A critical review of sanctioned knowledge production concerning abortion in Africa: Implications for feminist health psychology
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Chiweshe, Malvern , Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444212 , vital:74207 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1177/1359105316644294"
- Description: Taking a feminist health psychology approach, we conducted a systematic review of published research on abortion featured in PsycINFO over a 7-year period. We analysed the 39 articles included in the review in terms of countries in which the research was conducted, types of research, issues covered, the way the research was framed and main findings. Despite 97per cent of abortions performed in Africa being classifiable as unsafe, there has been no engagement in knowledge production about abortion in Africa from psychologists, outside of South Africa. Given this, we outline the implications of the current knowledge base for feminism, psychology and feminist health psychology in Africa.
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- Date Issued: 2018
Contesting sexual violence policies in higher education: the case of Rhodes University
- Authors: Macleod, Catriona I , Böhmke, Werner , Barker, Kim , Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Chiweshe, Malvern
- Date: 2018
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444275 , vital:74212 , xlink:href="https://www.emerald.com/insight/content/doi/10.1108/JACPR-05-2017-0295/full/html"
- Description: – In April 2016, students at Rhodes University brought the institution to a standstill as they protested the University’s sexual violence policies and procedures, as well as the “rape culture” that pervades social structures. In response, a Sexual Violence Task Team (SVTT) was formed in an open, participatory, and transparent process. Members of the University community were invited to comment on drafts of the SVTT document. The purpose of this paper is to outline the contestations – arising from both the establishment of the task team and the inputs from University members to drafts of the document – that surfaced concerning managing sexual violence on campuses and sexual offences policies.
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- Date Issued: 2018
Reproductive justice in context: South African and Zimbabwean women’s narratives of their abortion decision
- Authors: Chiweshe, Malvern , Mavuso, Jabulile M-J J , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444371 , vital:74223 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1177/0959353517699234"
- Description: The abortion decision-making process is embedded within overlapping power relations. Using a post-colonial feminist framework, we analyse South African and Zimbabwean women’s narratives regarding their abortion decision. As neighbouring countries, South Africa and Zimbabwe provide a useful counterpoint as they have common and differing social histories and very different abortion legislation. In our analysis, we unpick transversal commonalities and divergences in the discursive resources deployed by the women in their narratives in the two sites. Commonalities included the women feeling compelled to justify their abortion decision in the interactive interview space, an absence of a reproductive rights discourse, and the deployment of relationship embedded discourses in the justificatory work performed by the women. The ‘‘conjugalisation of reproduction’’, ‘‘imperative of good mothering’’, and ‘‘unstable partner relationships’’ discourses featured across both sites but the manner in which these were deployed differed. These discursive resources allowed the women to position themselves as making responsible decisions. The Zimbabwean women spoke of shame and hiding, a discursive resource that was explicitly absent in the South African women’s accounts. We conclude by arguing that our post-colonial feminist approach allows for a contextualised reproductive justice stance to abortion decision-making that identifies both transnational and context-specific power relations.
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- Date Issued: 2017
‘If you choose to abort, you have acted as an instrument of Satan’: Zimbabwean health service Providers’ negative constructions of women presenting for post abortion care
- Authors: Chiweshe, Malvern , Macleod, Catriona I
- Date: 2017
- Subjects: To be catalogued
- Language: English
- Type: text , article
- Identifier: http://hdl.handle.net/10962/444200 , vital:74205 , xlink:href="https://doi.org/10.1007/s12529-017-9694-8"
- Description: Health service providers play a crucial role in providing post abortion care in countries where abortion legislation is restrictive and abortion is stigmatised. Research in countries where these factors apply has shown that health service providers can be barriers to women accessing post abortion services. Much of this research draws from attitude theory. In this paper, we utilise positioning theory to show how the ways in which Zimbabwean health service providers’ position women and themselves are rooted in cultural and social power relations. In light of recent efforts by the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health and foreign organisations to improve post abortion care, we explore the implications that these positionings have for post abortion care.
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- Date Issued: 2017