Browsing by Author "Daniels, Nicole Miriam"

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    The gendered experiences of women, men and couples who plan, have and narrate homebirths
    (2015) Daniels, Nicole Miriam; Moore, Elena; Chadwick, Rachelle
    In South Africa excellent scholarship exists on women's experiences of homebirth but no studies have yet examined men's or couples' experiences. The thesis sought to make a valid contribution by uncovering a relational view of homebirths that made sense of the gendered interactions and relational negotiations of women, men and couples who experienced homebirth. It adopted a longitudinal, qualitative approach based on thirty interviews with five couples before and after homebirth. Dyadic interviewing and the listening guide offered relational methods of collecting and analysing data that additionally engaged the researcher in highly reflexive modes of producing knowledge. By foregrounding the relational context, narrative constructions of homebirths showcased simultaneous operations of gender as both opportunity and constraint. This study uncovered the active social processes involved in couples' decision making narratives and the relational interactions in their homebirth experiences. Joint narratives of homebirth displayed the interconnectedness of relating-selves where couples' relational scripts were brought to bear on the meanings of homebirth. Women and men found meaning in their experiences through connection with others; men privileged a selfless masculinity and women a self-reliant femininity. Both positioned women's relationship to their body and thus their baby as central to homebirth. Through in-depth scrutiny of the practice of homebirths, this study detailed how intimate interpersonal relationships are shaped by broader social and gendered processes.
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    Relational Masculinities and the Gendered values of men in homebirths
    (2016-01) Daniels, Nicole Miriam
    More is known about men’s experience of childbirth, than homebirth, although questions still remain. Most significantly, theoretical perspectives are lacking that can conceptualise the role between masculinities and fatherhoods and how these crystallise during the birthing period. Drawing on short-term longitudinal data with five South African men who planned and experienced homebirth, this paper presents findings from twenty individual and conjoint interviews before and after homebirth. Men’s narrative constructions of homebirths in conjunction with their partners’ showcase simultaneous operations of gender as mutually determining. The gendered aspects of men’s participation, which have largely been ignored, raise important questions regarding the relationship between masculinity and fathering and how this affects men’s experience of homebirth. Utilising a relational gender framework, men’s experience of homebirth was impacted on and shaped by relationships to others which constructed idealised ways of being for homebirthing men. Constructing their ideal birthing selves as ‘selfless’, men’s relational involvement in homebirth was threaded through ideas of themselves as men, lovers and fathers. Considering what it meant to be physically, emotionally, psychologically “present” men’s narratives rendered rich and thoughtful insights as they struggled towards new gender roles while negotiating the old.
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    “You couldn’t ask for more really”: A relational perspective of doing and un-doing jointness using individual alongside couple interviews of home birth
    (2015) Daniels, Nicole Miriam
    The purpose of this article is to discuss the methodological advantage of a dyadic approach to researching home birth. It is based on a study in which a combination of pre and post, conjoint and individual interviews generated men, women and couple narratives of decision making and experiences of home birth. The study sought to address a gap in the literature on home birth by adopting a relational perspective of jointly doing home birth that resulted in additional knowledge on the doing of jointness in couples' everyday lives. This unique aspect of how couples do and un-do jointness resulted from a dyadic approach that included the neglected perspectives of men's experience of home birth. Knowledge produced through a combined research design strengthened the 'common reflective space' constructed in joint interview contexts in ways that were instructive for understanding the research and the researched. Overall a dyadic approach was found to balance divergences and convergences across shared and individual accounts by allowing experiences to be rectified, remembered and re-adjusted in light of new, emerging information in the construction of a jointly told, dyadic narrative of home birth.