- Title
- Discursive constructions of alcohol use and pregnancy among participants in intervention aimed at reducing Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders
- Creator
- Msomi, Nqobile Nomonde
- Subject
- Fetal alcohol spectrum disorders -- South Africa
- Subject
- Pregnancy -- Psychological aspects
- Subject
- Reproductive rights -- South Africa
- Subject
- Reproductive health -- South Africa
- Date Issued
- 2020
- Date
- 2020
- Type
- text
- Type
- Thesis
- Type
- Masters
- Type
- MA
- Identifier
- http://hdl.handle.net/10962/140374
- Identifier
- vital:37883
- Description
- South Africa’s socio-cultural and political history has had significant effects on maternal and reproductive health. The hazardous alcohol use patterns in the country have affected alcohol consumption during pregnancy. Antenatal exposure to alcohol may result in Foetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders (FASD). The levels of FASD in particular areas of the country are the highest recorded in the world. Epidemiological studies have dominated pregnancy and FASD research in South Africa; however, recently critical scholarship seeking to contextualise the issue of drinking alcohol during pregnancy is emerging. This study forms part of a developmental/formative assessment of an alcohol and pregnancy intervention. Assessment is an important part of pilot interventions, and discourse is a key area of focus due to its constitutive role for the subjectivity of human beings and legitimation of institutional practices. Using a reproductive justice perspective and a Foucauldian approach to analysis, I identified five prominent discursive constructions of alcohol use during pregnancy produced during interviews with community educators. These interviews were conducted following training workshops with the community educators. Participants constructed their living environments as ‘wholly bad’ and ‘issue-ridden’ and positioned alcohol consumption as ‘a destroyer!’, ‘king’ and a social lubricant. They interpellated the foetus, the ‘FASD child’ and pregnant women into this context. They positioned themselves as transformed subjects able to effect change. The foetus was constructed as ‘vulnerable and important’, as opposed to the ‘defiled FASD child’. Pregnant women were constructed as ‘ignorant, preoccupied and unreceptive to knowledge’. These constructions hinged on so-called ‘scientific knowledge’ of biological processes in utero, demonstrating Foucault’s conception of the power/knowledge nexus and how its dynamics transforms knowledge of human beings. Whereas this ‘knowledge’ transformed alcohol consumption and the foetus into powerful and vulnerable subjects respectively, the circulating discourses had objectivising effects on pregnant women. The discourses of responsibilisation, the personification of the foetus, ‘the problem’ category of FASD, the discourse of difference, and the discourse of alcohol consumption as an entrenched practice were circulating around pregnant women. I suggest alterations to the identified constructions using principles of community psychology, the harm reduction model, a social model of disability and the reproductive justice perspective
- Format
- 98 pages
- Format
- Publisher
- Rhodes University
- Publisher
- Faculty of Humanities, Psychology
- Language
- English
- Rights
- Msomi, Nqobile Nomonde
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Collections
Msomi, Nqobile (Ms)
Gender Action Forum (GENACT)
RU Department of Psychology
SDG 05. Gender Equality
RU DST/NRF SARChI for Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproductions Research (CSSR) Programme
SDG 03. Good Health and Well-Being
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