Browsing by Author "Pande, Amrita"
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- ItemOpen AccessA resurgence of eugenics? The role of race in egg donation(2019) Moyo, Rufaro; Pande, AmritaDespite the Human Genome Project in 2000 discovering that there is no hereditary distinction between races, the naturalized bio-centric conception of race continues to pervade our society (Roberts, 2011). One such area where this happens is during the egg donation process. Egg donation is a part of the growing industry of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs), which clinics employ in the treatment of infertility. Donor agents and clinics often classify their donors using racial categories. This research project sought to discover what role race played in the egg donation process, using racial matching and neo-eugenics as its theoretical frameworks. Ten semi-structured open ended interviews were conducted with nine participants, all of whom work in the field of fertility. The study discovered that the role race plays in the egg donation process is central. Both recipients and donor agents employ racial categories in order to find an egg donor that racially matches the patient, which is the phenomenon of racial-matching. This phenomenon of race-matching is a process of neo-eugenics. Whilst many think of ‘better birth’ at the mention of the term eugenics, this study makes the argument that racial matching mimics eugenic practices of maintaining the myth of racial purity. Donor agents speak of an ‘obviousness’ of the use of racial categories, naturalizing race as biological and seemingly legitimizing hegemonic notions of the family. Yet despite the prevalent use of race, donor agents display discomfort in discussing race and employ emotional narratives that speak to the fairy tale of a supposedly racially homogeneous and heterosexual family being made as a means of deflecting possible problematic views of egg donation. The study acknowledges the socio-political issues that often underpin ARTs, which is carefully concealed by narratives of family creation and the search for wellness. The study concludes by reiterating these arguments and making mention of the need for these power dynamics surrounding race to be dismantled to achieve social justice for all.
- ItemOpen AccessBonded: Legacies of Captivity and Fugitivity from Enslavement to Incarceration in the Cape(2022) Perez, Javier Ernesto; Sitas, Ari; Pande, AmritaThe contemporary hyper-incarceration of ‘Coloured' South Africans is re-situated within the broader historical dialectics of racialisation and creolisation, traversing from colonial slavery to the modern prison regime. This study uses theorisations of marronage, fugitivity, and hauntology to posit novel understandings of the links between runaway slaves (‘droster1 gangs') and the contemporary ‘Coloured' criminal figure. This dissertation approaches the latter as engaged in traditions of opacity-making, initiated by the former as a production of complex structures of density and unknowability against the epistemic violence of the colonial gaze that seeks to ‘discover', categorise and control. As such, this study proposes to understand collectives of fugitives beyond the lexicons of criminality, on the one extreme, and resistance, on the other. Applying emerging qualitative and arts-based methods, it further offers an innovative methodological framework to strategically listen for the poetics and sonicity of fugitive narratives, highlighting the incondensable movements therein of dense temporalities, opacities, and personal and collective narration. Specifically, through a poetry- and performance-based workshop series, this study collaborates with formerly-incarcerated men to engage with the Cape's history of slavery and marronage, exploring the meanings and relevance of this history through creative writings, group discussions, and performance.
- ItemOpen AccessContesting 'xenophobia' through civic education: explorations with ARESTA in Khayelitsha(2016) Kraak, Shaun; Sitas, Ari; Pande, AmritaThis thesis suggests that out of the work of ARESTA, a new notion of citizenship and belonging was developed, as a result of their workshops. This notion is furthermore articulated in various communities. In this notion, citizenship is no longer linked to indigeneity, but rather escaping war and hardship, the need to work, and place of work. It is further justified by the concept of Pan-Africanism and a common humanity. Contradictions in the findings of the thesis point to the limitations of this workshop and the importance of broader societal issues. This thesis concludes that ARESTA's intervention makes a significant contribution in opposing xenophobia, in the light of what is possible in South Africa today. However, its work is ameliorative rather than radical structural change, what may be needed is far more elusive at present.
- ItemOpen AccessFeeling difference: history, encounter and the affective life of a postcolonial neighbourhood(2019) Meer,Talia; Pande, Amrita; Matebeni, ZethuIn this dissertation I develop an account of Observatory, a neighbourhood of Cape Town, South Africa, and its fem (cis- and transwomen, feminine men and gender non-conforming) residents, to show how place history, personal identity and everyday encounters come to be co-constituted through affect. I argue that structures of feeling - overarching historical affects - and the feeling of structures - embodied experiences of historical affects and structures of difference, including race, class and gender - shape life over the long durée and in the immediacy of encounters. As different but connected affective scales they elucidate how fems, usually cast as subjugated in urban life, are implicated in the unfolding of history, how they accomplish specific trajectories, and unexpectedly summon the past or future through embodied encounters. Through intimate, visceral, but deeply social and historical ways of knowing their own bodies and others, fems feel out, enact and make differences daily. These differences are constructed relationally, not just hierarchically, as identities and histories are reconstituted and power geometries shift from encounter to encounter. This dissertation is purposefully transdisciplinary and seeks an intersectional sociological understanding of embodied affect through an expansive view of the gender-based violence literature, urban and diversity studies, and critical race and queer theory. It combines exploratory archival work, in-depth interviews with twenty fems, and ethnographic observation to produce a historically grounded and empirically rich take on the relationship between urban space, postcolonial time, and everyday forms of difference, embodiment and encounter. In doing so, it straddles a concern for how fems make liveable lives in contexts of gendered insecurity, but also for how their strategies may in turn operationalise other historically entrenched forms of difference, particularly race, thus constructing and endangering others. In this dissertation, I re-illuminate a familiar, although underexplored, race-gender-space encounter. I denaturalise not only the white, global north ciswoman as the focus of inquiry into gendered city life, but also her presumed position of oppression. By addressing a range of fem positionalities in Observatory, I argue instead that fems can and do access histories of power, shaped by colonialism and apartheid. This highlights fem capacity to effect and affect urban space and those within. In addition, I develop an empirical ground for the study of affect that attends to life as lived and emplaced, and that provides an analysis of postcolonial affects from the global south. In this way I push beyond narrow developmentalist approaches to global south cities to bring their rich affective life into focus.
- ItemOpen AccessGendered bio-responsibilities and travelling egg providers from South Africa(elsevier, 2018-10-30) Pande, Amrita‘Unsuspecting young South African women are heading overseas to donate their eggs to infertile couples and earn a free international holiday in the process. But, at what cost? This was the voice-over during a news show in South Africa in 2016 that described the phenomenon of young white South African women going abroad to donate their eggs. Through the media, medical professionals sought to warn naïve girls about unscrupulous agencie taking advantage of them, and in doing so putting them at grave medical risks in Third Worl clinics. Yet owners of agencies and egg providers themselves countered this imagery; here, the egg provider becomes a far more complex biocitizen who finds an opportunity to combine an act of altruism with an opportunity to earn money and travel. Through interviews with travelling egg providers, doctors and egg agencies, and analysis of public and social media, we analyse these competing discourses critically by situating them within the specific context of egg provision in South Africa. We argue that travelling egg providers' defence of their involvement may challenge some gendered assumptions made by the media and medical staff, but at the same time reaffirm what we call gendered bio-responsibilities or the gendered nature of the emphasis on (individual) responsibilization of biological citizens. By focusing on a relatively understudied aspect of the burgeoning literature on biocitizenship, we argue that the project of biocitizenship assists the expansion and normalization of new biomedical technologies, often without proper emphasis on the disproportionate obligations on the women involved.
- ItemOpen Access"Getting to the roots" : a critical examination into the social construction of hair amongst Coloured women living in Cape Town.(2013) Richardson, Denisha; Pande, Amrita; Daitz, EmmaThe purpose of this study is to explore how the social construction of head-hair impacts the lived experiences of a small group of 'Coloured' women living in Cape Town. In the first part, the dissertation argues that colonialism stigmatized the bodies of 'non-whites' as inferior; establishing racist, sexist, and classist perceptions of the human body in comparison to a 'white' imagery. The Apartheid regime in South Africa, in part, heightened these beliefs through social and structural means. All though not static, the influences of these racist ideologies remain prevalent in 21st century South African society and are prevailing in perceptions of hair. The thesis then reviews literature from a Euro-American context –concentrating on the 'black' American experience; to display the ways, in which straight and coarse hair textures are imbued with racist, sexist, and classist perceptions and meanings.
- ItemOpen AccessHealth Provision in Tshitshi, Zimbabwe: A Focus on Sexual and Reproductive Health(2021) Moyo, Samantha Zanele; Pande, AmritaPolitical conflict in Zimbabwe led to a series of crises that has negatively affected the nation's socio-economic status for over a decade now. The public sector's ability to provide basic services has been affected by a dead economy: the scarcity of resources such as money, water, energy, food, and medical care has meant that a once-desirable system has become dysfunctional and is too incapacitated to meet the needs of the public. The population has been reduced to paupers and forced to adopt informal survival strategies to access services that in a functional economy would have been provided by the government. Little is known about how services that cannot be forfeited, in particular sexual and reproductive health (SRH) services, are accessed by the most severely disadvantaged segment of the population: people living in rural areas. This study explores how the economic crisis shapes Tshitshi women's access to and use of SRH services. Specifically, it maps out Tshitshi women's experiences in accessing SRH services, the coping mechanisms, and the non-biomedical alternatives within the socioeconomic deprivation they encounter. Data was collected in Tshitshi village located in Matabeleland South province of Zimbabwe using qualitative methods through focus group discussions and in-depth interviews. In analysing data, I used thematic analysis with the help of NVivo version 12 to identify and sort themes. The study adopted the transnational care framework which was informed by the findings of the research, where I identified transnational medical resources and care as the overarching theme. Findings show that Tshitshi women's access to and use of SRH services is mostly influenced by transnational care resources which is how they improvise and manage the healthcare genocide. To cope with the lack of biomedical services, Tshitshi women improvise and access non-biomedical services which present convenience in availability, affordability, and acceptability. The study results elicited recommending outsourcing of medical supplies as an acceptable measure provided the state can be trusted to commit to meeting the needs of the people in positive sustainable ways.
- ItemOpen AccessThe integration strategies and social networks of Somali women in Cape Town(2015) Brown, Parveen; Pande, AmritaSomali migrants began arriving in the country in the early 1990’s, following the collapse of the state in Somalia and the promise of increased opportunities in South Africa. This study is based on the experiences of Somali women in Bellville, which is situated in Cape Town; it is home to one of the largest Somali community’s in the country. Migration to South Africa has brought Somali women into a new gendered context which has provided the opportunity to renegotiate gendered roles and practices. I focus on gendered processes of integration and adaptation to South Africa. The study also investigates how different forms of social networks influence integration and the kinds of value systems and identities that are reproduced through these networks. People experience migration and resettlement in gendered ways. Postcolonial feminist theory and the gendered geographies of power framework are used as tools to analyse how gender operates in the new migratory context. Social network theory is used to gain insight into the functions and features of networks among migrant women. The study takes an inductive approach and employs a qualitative research strategy. In-depth individual interviews and group discussions were conducted with 13 women migrants and 4 individuals from organisations working closely with the Somali community of Cape Town. Women’s experiences reveal varying degrees, to which they accept, resist or negotiate different gendered norms. The ability of Somali women to insert their own gendered norms into existing societal patterns disrupts dominant discourses. The integration strategies migrants adopt are influenced by the kinds of social networks which are dominant in their lives. As expected this study finds that migrants draw on kin based networks where they choose to remain strongly connected to the Somali community. These networks can be restrictive in that they pressure migrants to conform to group expectations and norms; but they are also important as a source of social and economic support. Some migrants operate within a broader social network, linked not only to the Somali community but also to the broader South African society. These migrants have a stronger socio-economic position compared to the others which enables them to move beyond kin based networks more easily as they are not as dependent on these networks to integrate.
- ItemOpen AccessMenstruation Matters: (De)constructing menstrual preparation as reproductive labour-work in rural Zimbabwe(2022) Ncube, Nolwazi Nadia; Pande, AmritaIn this dissertation I focus on the practices and socio-cultural beliefs associated with menstruation that are held by rural Ndebele women and girls in Zimbabwe. I examine the embodied experience of menstruation (ukungena esikhathini – in the African language, isiNdebele) as an in-road to locating gender gaps in international development discourse. I do this in order to highlight why ‘menstruation matters'. The dissertation zooms in on Zimbabwe's policy landscape and the ways in which it treats menstruation as a problem to be solved through technical solutions like the provision of free sanitary wear without considering that indigenous peoples like the Ndebele have successfully prepared for and managed menstruation as a colonial antecedent. The study draws on the narratives of three generations of rural Ndebele women: 10 grandmothers (50-79 years), 7 mothers (30-49 years) and 11 daughters (15-29 years) in the Umzingwane District of Zimbabwe to demonstrate that even in the absence of underwear and ‘modern' commodified sanitary wear like pads, tampons and menstrual cups, rural indigent women innovate their own strategies for menstruation matters. The study identifies that the treatment of menstruation as a problem to be remedied through technical solutions is part of a legacy of the historical pathologisation of menstruation in the West. It finds that menstrual preparedness is more complex than just providing menstruating women and girls with sanitary wear but is constituted by a whole system of reproductive labour-work that transmits information that equips girls for adulthood and its corresponding responsibilities. This labour-work is carried out by a network of female relatives, school peer educators, teachers, and even male relatives – each of whom represent gatekeepers of menstrual knowledge and practices. In so doing, I challenge heteronormative gender binaries by giving a glimpse into the female fathers (obabakazi) and male mothers (omalume) who also play a role in bringing up Ndebele girls to be healthy, educated and productive adults. Once a Ndebele girl (intombazana) begins to menstruate, she now represents an adolescent girl (intombi) and proxy adult on the cusp of womanhood, and expectations around her role within the household change. She is intentionally initiated into an intensifying world of domestic chores for girls (imisebenzi yamankazana) that inscribe her gendered social identity. After ménarche, intombi is expected to be concertedly productive as well as reproductively mature – i.e., (re)productive. This induction into an increasing burden of reproductive labour-work initiates girls into the world of gender and women's work that moulds them into adult women (abafazi); future wives (omakoti), dutiful daughters-in-law (omalukazana) and mothers (omama).
- ItemOpen AccessNarratives of the transnational student: a complicated story of cultural identity, cultural exchange and homecoming(2015) Ncube, Nolwazi Nadia; Pande, AmritaThis research study gives a glimpse into the ways in which transnational study complicates students' cultural identity, sense of belonging and homecoming; interweaving their experiences into a new transnational identity and a plural sense of belonging. The study examines a sub-group of elite, highly mobile people referred to as "transnational students" - who in a working definition are students who have travelled to; lived, studied and even sometimes worked in at least two countries during the course of their degree programmes. It draws on their autobiographical narratives in order to demonstrate the way in which they exist in a suspended state of 'temporary permanence' and with time, develop a' contaminated' sense of cultural identity, diluted by their 'foreign exchanges'. The study reveals the mercurial fluidity with which abstract and concrete constructions of home are made by transnational students. It also portrays the ways in which these students navigate their multiplied entities as a result of their cultural exchanges abroad. Finally, it tells a story of (dis)connects and (dis)connections to bring out the challenges faced by these students abroad and at home.
- ItemOpen AccessObstetric-risk objects: a multi-site, feminist ethnography of private-sector obstetric, maternal and unborn, caring concerns in Cape Town(2021) Daniels, Nicole Miriam; Moore, Elena; Pande, AmritaThis thesis contributes to the literature on the management of risk in pregnancy and birth, while examining the impact of technology in shaping risk configurations and articulating knowledge of the unborn. By adopting multiple perspectives on childbirth as a socio-cultural event, I argue that obstetric professional practices are active forces, shaping how pregnancy, childbirth and the unborn become known. Furthermore, a view of both social groups (i.e., obstetricians and pregnant persons) responsible for the management of risks to the unborn, highlights that respectable maternity as a cultural signifier is constructed in collusion with the precepts of medical science. A mixed approach to data collection, utilising a feminist, multisite ethnography helped uncover an interconnected web of relationships and made visible an architecture of risks. Findings are based on observations, indepth, longitudinal interviews, and participant observation with seven obstetricians, a lawyer, an academic, and fourteen pregnant women utilizing six private and one public hospital, obtained over a two-and-a-half-year period in Cape Town, South Africa. I consider various risk objects that configure the caring relationships and re/produce risk sensibilities between obstetricians (as the default caregivers in private sector, middle-class childbirth in South Africa), pregnant, and birthing persons, and the unborn. Obstetric risk objects are here understood to mediate the relationships that emerge between multiple entities and locate the order of importance of risks. Examining the function of high-risk birth as a boundary object, litigation and negligence as intra-acting objects and the unborn as maternal and obstetric work objects, I uncover a hierarchy of structural, organisational, and individual-level risks. I therefore address a gap in the literature on the sociology of risk in childbirth by connecting the top-down structure of power through which institutionalised risk disciplines and constrains behaviour, to the negotiation, and internalisation of risk in everyday life worlds. I thus link macro-structural, maternity systems-risk to meso- institutionalised risk to micro-every day, intimate-risk practices. I use socio-cultural and symbolic theories of risk to account for notions of purity and danger, risk and blame, and vulnerability and power in the configuration of a perfect obstetric professionalism safeguarding access to the sacred unborn. Through finely graded analytical work, woven through with transdisciplinary insights, including from African cosmologies and customary practices, I call for greater collective responsibility to the reproductive capacities that sustain and ensure continuity with all life on earth. Thus, using theory from the south, I propose that ambiguity moves theorisation about reproduction beyond binary positions and further, that it enables conceptions of the unborn to transcend notions of individual, right bearing self-hood. The findings reveal that the preparation, production, and performance of high-risk birth is an already inevitable configuration of private sector childbirth, which explains the exorbitant costs and high rates of interventions that are an obstinate, and historical feature of private sector maternity care in South Africa. High-risk birth is thereby paradoxically and complexly interlinked with the structural preparation of risk within the maternity sector, to its production within a highly at-risk, litigation averse obstetric profession, and to risks ritualised performance in intimate clinical encounters.
- ItemOpen AccessSri Lankan diaspora returning 'home' : transnational ways of belonging and being(2015) Laan, Rianne Sujeewa Cornelia Elisabeth; Pande, AmritaReturn migration is often assumed to be a return to ‘home’ and to be the end of a migration cycle rather than another turn in that cycle. This research examines the links between return migration, transnationalism and (re)integration, among Sri Lankan-born migrants who returned to Sri Lanka. I explore this among a diverse sample of 13 migrants - 7 men and 6 women - consisting of 5 returnees who resided overseas for 10 years or less and 8 returnees who resides abroad more than 10 years before they returned to Sri Lanka. The unstructured interviews were conducted in May, June and July 2014. The findings suggest that the notions of home, ways of belonging and being are experienced by these returnees in different ways. The results reveal that participants migrated at different life-stages and under different circumstances, and their migration experience highlights their transnationality. The term transnationality is used to refer to the participants’ ways of being and belonging in transnational space. According to the research findings, the study identified that (1) return migration is not as permanent as it might suggest - although the participants were firmly established in Sri Lanka, half of the participants were moving back and forth between Sri Lanka and the respective country overseas or have re-migrated to another destination and returned a second time; (2) The notions of home, belonging and being operate simultaneously where multiple attachments in varying degrees develop and change over time and space; (3) Notions of home and belonging are multidimensional; (4) Transnational ways of being are highlighted through return visits and social ties that cross borders; (5) Return visits are significant in (re)integration as social ties are (re)established which enabled participants to find their place in Sri Lanka.