Browsing by Department "Families and Societies Research Unit (FaSRU)"

Now showing 1 - 6 of 6
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    Choosing Care: Negotiating and reconciling interference in narratives of home births
    (2014-07-23) Daniels, Nicole
    While the literature on home birth emphasises women’s capacity to relate to birth in deeply meaningful terms, less attention has been paid to ‘interferences’ in this process. The extent to which women’s birthing needs are met relates to their capacity to make meaningful birth choices. By drawing on four case studies of South African home birthers, this paper examines the kinds of care which generate a sense of containment and continual relationship for birthing women, despite interference. Where home births validate and affirm the psycho-social nature of relational birthing subjects; being supported, being seen and being heard, translates into a social environment of care. Subjective interpretations of what matters most, narrated by home birthers in relationship with partners and caregivers, describe social environments which uphold safety, intimacy, connection, and agency. Homes are not controlled environments, so the inconsistency between narrated birth and actual birth experiences offers an interesting vantage point on the social contexts that generate empowered birthing selves. The care afforded home birthers allows them to create and maintain safe birth spaces, even as homes - bridges of public/private divides - intrude on relational selves. This research adds to an understanding of the consequences of women’s birth choices. By foregrounding interference, this paper highlights that choices (contested as they are) remain fundamental to women’s experiences of birth.
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    The impact of intergenerational negotiations and power dynamics on the burden of care experienced by low- income grandmothers
    (2017-04) Button, Kirsty
    Older women are key financial and practical caregivers in contemporary low- income, multi-generational households. A large volume of research has shown how this burden of care has been shaped by social and economic conditions, the nature of state support and feelings of kin obligation. Less is known about how intra-household dynamics shape the distribution of responsibility for caregiving within households. This working paper discusses the findings of a qualitative study that explored the intra-household dynamics of care provision in fourteen low-income multi-generational households that were headed by older women in Khayelitsha. In discussing the caregiving experiences of the older women, it is argued that their burden of care was, in part, shaped by intergenerational negotiations over the provision of financial and practical care by younger household members. Despite their headship status, seniority, economic resources and the socialisation of younger kin to recognise reciprocal obligations of kin support, the older women had trouble negotiating for and obtaining assistance from their younger household members. In contrast, many of their adult children and teenage grandchildren seemed able to resist the claims made on their unpaid labour and financial resources; often leaving the older women with greater responsibility for ensuring the maintenance of their households. Furthermore, it is argued that these experiences reflect shifting positions of power within households that add to the vulnerabilities experienced by older women in their roles as caregivers.
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    “My husband has to stop beating me and I shouldn’t go to the police”: Woman Abuse, Family Meetings and Relations of Authority
    (2016-11) Moore, Elena
    In this article, I examine how family meetings, which are traditional systems of arbitration, act as a site for challenging male authority and patrilineal power in South Africa. By drawing on dyadic interviews with wives, husbands and wider kin members, the article shows how women resist definitions and practices of abuse and resist domination, even when male authority of the domestic system continues and is secured through support from female kin members. I describe three ways in which wives threaten domination: reporting abuse to the state and using the state as the authority which legitimately determines the rules of social order; challenging the patriarchal norms of marital conduct and the definition of abuse put forward by the abuser; rejecting norms that husbands have authority over household income. These challenges to men’s right to authority are occurring at a time of legal change and a growing acknowledgement of social crises, including high levels of woman abuse. They are rooted in broader contestations of the patriarchal norms and conventions that assert male authority in a postcolonial context. By analysing the challenges to patrilineal power and men’s authority, I go beyond claims that women engage in individual acts of resistance, and I argue that women, through both private and public challenges are refusing to comply with patriarchal norms and breach the normative order of domination.
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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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    South Africa’s system of dispute resolution forums: The role of the family and the state in customary marriage dissolution
    (2014-07-23) Button, Kirsty
    In being a legal pluralist state, South Africa has a system of state and customary dispute resolution forums. This paper is concerned with this system of dispute resolution forums, particularly in how marital disputes relating to the dissolution of customary marriages are mediated and resolved. It is demonstrated, through drawing upon data collected for the purposes of a larger research project, that there are serious shortcomings which exist within this system. Such shortcomings include the operation of structural constraints which limit women in their ability to access state dispute resolution forums for support in marital breakdown and the availability of some customary dispute resolution forums which appear to be under-utilised by couples experiencing marital breakdown. Another possible shortcoming within the abovementioned system is the insufficient assistance that is offered by the state, to married couples experiencing marital conflict and breakdown. This paper argues that these shortcomings prevent equitable outcomes in marital conflict and breakdown from being reached. Consequently, such shortcomings contribute to women being rendered economically vulnerable upon the dissolution of their customary marriages as they are often left to deal with marital conflict and breakdown in the context of unequal power relations which exist between spouses. This paper concludes by discussing possible solutions that could be adopted to rectify the shortcomings and help ensure that gender equality is achieved upon the dissolution of customary marriages.
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    A Transnational Family-friendly State? The position of transnational families in the context of South African law and society
    (2015-10) Stulgaitis, Manal
    South Africa is a migration destination with a paradoxical policy environment. On the one hand it is generous – extending access to health care, education and rights for women, homosexuals and persons with disabilities to all persons within its borders. On the other hand, it is stingy and obstructive – tolerating a large informal labour market with uneven protections disadvantaging migrants, high hurdles for asylum seekers and one of the most extreme inequality rates in the world. As transnational workers, children, partners, spouses and parents expand their social, economic and physical footprint beyond their home countries they confront South Africa’s borders, laws and policies. They also encounter South Africa’s ongoing project to build a collective national identity and semblance of ‘social cohesion’, a project that has proven contentious, sometimes violent and arguably, poorly managed. With global migration trends increasingly South-South in orientation and largely inter and intra-regional, this article focuses on South Africa, examining the incentives and disincentives that influence family decisions to transnationalize to South Africa and how those decisions, in turn, shape and are shaped by law, policy and society.