders South Africa Eastern Cape , Foucauldian discourse analysis , Conversation analysis , Women Social conditions South Africa Eastern Cape , Sex role South Africa Eastern Cape , Cultural hegemony
- Language: English
- Type: Academic theses , Doctoral theses , text
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/432541 , vital:72879 , DOI 10.21504/10962/432541
- Description: Some communities in South Africa have the highest documented rates of Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD) in the world. Interventions to reduce alcohol consumption during pregnancy are crucial, but evaluations of such interventions are sparse. Formative evaluations are indicated to assist in the development of interventions. Harmful alcohol consumption during pregnancy is undergirded by a range of social injustices, including those imposed by colonisation and patriarchy; a feminist, decolonial approach to evaluations is, therefore, important. A research project, consisting of three arms, examined alcohol use during pregnancy in an under-resourced urban area of the Eastern Cape, and this research was one of those arms. An intervention was being rolled out in this area and I gathered a range of data from it. I engaged in a formative evaluation of it, and I reflect on the difficulties that I encountered in this endeavour. In the bulk of this thesis, I examine the power apparatuses and technologies that were used during the intervention to discursively position pregnant women. My analysis was guided by Foucauldian and post-Foucauldian theories, using Foucauldian Discourse Analysis and simplified Conversation Analysis (CA). Power apparatuses of coloniality, patriarchy, and pastoral power were used in the intervention to construct positions for pregnant women who drink alcohol as ignorant children, sinners, criminals, or “Mommies”. The foetus was constructed as a precious, vulnerable baby, while the person with FASD was constructed as the defiled Other, responsible for societal dissolution. The intervention used various disciplinary techniques to exhort women to follow their dictates. Women were generally compliant with being positioned as ignorant children, which absolved them from any blame for pre-natal drinking. However, some resistance was evident. I then introduce an ethics of care and justice, and I argue that pregnant/newly parenting women need to be positioned within such an ethics, which acknowledges both the universal resources that they require for reproductive freedoms, as well as their particular care needs. I highlight the few times when women were positioned in this way in the data, and I look at how the common positions could be altered or expanded to promote such an ethics. I conclude by arguing that alcohol use during pregnancy cannot be separated from the larger context of the cultural hegemony of alcohol use in some communities, and the social injustices that potentiate this use. I provide suggestions for country-wide policies and interventions, as well as specific FASD prevention programmes, and I argue that a feminist decolonising approach, within an ethics of care and justice, should guide interventions at all levels. , Thesis (PhD) -- Faculty of Humanities, Psychology, 2023
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- Date Issued: 2023-10-13
Dialogues of sexualities: An action research project
- Authors: Graham, Nicola Susan Jearey
- Date: 2016
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3275 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1021271
- Description: Risky and abusive sexual behaviours, stemming largely from inequitable gendered norms, are a pervasive feature of the South African socio-sexual landscape. Literature shows that sexuality education programmes can be effective in reducing risky sexual practices, but South African school sexuality education has been shown to be largely inadequate. The question arises as to how to engage with high school learners about sexualities in meaningful ways. In an attempt to answer this, I implemented a dialogical sexuality action research project at a lower middle class urban high school. Freirian principles of critical consciousness and dialogical pedagogy were utilized, and these were infused with feminist post-structural understandings of a discursively constituted subject. The initial consultative process started in 2012 with two projects at the school. Data from these projects, and a further consultation with the school principal, provided baseline information on the gendered norms and the sexuality education in the school. I then instituted a dialogical sexuality intervention with a group of Grade 10 learners, aiming to bring gendered and sexual norms to visibility, to trouble them (thereby promoting participants’ critical consciousness around gendered norms), and to provide recognition for participants in a variety of subject positions. Ten sessions were conducted, with the focus of each session being planned by the group. The action research project attempted to promote understandings of the processes required to facilitate such aims. The dialogical format of the group generated curiosity and engagement, and there were suggestions that some participants were taking up safe-sex messages in a reflexive manner. A partial normalisation of some ‘hidden’ aspects of sex, particularly around issues pertaining to female sexuality, was enabled, and critical consciousness around the gendered inequities in ‘cheating’ was promoted. However, abstinence was relatively silenced, and male same-sex remained heavily stigmatised. No substantial action component beyond the group meetings was generated. Participant feedback indicated that they placed great value on the dialogical processes in the group, and that they enjoyed being able to talk about sexual and other personal aspects of their lives. I theorise that the value of the group was in the recognition that participants received as they were positioned in a variety of subject positions. Whilst dialogue was shown to be extremely valuable, there were suggestions that other, non-dialogical modes of recognition were also needed by participants.
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- Date Issued: 2016
Resisting responsibilisation : a narrative-discursive analysis of young peoples' talk about high school sexualities and school sexuality education
- Authors: Graham, Nicola Susan Jearey
- Date: 2014
- Subjects: Responsibility in adolescence , Language and sex -- South Africa , Teenagers -- Sexual behavior -- South Africa , Sex instruction -- South Africa , Sexual health -- Study and teaching -- South Africa , Sexual ethics
- Language: English
- Type: Thesis , Masters , MA
- Identifier: vital:3230 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1013078
- Description: The most widespread intervention in South Africa into the sexualities of young people is school based sexuality education. However there is a dearth of research in this area, and studies that have been conducted highlight major weaknesses with implementation. Research from Western countries indicates that the messages conveyed in sexuality education are resisted if they conflict with the desired sexual subjectivities of young people. This indicates a need for further research into desired youth sexualities, and school based sexuality education. While South African studies of young people‘s talk about sexualities have been conducted, there is a paucity of literature in this area from a discursive perspective. This study is situated within a feminist post-structuralist paradigm, utilising a performative-performance analytical approach which synthesises Butlerian theory with a narrative-discursive methodology. This approach enables an analysis of both the macro-discursive power webs within which sexualities are situated, and the micro-discursive activity through which sexual subject positions are constructed. I used this approach to analyse the talk of groups of students from a Further Education and Training College about the sexualities of High School learners and their own past sexuality education. Findings showed that that the most dominant discursive resources which were utilised to construct sexualities were societal sexual norms discourses. These foundational discourses constructed gendered sexualities of compulsory hyper-heterosex for men, and compulsory compliant girlfriendhood for women. Such gendered sexualities reinforced patriarchal and abusive gendered and sexual practices. Ways in which participants troubled the dominant gendered sexualities through the performance of alternative sexual positions were analysed, as these 'troubling' performances indicate mutable aspects of the normative gendered field. Participants drew on a discourse of disconnect when talking about their school sexuality education, and their parents‘ (lack of) communication with them about sex. This suggests that adultist attempts to construct a 'responsible' sexual subject position for young people are resisted when such a position is constructed in a non-relational manner. Collusion between the constructed gendered sexualities and the discourse of disconnect results in the un-performability of a 'responsible' sexual subject position. These findings were used to provide suggestions for enhancing school based sexuality interventions.
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- Date Issued: 2014