Browsing by Author "Chadwick, Rachelle Joy"

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    Paradoxical Subjects - Women Telling Birth Stories
    (2007) Chadwick, Rachelle Joy
    This study focuses on the construction of subjectivity in and through the telling of birth stories. Drawing on 50 interviews with middle-class women, most of who "chose" to birth either at home or via elective caesarean section, the thesis explores how women make birth "choices" and "experience" home-birth and caesarean-birth within a South African setting. Furthermore, by employing a range of theoretical resources, including the work of Julia Kristeva, Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Young and materialist feminists such as Nancy Hartsock and Maria Mies, this study explores the forms of embodied subjectivity that emerge in birth narratives. Engaging in both an ideological analysis and a narrative analysis, the thesis shows how women's "choices" and "experiences" are always situated within or in relation to cultural story lines, dominant ideologies and material contexts. However, at the same time, through the use of a Kristevan theory of bodieslanguage- subjectivity, the thesis also demonstrates how "the body" itself often becomes transfused into women's talk about birth, resulting in paradoxical and contradictory forms of subjectivity.
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    Selves colliding with structure : the discursive construction of change and non-change in narrative of rape crisis volunteers
    (2001) Chadwick, Rachelle Joy; Foster, Don
    This study explores the discursive construction of subjective change and non-change in the narratives of women volunteering at a Rape Crisis (henceforth RC) centre). Of key interest within the study are the dilemmas and negotiations triggered when selves collide with new structures (and alongside this 'new' or alternative discourses and discursive subject positions). Structurally RC is a rich site offering a plethora of new ways of talking and 'seeing' complex issues surrounding sexuality, violence, heterosexual relationships and gender dynamics and involvement with the organisation thus compels selves to negotiate and reflect upon their current positionings. In order to explore these subjective dilemmas two individual and detailed interviews were conducted with 7 participants (totally a complete set of 14 interviews).