Critical
Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction research programme
Rhodes
University
PhD bursary
Applications for a Doctoral
bursary are invited by candidates wishing to join a dynamic team of researchers
in the area of Critical Studies in Sexualities and Reproduction at Rhodes
University. Prof Catriona Macleod is the team leader and will supervise the
research.
The overarching aims of
this programme are to analyse: (1) discourses concerning sexualities (e.g.
sexual orientation, ‘adolescent’ sexuality) and reproduction/pregnancy deployed
in public and private spaces; (2) the range of taken-for-granted assumptions or
absent traces (e.g. regarding the nature of adolescence, mothering, family
formation and function, race and class) that underpin interventions with
respect to sexuality and reproduction; (3) the governmental technologies of
representation and intervention that achieve or undermine particular gendering,
racialising and class-based effects, and lead to the
continuation/discontinuation of sexual and reproductive health inequities; (4)
the manner in which particular discourses regarding sexualities and
reproduction are perpetuated or resisted in the everyday lives of men, women
and their families; and (5) the interstice between carers (such as health
service providers and teachers) and the recipients of sexual and reproductive
health or education services and the manner in which these interactions promote
or hinder sexual and reproductive health/citizenship. As such, the research steps
outside of the usual biomedical or public health approach to sexual and
reproductive health. Rather a range of theoretical approaches (postcolonialism,
post-structuralism, feminism) and in-depth qualitative methodologies are utilised
to illuminate the multiple and complex social processes embedded in sexualities
and reproduction.
Research activities fall
under the following areas: (1) unsupportable pregnancies/abortion; (2)
pregnancy and reproductive decision-making; and (3) sexualities. The successful
candidate will join one of the projects listed below.
AREA ONE: UNSUPPORTABLE
PREGNANCIES AND ABORTION
Project 1: Unsupportable pregnancies and reproductive justice: a
transnational comparison *
Research
objectives: to investigate, in three distinct social and
political contexts (United Kingdom, South Africa, Zimbabwe), the narratives of
women with unsupportable# pregnancies regarding the biological,
emotional, social, familial, political, health care and other circumstances
surrounding their pregnancies; to compare these narratives to those of family
members and health service providers; to link these narratives to the social
discourses, social structures and power relations that facilitate or constrain
reproductive (in)justice.
Nature
of the project: Multi-institutional
(RU, University of Greenwich, UK), multi-disciplinary project.
Methodology:
Narrative interviews will be conducted with women, family members (where
feasible), and health service providers; narrative-discursive analysis will be
used to analyse the data.
#The
signifier ‘unsupportable’ is used in preference to ‘unwanted’; the former
denotes a pregnancy that is difficult for a variety of reasons while the latter
suggests a liberal subjectivity in which a range of desires and choices are
possible.
Project 2: Public discourses on abortion
Research
objectives: to elucidate the range of discursive events
(dynamic, contradictory and constantly reproduced) emerging in a variety of
public statements (from written texts to public talk) concerning abortion in
South Africa; to examine how constructions of abortion have changed over time,
the power relations emanating from the complex process of the multiple
constructions of abortion, the prescriptive effects of these constructions
regarding how women and service providers should act, and the codifying effects
of what can be known about abortion and its effects.
Nature
of the project: This major project, started in 2003, is
on-going. The project was initially funded for five years by the National
Research Foundation and is currently funded by the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation
Research Focus Area. It is based in the Departments of Psychology and Politics
at RU.
Methodology:
Text has been, and will be, collected from public documents (newspapers, Hansard, web-sites, policy documents)
and focus group discussions; critical discourse analysis has been, and will be,
used to analyse the data.
Project 3: Pre-termination of pregnancy counselling *
Research
objectives: to compare pre-termination of pregnancy
counselling in two countries in which abortion is legal (South Africa and
United Kingdom); to investigate how counsellors manage these sensitive
interactions – with a focus on information provision and decision-making.
Nature
of project: multi-institutional (RU, University of York),
multi-disciplinary (Psychology, Politics, Sociology).
Methodology:
Pre-termination of pregnancy counselling sessions will be recorded; data will
be analysed using conversation analysis.
AREA TWO: PREGNANCY AND
REPRODUCTIVE DECISION-MAKING
Project 4: The reproductive health service nexus and pregnant and
parenting teenagers
Research
objectives: to study the nexus formed in the reproductive
health interaction between pregnant and parenting teenagers and health service
providers within the context of current health care facilities, policies and
procedures.
Nature
of research: Based in RU Psychology, started in 2011.
Methodology:
Ethnographic methods (including observation, interviews, perusal of records)
will be used for data collection; data will be analysed using discourse
analysis informed by Foucauldian analytics of power and positioning theory.
Project 5: Intimate partner violence during pregnancy *
Research
objectives: to investigate the social, cultural and gendered
power relations underpinning intimate partner violence (IPV) that is initiated
during pregnancy; to explore how service providers, perpetrators and survivors
understand and deal with the occurrence.
Nature
of research: Based in RU Psychology.
Methodology:
Collection of data through media sources and interviews with service providers,
survivors of IPV and perpetrators (where feasible); narrative and discursive
analysis informed by Foucauldian analytics of power.
Project 6: Reproductive decision-making
Research
objectives: to investigate reproductive decision-making
amongst heterosexual and same sex couples. Reproductive decision-making is
broadly defined as the (non)negotiation and process around which decisions are
made regarding: whether to have children; the timing of childbearing; and the
conditions under which children should be borne; to explore the related
negotiation around sexual encounters and contraception.
Nature
of project: This project started in 2007 and was funded by
Rhodes University; on-going work will be multi-institutional – RU; Human
Sciences Research Council, University of Pretoria, Jagiellonian University
(Poland), Magalore University (India).
Methodology:
Interviews have been, and will be, conducted with a range of people in
heterosexual and same sex relationships (people who are voluntarily and
involuntarily childfree and those with children); data have been, and will be,
analysed using narrative-discursive analysis infused with Butlerian theory of
performativity.
AREA THREE: SEXUALITIES
Project 7: Sexuality programmes and gendered norms
Research objectives: to investigate
how Life Orientation and other sexuality programmes challenge and/or reproduce
normative gender narratives, practices and power relations within which
inequitable and coerced sex and the accompanying problems of unsupportable
pregnancies and the transmission of HIV and other STIs take place; to explore
how a critical gender lens that facilitates gender transformation and gender
justice could be incorporated into sexuality programmes.
Nature
of research: multi-institutional (RU, University of the Western
Cape, Stellenbosh University, Leiden University, Royal Tropical Institute),
multi-disciplinary project which started in 2011.The project has been funded by
SANPAD and the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. Continued work will be funded by
the SARCHI chair.
Methodology:
Data will be collected through class-room observations, interviews with teachers
and learners, focus group discussions with learners, and journals kept by
learners; analysis will be performed using a combination of narrative and
discourse analysis.
Project 8: The therapeutic benefits of participating in public protest
against sexual violence*
Research
objectives: to investigatewhat the therapeutic benefits(if
any) are for rape survivors of participation in collective protest against
sexual violence; to explore the implications the findings have for
psycho-social services offered to survivors of sexual abuse and their families,
particularly in resource-scarce environments.
Nature
of project: Based in RU Psychology.
Methodology:
The annual Rhodes University ‘sexual violence = silence’ protest will form the
site of research; action research will be employed, using mixed methods,
including observation, interviews, tweets, facebook entries, documentation of
the protest, media concerning the event,
and collection of artefacts such as collages and journals created during
debriefing event.
Project 9: Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) identity and micro-
and macro-level power relations*
Research
objectives: to investigate: how LGBT identity is allowed or
constrained within the multiple social, familial, economic, geographic and work
environments people occupy; the micro- and macro-level power relations and
processes contingent upon the assumption of LGBT identity.
Nature
of project: Based at RU and University of Fort Hare.
Methodology:
Data will be collected from media sources and interviews with LGBT people and
their families, friends, and colleagues; a combination of narrative and
discursive analysis will be used.
Bursary amount:
How to go about applying
Applications should
include:
·
Covering letter
·
Curriculum Vitae
·
Copy of full academic record
·
Copy of evidence of academic writing: this can be in the form of a
thesis chapter, a conference paper or a journal article. The submission should not be longer than 30 pages.
·
Names of academic referees
·
Two page submission concerning which project you envisage joining and a
brief conceptualisation of the research in which you would engage.
Submissions to be sent
electronically to Prof Catriona Macleod on c.macleod@ru.ac.za, or by post (if electronic
submission is not possible) to Psychology Department, Rhodes University, P O
Box 94, Grahamstown, 6140.
Due date: 9 November 2012
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