Enduring "lateness": biomedicalisation and the unfolding of reproductive life, sociality, and antenatal care

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dc.contributor.advisorRoss, Fiona Cen_ZA
dc.contributor.authorFerreira, Nicoleen_ZA
dc.date.accessioned2018-03-22T08:11:57Z
dc.date.available2018-03-22T08:11:57Z
dc.date.issued2016en_ZA
dc.description.abstractThe dissertation examines how pregnant women seeking antenatal care at a state facility in the Southern Peninsula of Cape Town conceptualise and experience their pregnancies in relation to the biomedical model that informs state practices of care. I specifically explore the experiences that contribute to the state's definition of 'late' presentation at antenatal clinics (i.e. after the first trimester). The antenatal care model advises that pregnant women report "early", at 12 weeks, and have regular follow up visits up until 40 week period, yet recent public health research showed that women present "late" to the antenatal clinics, with only 40.2% of first antenatal visits occurring in the first trimester in South Africa. The women who were a part of the research were chosen in the clinic space, in waiting rooms, booking rooms and while waiting for ultrasounds. The women were selected based on age (17 upwards), and gestational age at first antenatal booking. I examine the ways biomedicine frames temporality, and the way that health policy enacts this through antenatal care. I contest the brackets of 'lateness' and biomedicalisation of pregnancy, and the state's version of the female reproductive body as I describe the unfolding experiences of a reproductive life, showing how pregnancy and health care seeking are enmeshed in social worlds. The discursive framings of antenatal attendance exhorts women to seek antennal care at 12 weeks gestation, to "be responsible" "good women" managing their sexual and reproductive lives with a mode surveillance that presumes a certain way of knowing and counting the body. I explore the other ways of experiencing, knowing, and counting, showing how pregnancy experiences and healthcare seeking behaviours are influenced by social, economic, political, and historical factors, and by the moral and religious values that shape daily life for women. My thesis is grounded in the growing literature on anthropology of reproduction and the biosocial. In doing so, I examine what it means to have and experience a reproductive body within the unfolding events of everyday life, where moments and 'quasievents' (such as structural inequalities, and the daily bouts of gang violence and domestic violence) become enmeshed, such that they influence temporality, differing perceptions of trust, distrust, risk and testing, and differing social values of testing. I further show how maternal kinship networks of support are valued, yet precarious as are intimate partnerships, which both influence experiences of care, neglect, abuse, punishment and shape antenatal attendance. In contesting temporal boundaries of biomedicine I show how women's bodily and relational experiences, their everyday lives and quasi-events within them are inseparable in shaping antenatal health seeking practices and how pregnancies are imagined.en_ZA
dc.identifier.apacitationFerreira, N. (2016). <i>Enduring "lateness": biomedicalisation and the unfolding of reproductive life, sociality, and antenatal care</i>. (Thesis). University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Social Anthropology. Retrieved from http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27691en_ZA
dc.identifier.chicagocitationFerreira, Nicole. <i>"Enduring "lateness": biomedicalisation and the unfolding of reproductive life, sociality, and antenatal care."</i> Thesis., University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Social Anthropology, 2016. http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27691en_ZA
dc.identifier.citationFerreira, N. 2016. Enduring "lateness": biomedicalisation and the unfolding of reproductive life, sociality, and antenatal care. University of Cape Town.en_ZA
dc.identifier.ris TY - Thesis / Dissertation AU - Ferreira, Nicole AB - The dissertation examines how pregnant women seeking antenatal care at a state facility in the Southern Peninsula of Cape Town conceptualise and experience their pregnancies in relation to the biomedical model that informs state practices of care. I specifically explore the experiences that contribute to the state's definition of 'late' presentation at antenatal clinics (i.e. after the first trimester). The antenatal care model advises that pregnant women report "early", at 12 weeks, and have regular follow up visits up until 40 week period, yet recent public health research showed that women present "late" to the antenatal clinics, with only 40.2% of first antenatal visits occurring in the first trimester in South Africa. The women who were a part of the research were chosen in the clinic space, in waiting rooms, booking rooms and while waiting for ultrasounds. The women were selected based on age (17 upwards), and gestational age at first antenatal booking. I examine the ways biomedicine frames temporality, and the way that health policy enacts this through antenatal care. I contest the brackets of 'lateness' and biomedicalisation of pregnancy, and the state's version of the female reproductive body as I describe the unfolding experiences of a reproductive life, showing how pregnancy and health care seeking are enmeshed in social worlds. The discursive framings of antenatal attendance exhorts women to seek antennal care at 12 weeks gestation, to "be responsible" "good women" managing their sexual and reproductive lives with a mode surveillance that presumes a certain way of knowing and counting the body. I explore the other ways of experiencing, knowing, and counting, showing how pregnancy experiences and healthcare seeking behaviours are influenced by social, economic, political, and historical factors, and by the moral and religious values that shape daily life for women. My thesis is grounded in the growing literature on anthropology of reproduction and the biosocial. In doing so, I examine what it means to have and experience a reproductive body within the unfolding events of everyday life, where moments and 'quasievents' (such as structural inequalities, and the daily bouts of gang violence and domestic violence) become enmeshed, such that they influence temporality, differing perceptions of trust, distrust, risk and testing, and differing social values of testing. I further show how maternal kinship networks of support are valued, yet precarious as are intimate partnerships, which both influence experiences of care, neglect, abuse, punishment and shape antenatal attendance. In contesting temporal boundaries of biomedicine I show how women's bodily and relational experiences, their everyday lives and quasi-events within them are inseparable in shaping antenatal health seeking practices and how pregnancies are imagined. DA - 2016 DB - OpenUCT DP - University of Cape Town LK - https://open.uct.ac.za PB - University of Cape Town PY - 2016 T1 - Enduring "lateness": biomedicalisation and the unfolding of reproductive life, sociality, and antenatal care TI - Enduring "lateness": biomedicalisation and the unfolding of reproductive life, sociality, and antenatal care UR - http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27691 ER - en_ZA
dc.identifier.urihttp://hdl.handle.net/11427/27691
dc.identifier.vancouvercitationFerreira N. Enduring "lateness": biomedicalisation and the unfolding of reproductive life, sociality, and antenatal care. [Thesis]. University of Cape Town ,Faculty of Humanities ,Social Anthropology, 2016 [cited yyyy month dd]. Available from: http://hdl.handle.net/11427/27691en_ZA
dc.language.isoengen_ZA
dc.publisher.departmentSocial Anthropologyen_ZA
dc.publisher.facultyFaculty of Humanitiesen_ZA
dc.publisher.institutionUniversity of Cape Town
dc.subject.otherSocial Anthropologyen_ZA
dc.subject.otherHealth Policyen_ZA
dc.subject.otherAntenatal Careen_ZA
dc.subject.otherHealth Careen_ZA
dc.titleEnduring "lateness": biomedicalisation and the unfolding of reproductive life, sociality, and antenatal careen_ZA
dc.typeMaster Thesis
dc.type.qualificationlevelMasters
dc.type.qualificationnameMSocScen_ZA
uct.type.filetypeText
uct.type.filetypeImage
uct.type.publicationResearchen_ZA
uct.type.resourceThesisen_ZA
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