“Peer pressure” and “Peer normalization” : discursive resources that justify gendered youth sexualities
- Macleod, Catriona I, Jearey-Graham, Nicola
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Jearey-Graham, Nicola
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6312 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019877 , https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-015-0207-8
- Description: “Peer pressure” is associated in the scientific literature with a range of risky sexual behaviors and with undermining public sexual health messages. Interventions are instituted encouraging young people to resist peer pressure or to model positive peer norms. Taking a discursive psychology perspective, we show how young people themselves use the discourses of “peer pressure to have sex” and “peer normalization of sex” to explain and justify youth sexual activity. Using data from focus group discussions about youth sexualities with students at a South African further education and training college, we show how participants outlined a need for young people to be socially recognizable through engaging in, and talking about, sex and how they implicated peer norms in governing individual sexual behavior. Both discourses pointed to a gendering of peer-endorsed sexual norms: masculine virility, the avoidance of shameful virgin or gay positions, and multiple sexual partners were emphasized for men, while the necessity of keeping a boyfriend and avoiding a “slut” position were foregrounded for women. These discourses potentially undermine the aims of public sexual health programs targeting youth. Nuanced engagement with peer group narratives, especially how sexual activity is explained and justified in a gendered fashion, is indicated. , Full text access on Publisher website: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-015-0207-8
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Jearey-Graham, Nicola
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6312 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1019877 , https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-015-0207-8
- Description: “Peer pressure” is associated in the scientific literature with a range of risky sexual behaviors and with undermining public sexual health messages. Interventions are instituted encouraging young people to resist peer pressure or to model positive peer norms. Taking a discursive psychology perspective, we show how young people themselves use the discourses of “peer pressure to have sex” and “peer normalization of sex” to explain and justify youth sexual activity. Using data from focus group discussions about youth sexualities with students at a South African further education and training college, we show how participants outlined a need for young people to be socially recognizable through engaging in, and talking about, sex and how they implicated peer norms in governing individual sexual behavior. Both discourses pointed to a gendering of peer-endorsed sexual norms: masculine virility, the avoidance of shameful virgin or gay positions, and multiple sexual partners were emphasized for men, while the necessity of keeping a boyfriend and avoiding a “slut” position were foregrounded for women. These discourses potentially undermine the aims of public sexual health programs targeting youth. Nuanced engagement with peer group narratives, especially how sexual activity is explained and justified in a gendered fashion, is indicated. , Full text access on Publisher website: https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s13178-015-0207-8
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2015
‘… a huge monster that should be feared and not done’: lessons learned in sexuality education classes in South Africa
- Shefer, Tamara, Kruger, Lou-Marie, Macleod, Catriona I, Baxen, Jean, Vincent, Louise
- Authors: Shefer, Tamara , Kruger, Lou-Marie , Macleod, Catriona I , Baxen, Jean , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6314 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020933 , http://www.mrc.ac.za/crime/aspj/2015/AhugeMonster.pdf
- Description: Research has foregrounded the way in which heterosexual practices for many young people are not infrequently bound up with violence and unequal transactional power relations. The Life Orientation sexuality education curriculum in South African schools has been viewed as a potentially valuable space to work with young people on issues of reproductive health, gender and sexual norms and relations. Yet, research has illustrated that such work may not only be failing to impact on more equitable sexual practices between young men and women, but may also serve to reproduce the very discourses and practices that the work aims to challenge. Cultures of violence in youth sexuality are closely connected to prevailing gender norms and practices which, for example, render women as passive victims who are incapable of exercising sexual agency and men as inherently sexually predatory. This paper analyses the talk of Grade 10 learners in nine diverse schools in two South African provinces, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape, to highlight what ‘lessons’ these young people seem to be learning about sexuality in Life Orientation classes. We find that these lessons foreground cautionary, negative and punitive messages, which reinforce, rather than challenge, normative gender roles. ‘Scare’ messages of danger, damage and disease give rise to presumptions of gendered responsibility for risk and the requirement of female restraint in the face of the assertion of masculine desire and predation. We conclude that the role which sexuality education could play in enabling young women in particular to more successfully negotiate their sexual relationships to serve their own needs, reproductive health and safety, is undermined by regulatory messages directed at controlling young people, and young women in particular – and that instead, young people’s sexual agency has to be acknowledged in any processes of change aimed at gender equality, anti-violence, health and well-being.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Shefer, Tamara , Kruger, Lou-Marie , Macleod, Catriona I , Baxen, Jean , Vincent, Louise
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6314 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1020933 , http://www.mrc.ac.za/crime/aspj/2015/AhugeMonster.pdf
- Description: Research has foregrounded the way in which heterosexual practices for many young people are not infrequently bound up with violence and unequal transactional power relations. The Life Orientation sexuality education curriculum in South African schools has been viewed as a potentially valuable space to work with young people on issues of reproductive health, gender and sexual norms and relations. Yet, research has illustrated that such work may not only be failing to impact on more equitable sexual practices between young men and women, but may also serve to reproduce the very discourses and practices that the work aims to challenge. Cultures of violence in youth sexuality are closely connected to prevailing gender norms and practices which, for example, render women as passive victims who are incapable of exercising sexual agency and men as inherently sexually predatory. This paper analyses the talk of Grade 10 learners in nine diverse schools in two South African provinces, the Eastern Cape and the Western Cape, to highlight what ‘lessons’ these young people seem to be learning about sexuality in Life Orientation classes. We find that these lessons foreground cautionary, negative and punitive messages, which reinforce, rather than challenge, normative gender roles. ‘Scare’ messages of danger, damage and disease give rise to presumptions of gendered responsibility for risk and the requirement of female restraint in the face of the assertion of masculine desire and predation. We conclude that the role which sexuality education could play in enabling young women in particular to more successfully negotiate their sexual relationships to serve their own needs, reproductive health and safety, is undermined by regulatory messages directed at controlling young people, and young women in particular – and that instead, young people’s sexual agency has to be acknowledged in any processes of change aimed at gender equality, anti-violence, health and well-being.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
‘Who? what?’: an uninducted view of towards a new psychology of women from post-Apartheid South Africa
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6251 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007869 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959353508092088
- Description: From the text: Towards a New Psychology of Women (TPNW) promises a new psychology of “women”. On the cover of the second edition, the Toronto Globe and Mail is cited as acclaiming the book as “nothing short of revolutionary” as it “set out to recognize, re-define and understand the day-to-day experience of women”. But when we take a closer look at these “women” we discover that they are in fact “white”, (for the most part) middle-class women living in heterosexual relationships in a liberal democracy. This kind of exclusionary inclusion, in which the use of the generic term “woman” disguises the normative assumptions made about the race, class, sexual orientation and location of women, replicates the phallocentrism evidenced in the normalising masculinist terms “mankind” or “Man”. By now, of course, these kinds of critiques of “white” Western feminism by African American writers (e.g. Collins, 1999) postcolonial feminists (e.g. Mohanty, 1991), African feminists (e.g. Ogundipe-Leslie, 1994; Mangena, 2003), and queer theorists (e.g. Jackson, 1999) are well known.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2008
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6251 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007869 , http://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/0959353508092088
- Description: From the text: Towards a New Psychology of Women (TPNW) promises a new psychology of “women”. On the cover of the second edition, the Toronto Globe and Mail is cited as acclaiming the book as “nothing short of revolutionary” as it “set out to recognize, re-define and understand the day-to-day experience of women”. But when we take a closer look at these “women” we discover that they are in fact “white”, (for the most part) middle-class women living in heterosexual relationships in a liberal democracy. This kind of exclusionary inclusion, in which the use of the generic term “woman” disguises the normative assumptions made about the race, class, sexual orientation and location of women, replicates the phallocentrism evidenced in the normalising masculinist terms “mankind” or “Man”. By now, of course, these kinds of critiques of “white” Western feminism by African American writers (e.g. Collins, 1999) postcolonial feminists (e.g. Mohanty, 1991), African feminists (e.g. Ogundipe-Leslie, 1994; Mangena, 2003), and queer theorists (e.g. Jackson, 1999) are well known.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2008
‘White excellence and black failure’: the reproduction of racialised higher education in everyday talk
- Robus, Donovan, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Robus, Donovan , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6254 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007872
- Description: Since the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994, much effort has been expended on overcoming the institutionalised racism that characterised apartheid. The transformation of higher education, particularly with regard to the merging and incorporation of institutions, is such an example. This article is an analysis of discourses on race emerging in the talk of students and staff during the incorporation of a historically white satellite campus (Rhodes University East London) into a historically black university (University of Fort Hare). The argument, which relies on Essed’s notion of everyday racism, infused with insights from discursive psychology, is that higher education institutions areracialised through the intricate interweaving of macro-level processes and discourses that recur in everyday talk and practices. In their talk, the participants in the study persistently assigned racialised identities to the institutions (Rhodes is white and Fort Hare is black) and invoked a ‘white excellence/black failure’ discourse. ‘White excellence’ folds in on, and is reproduced by, the desirable, modern, urban space and an appeal to Euro-American standards. Institutions and individuals are positioned as being able to overcome ‘black failure’ by moving into white space and through intense personal labour.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Robus, Donovan , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6254 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007872
- Description: Since the advent of democracy in South Africa in 1994, much effort has been expended on overcoming the institutionalised racism that characterised apartheid. The transformation of higher education, particularly with regard to the merging and incorporation of institutions, is such an example. This article is an analysis of discourses on race emerging in the talk of students and staff during the incorporation of a historically white satellite campus (Rhodes University East London) into a historically black university (University of Fort Hare). The argument, which relies on Essed’s notion of everyday racism, infused with insights from discursive psychology, is that higher education institutions areracialised through the intricate interweaving of macro-level processes and discourses that recur in everyday talk and practices. In their talk, the participants in the study persistently assigned racialised identities to the institutions (Rhodes is white and Fort Hare is black) and invoked a ‘white excellence/black failure’ discourse. ‘White excellence’ folds in on, and is reproduced by, the desirable, modern, urban space and an appeal to Euro-American standards. Institutions and individuals are positioned as being able to overcome ‘black failure’ by moving into white space and through intense personal labour.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
‘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
‘Adolescence’, pregnancy and abortion: constructing a threat of degeneration
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Adolescent Development Gender identity Gender studies
- Language: English
- Type: Book
- Identifier: vital:545 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014341 , https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13691058.2013.774523
- Description: Why, despite evidence to the contrary, does the narrative of the negative consequences of teenage pregnancy, abortion and childbearing persist? This book outlines a critical view of "teenage pregnancy" and abortion, arguing that the negativity surrounding early reproduction is underpinned by a particular understanding of adolescence. The book traces the invention of "adolescence" and the imaginary wall that the notion of "adolescence" constructs between young people and adults. It examines the entrenched status of "adolescence" within a colonialist discourse that equates development of the individual with the development of civilisation, and the consequent threat of degeneration that is implied in the very notion of "adolescence". Many important issues are explored, such as the ideologies and contradictions contained within the notion of "adolescence"; the invention of teenage pregnancy as a social problem; the construction of abortion as the new social problem; issues of race, culture and tradition in relation to teenage pregnancy; and health service provider practices, specifically in relation to managing risk. In the final chapter, an argument is made for a shift from the signifier "teenage pregnancy" to "unwanted pregnancy". Using data gathered from studies from four continents, this book highlights central issues in the global debate concerning teenage pregnancy. It is suitable for academics, postgraduate and undergraduate students of health psychology, women’s studies, nursing and sociology, as well as practitioners in the fields of youth and social work, medicine and counselling.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2011
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2011
- Subjects: Adolescent Development Gender identity Gender studies
- Language: English
- Type: Book
- Identifier: vital:545 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014341 , https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1080/13691058.2013.774523
- Description: Why, despite evidence to the contrary, does the narrative of the negative consequences of teenage pregnancy, abortion and childbearing persist? This book outlines a critical view of "teenage pregnancy" and abortion, arguing that the negativity surrounding early reproduction is underpinned by a particular understanding of adolescence. The book traces the invention of "adolescence" and the imaginary wall that the notion of "adolescence" constructs between young people and adults. It examines the entrenched status of "adolescence" within a colonialist discourse that equates development of the individual with the development of civilisation, and the consequent threat of degeneration that is implied in the very notion of "adolescence". Many important issues are explored, such as the ideologies and contradictions contained within the notion of "adolescence"; the invention of teenage pregnancy as a social problem; the construction of abortion as the new social problem; issues of race, culture and tradition in relation to teenage pregnancy; and health service provider practices, specifically in relation to managing risk. In the final chapter, an argument is made for a shift from the signifier "teenage pregnancy" to "unwanted pregnancy". Using data gathered from studies from four continents, this book highlights central issues in the global debate concerning teenage pregnancy. It is suitable for academics, postgraduate and undergraduate students of health psychology, women’s studies, nursing and sociology, as well as practitioners in the fields of youth and social work, medicine and counselling.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 2011
Young pregnant women and public health
- Macleod, Catriona I, Feltham-King, Tracey
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Feltham-King, Tracey
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/298572 , vital:57717 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2019.1573313"
- Description: In this paper, we outline a critical reparative justice/care approach to adolescent reproductive health as an alternative to the standard public health response to ‘teenage pregnancy’. Joining an increasing body of critical scholarship that calls for nuance in understanding reproduction amongst young people, we draw, in this paper, on data generated from an ethnographic study conducted in antenatal care units in an Eastern Cape township in South Africa. To illustrate the approach we propose, we home in on five case studies that highlight the variability of young women’s lives, the multiple injustices they experience, and the agency they demonstrate in negotiating their way through pregnancy and birth. Injustices evident in these cases centre on sexual violence, rape myths, education system failures, health system failures, shaming and stigmatising practices, socio-economic precariousness, absent male partners, and denial of services. We outline how the reparative justice approach that highlights repair and support for social and health injustices at the individual and collective level as well as at the material and symbolic level may be taken up to ensure reproductive justice for young pregnant women.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Feltham-King, Tracey
- Date: 2020
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/298572 , vital:57717 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1080/09581596.2019.1573313"
- Description: In this paper, we outline a critical reparative justice/care approach to adolescent reproductive health as an alternative to the standard public health response to ‘teenage pregnancy’. Joining an increasing body of critical scholarship that calls for nuance in understanding reproduction amongst young people, we draw, in this paper, on data generated from an ethnographic study conducted in antenatal care units in an Eastern Cape township in South Africa. To illustrate the approach we propose, we home in on five case studies that highlight the variability of young women’s lives, the multiple injustices they experience, and the agency they demonstrate in negotiating their way through pregnancy and birth. Injustices evident in these cases centre on sexual violence, rape myths, education system failures, health system failures, shaming and stigmatising practices, socio-economic precariousness, absent male partners, and denial of services. We outline how the reparative justice approach that highlights repair and support for social and health injustices at the individual and collective level as well as at the material and symbolic level may be taken up to ensure reproductive justice for young pregnant women.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2020
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
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
Why we should avoid the use of the term “Post-Abortion Syndrome” : commentary on Boulind and Edwards (2008)
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6277 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008277
- Description: Boulind and Edwards (2008) present a case study of Grace, a women suffering, in their words, from post-abortion syndrome (PAS). In this commentary I argue that while Boulind and Edwards’ (2008) report is useful in terms of documenting the therapeutic processes engaged in, they would have been better served in not hanging the distress experienced by Grace on the diagnostic category of post-abortion syndrome. Reasons for this are that: PAS is not a recognised category of diagnosis, despite having been initially proposed in 1981; applying a PTSD framework to abortion is questionable; PAS focuses attention on the abortion itself in isolation from the fact that abortion occurs in the context of severely problematic pregnancies and other important socio-cultural stressors; PAS, in the very manner in which it is formulated, invokes to a very complex politics of the foetus. Boulind and Edwards (2008) are careful in their documentation of the complexities of the case, and thus their use of PAS is unfortunate.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2009
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6277 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1008277
- Description: Boulind and Edwards (2008) present a case study of Grace, a women suffering, in their words, from post-abortion syndrome (PAS). In this commentary I argue that while Boulind and Edwards’ (2008) report is useful in terms of documenting the therapeutic processes engaged in, they would have been better served in not hanging the distress experienced by Grace on the diagnostic category of post-abortion syndrome. Reasons for this are that: PAS is not a recognised category of diagnosis, despite having been initially proposed in 1981; applying a PTSD framework to abortion is questionable; PAS focuses attention on the abortion itself in isolation from the fact that abortion occurs in the context of severely problematic pregnancies and other important socio-cultural stressors; PAS, in the very manner in which it is formulated, invokes to a very complex politics of the foetus. Boulind and Edwards (2008) are careful in their documentation of the complexities of the case, and thus their use of PAS is unfortunate.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2009
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
When is it legitimate to use images in moral arguments? The use of foetal imagery in anti-abortion campaigns as an exemplar of an illegitimate instance of a legitimate practice
- Kelland, Lindsay, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Kelland, Lindsay , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6305 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016146
- Description: We aim to interrogate when the use of images in moral persuasion is legitimate. First, we put forward a number of accounts which purport to show that we can use tools other than logical argumentation to convince others, that such tools evoke affective responses and that these responses have authority in the moral domain. Second, we turn to Sarah McGrath’s account, which focuses on the use of imagery as a means to morally persuade. McGrath discusses 4 objections to the use of imagery, and outlines responses that may be used to legitimate the use of imagery in moral arguments. Assuming that we accept her account and that the invocation of affect has authority in the moral domain, we, using McGrath’s responses, examine whether the use of foetal imagery in anti-abortion campaigns is a legitimate instance of this practice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Kelland, Lindsay , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6305 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1016146
- Description: We aim to interrogate when the use of images in moral persuasion is legitimate. First, we put forward a number of accounts which purport to show that we can use tools other than logical argumentation to convince others, that such tools evoke affective responses and that these responses have authority in the moral domain. Second, we turn to Sarah McGrath’s account, which focuses on the use of imagery as a means to morally persuade. McGrath discusses 4 objections to the use of imagery, and outlines responses that may be used to legitimate the use of imagery in moral arguments. Assuming that we accept her account and that the invocation of affect has authority in the moral domain, we, using McGrath’s responses, examine whether the use of foetal imagery in anti-abortion campaigns is a legitimate instance of this practice.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
Waging war : discourses of HIV/AIDS in South African media
- Connelly, Mark, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Connelly, Mark , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6255 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007873
- Description: This paper explores a discourse of war against HIV/AIDS evident in the Daily Dispatch, a South African daily newspaper, from 1985 to 2000, and discusses the implications of this in terms of the way in which HIV/AIDS is constructed. The discursive framework of the war depends, fundamentally, on the personification of HIV/AIDS, in which agency is accorded to the virus, and which allows for its construction as the enemy. The war discourse positions different groups of subjects (the diseased body, the commanders, the experts, the ordinary citizens) in relations of power. The diseased body, which is the point of transmission, the polluter or infector, is cast as the 'Other', as a dark and threatening force. This takes on racialised overtones. The government takes on the role of commander, directing the war through policy and intervention strategies. Opposition to government is couched in a struggle discourse that dove-tails with the overall framework of war. Medical and scientific understandings pre-dominate in the investigative practices and expert commentary on the war, with alternative voices (such as those of people living with HIV/AIDS) being silenced. The ordinary citizen is incited to take on prevention and caring roles with a strong gendered overlay.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
- Authors: Connelly, Mark , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2003
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6255 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1007873
- Description: This paper explores a discourse of war against HIV/AIDS evident in the Daily Dispatch, a South African daily newspaper, from 1985 to 2000, and discusses the implications of this in terms of the way in which HIV/AIDS is constructed. The discursive framework of the war depends, fundamentally, on the personification of HIV/AIDS, in which agency is accorded to the virus, and which allows for its construction as the enemy. The war discourse positions different groups of subjects (the diseased body, the commanders, the experts, the ordinary citizens) in relations of power. The diseased body, which is the point of transmission, the polluter or infector, is cast as the 'Other', as a dark and threatening force. This takes on racialised overtones. The government takes on the role of commander, directing the war through policy and intervention strategies. Opposition to government is couched in a struggle discourse that dove-tails with the overall framework of war. Medical and scientific understandings pre-dominate in the investigative practices and expert commentary on the war, with alternative voices (such as those of people living with HIV/AIDS) being silenced. The ordinary citizen is incited to take on prevention and caring roles with a strong gendered overlay.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2003
Transforming the research system : contribution of the post-structuralist theoretical framework
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 1994
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6284 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014349 , http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03768359408439761
- Description: This article was written by Catriona Macleod as research officer for the University of the Witwatersrand Rural Facility. , Full text access available on the Publisher site: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03768359408439761
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1994
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 1994
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6284 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014349 , http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03768359408439761
- Description: This article was written by Catriona Macleod as research officer for the University of the Witwatersrand Rural Facility. , Full text access available on the Publisher site: http://www.tandfonline.com/doi/abs/10.1080/03768359408439761
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1994
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
The ‘causes’ of teenage pregnancy: Review of South African research - Part 2
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 1999
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6289 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014529
- Description: This article forms the second of a two-part series in which South African research on teenage pregnancy is reviewed. Part 1 of the series dealt with the consequences of teenage pregnancy; this paper reviews the ‘causes’ thereof. International literature is incorporated in the discussion by way of comparison. Contributory factors which have been investigated by South African researchers include: reproductive ignorance; the earlier occurrence of menarche; risk- taking behaviour; psychological problems; peer influence; coercive sexual relations; dysfunctional family patterns; poor health services; socio-economic status; the breakdown of cultural traditions; and the cultural value placed on children. Preston-Whyte and colleagues present a revisionist argument, stating that early pregnancy may represent a rational life choice for certain adolescent women. The article is concluded with comments on methodological problems encountered in the South African research, and a discussion on the implications in terms of policy formulation.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1999
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 1999
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6289 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1014529
- Description: This article forms the second of a two-part series in which South African research on teenage pregnancy is reviewed. Part 1 of the series dealt with the consequences of teenage pregnancy; this paper reviews the ‘causes’ thereof. International literature is incorporated in the discussion by way of comparison. Contributory factors which have been investigated by South African researchers include: reproductive ignorance; the earlier occurrence of menarche; risk- taking behaviour; psychological problems; peer influence; coercive sexual relations; dysfunctional family patterns; poor health services; socio-economic status; the breakdown of cultural traditions; and the cultural value placed on children. Preston-Whyte and colleagues present a revisionist argument, stating that early pregnancy may represent a rational life choice for certain adolescent women. The article is concluded with comments on methodological problems encountered in the South African research, and a discussion on the implications in terms of policy formulation.
- Full Text: false
- Date Issued: 1999
The risk of phallocentrism in masculinities studies: how a revision of the concept of patriarchy might help
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6216 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006268
- Description: In this article I critique South African work on masculinities through a fine grained reading of Morrell’s introductions to three texts. While this work appears, on first reading, to contribute to pro-feminist theorising, I argue that it inadvertently falls into a phallocentric trap. This is achieved in three ways: firstly, and most crudely, through conflating women and men into a singular, universal model that is in reality the masculine appearing as the universal; secondly, and more subtly, through concentrating almost exclusively on men and masculinities, thereby marginalising women (again); and thirdly, through constructing multiplicities of masculinities – this allows men to resist hegemonic masculinity, but never undo masculinity itself. In this way, the possibility of deconstructing the feminine/masculine binary recedes and the concept of patriarchy gets sidelined. I argue for a reinsertion of the notion of patriarchy into our study of gender, but also that the very notion of patriarchy needs revision in order to accommodate the multiple fissures that occur between men.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2007
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6216 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006268
- Description: In this article I critique South African work on masculinities through a fine grained reading of Morrell’s introductions to three texts. While this work appears, on first reading, to contribute to pro-feminist theorising, I argue that it inadvertently falls into a phallocentric trap. This is achieved in three ways: firstly, and most crudely, through conflating women and men into a singular, universal model that is in reality the masculine appearing as the universal; secondly, and more subtly, through concentrating almost exclusively on men and masculinities, thereby marginalising women (again); and thirdly, through constructing multiplicities of masculinities – this allows men to resist hegemonic masculinity, but never undo masculinity itself. In this way, the possibility of deconstructing the feminine/masculine binary recedes and the concept of patriarchy gets sidelined. I argue for a reinsertion of the notion of patriarchy into our study of gender, but also that the very notion of patriarchy needs revision in order to accommodate the multiple fissures that occur between men.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2007
The politics of erasure: thinking critically about anonymity and confidentiality
- Marx, Jacqueline, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Marx, Jacqueline , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143827 , vital:38286 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Anonymity and confidentiality are prominent features in research ethics codes. In this paper we critically examine the ethical imperative to change or eradicate research participant’s names and the distinctive, individually identifying characteristics of their lives. Drawing on examples from a research ethics application for a project involving women who had extricated themselves from relationships in which they had experienced intimate partner violence, and an ethnographic case study of cross-dressing and drag, consideration is given to the multiple ways in which anonymity and confidentiality can be put to work, both promoting and undermining what it means to do ethical research. We argue that the requirement for anonymity and confidentiality cannot be assessed without taking into account historicity and the socio-political contexts in which a study and its participants are located. The paper concludes with some consideration of the implications of a situated ethics approach for institutional review board protocols.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
- Authors: Marx, Jacqueline , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2015
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/143827 , vital:38286 , https://ischp.files.wordpress.com/2015/08/ischp_2015_abstract_booklet.pdf
- Description: Anonymity and confidentiality are prominent features in research ethics codes. In this paper we critically examine the ethical imperative to change or eradicate research participant’s names and the distinctive, individually identifying characteristics of their lives. Drawing on examples from a research ethics application for a project involving women who had extricated themselves from relationships in which they had experienced intimate partner violence, and an ethnographic case study of cross-dressing and drag, consideration is given to the multiple ways in which anonymity and confidentiality can be put to work, both promoting and undermining what it means to do ethical research. We argue that the requirement for anonymity and confidentiality cannot be assessed without taking into account historicity and the socio-political contexts in which a study and its participants are located. The paper concludes with some consideration of the implications of a situated ethics approach for institutional review board protocols.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2015
The new moral order and racism in South Africa post 11 September 2001
- Painter, D, Macleod, Catriona I
- Authors: Painter, D , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2002
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6215 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006266
- Description: In this paper we argue that globalisation imposes on ‘developing’ countries more than an economic order; they find themselves with the moral imperative to align themselves with the West against its Others, increasingly portrayed as Islamic fundamentalists. The 11 September terror attacks in the United States of America have pushed this process to a new level, with the attacks represented as no less than a barbaric attack on ‘civilisation’. Through an analysis of a newspaper article reporting on the disciplining of a Muslim woman in for wearing an Osama Bin Laden t-shirt to work in South Africa, we indicate how this moral representation of the 11 September events and the Islamic Other have unique local effects. In South Africa it creates yet more possibilities for racialising practices to continue without being framed in explicitly racial terms. We further reflect on the implications of these events, and the complex interplay of the global and the local they demonstrate, for critical psychology in South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
- Authors: Painter, D , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2002
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6215 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1006266
- Description: In this paper we argue that globalisation imposes on ‘developing’ countries more than an economic order; they find themselves with the moral imperative to align themselves with the West against its Others, increasingly portrayed as Islamic fundamentalists. The 11 September terror attacks in the United States of America have pushed this process to a new level, with the attacks represented as no less than a barbaric attack on ‘civilisation’. Through an analysis of a newspaper article reporting on the disciplining of a Muslim woman in for wearing an Osama Bin Laden t-shirt to work in South Africa, we indicate how this moral representation of the 11 September events and the Islamic Other have unique local effects. In South Africa it creates yet more possibilities for racialising practices to continue without being framed in explicitly racial terms. We further reflect on the implications of these events, and the complex interplay of the global and the local they demonstrate, for critical psychology in South Africa.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2002
The management of risk: adolescent sexual and reproductive health in South Africa
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6302 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015958
- Description: Scientific discourse allows for the calculation of negative outcomes attendant on conception and birth during adolescence, thereby producing a discourse of risk. The management of risk allows for the deployment of governmental apparatuses of security. Security, as outlined by Foucault, is a specific principle of political method and practice aimed at defending and securing a national population. In this paper I analyse how techniques of security are deployed in the interactions between health service providers and young women seeking contraceptive and reproductive assistance at a regional hospital in South Africa, and how racialised and gendered politics are strategically deployed within these techniques. Security combines with various governmental techniques to produce its effects. The techniques used in this instance include pastoral care, liberal humanism, the incitement to governmental self-formation, and, in the last instance, sovereign power.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2006
- Language: English
- Type: Article
- Identifier: vital:6302 , http://hdl.handle.net/10962/d1015958
- Description: Scientific discourse allows for the calculation of negative outcomes attendant on conception and birth during adolescence, thereby producing a discourse of risk. The management of risk allows for the deployment of governmental apparatuses of security. Security, as outlined by Foucault, is a specific principle of political method and practice aimed at defending and securing a national population. In this paper I analyse how techniques of security are deployed in the interactions between health service providers and young women seeking contraceptive and reproductive assistance at a regional hospital in South Africa, and how racialised and gendered politics are strategically deployed within these techniques. Security combines with various governmental techniques to produce its effects. The techniques used in this instance include pastoral care, liberal humanism, the incitement to governmental self-formation, and, in the last instance, sovereign power.
- Full Text:
- Date Issued: 2006