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Paradoxical Subjects - Women Telling Birth Stories
This study focuses on the construction of subjectivity in and through the telling of birth stories. Drawing on 50 interviews with middle-class women, most of who "chose" to birth either at home or via elective caesarean section, the thesis explores how women make birth "choices" and "experience" hom...
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| Format: | Thesis |
| Language: | English |
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Department of Psychology
2014
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| _version_ | 1867613155963699200 |
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| access_status_str | Open Access |
| author | Chadwick, Rachelle Joy |
| author_browse | Chadwick, Rachelle Joy |
| author_facet | Chadwick, Rachelle Joy |
| author_sort | Chadwick, Rachelle Joy |
| collection | Thesis |
| description | This study focuses on the construction of subjectivity in and through the telling of birth stories. Drawing on 50 interviews with middle-class women, most of who "chose" to birth either at home or via elective caesarean section, the thesis explores how women make birth "choices" and "experience" home-birth and caesarean-birth within a South African setting. Furthermore, by employing a range of theoretical resources, including the work of Julia Kristeva, Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Young and materialist feminists such as Nancy Hartsock and Maria Mies, this study explores the forms of embodied subjectivity that emerge in birth narratives. Engaging in both an ideological analysis and a narrative analysis, the thesis shows how women's "choices" and "experiences" are always situated within or in relation to cultural story lines, dominant ideologies and material contexts. However, at the same time, through the use of a Kristevan theory of bodieslanguage- subjectivity, the thesis also demonstrates how "the body" itself often becomes transfused into women's talk about birth, resulting in paradoxical and contradictory forms of subjectivity. |
| format | Thesis |
| id | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8187 |
| institution | University of Cape Town (South Africa) |
| language | eng |
| last_indexed | 2026-06-10T12:31:38.662Z |
| license_str | Not specified — see source repository |
| provenance_str_mv | Harvested via OAI-PMH from UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| publishDate | 2014 |
| publishDateRange | 2014 |
| publishDateSort | 2014 |
| publisher | Department of Psychology |
| publisherStr | Department of Psychology |
| record_format | dspace |
| source_str | UCTD — University of Cape Town Open Access Repository |
| spelling | oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/8187 Paradoxical Subjects - Women Telling Birth Stories Chadwick, Rachelle Joy Psychology This study focuses on the construction of subjectivity in and through the telling of birth stories. Drawing on 50 interviews with middle-class women, most of who "chose" to birth either at home or via elective caesarean section, the thesis explores how women make birth "choices" and "experience" home-birth and caesarean-birth within a South African setting. Furthermore, by employing a range of theoretical resources, including the work of Julia Kristeva, Simone de Beauvoir, Iris Young and materialist feminists such as Nancy Hartsock and Maria Mies, this study explores the forms of embodied subjectivity that emerge in birth narratives. Engaging in both an ideological analysis and a narrative analysis, the thesis shows how women's "choices" and "experiences" are always situated within or in relation to cultural story lines, dominant ideologies and material contexts. However, at the same time, through the use of a Kristevan theory of bodieslanguage- subjectivity, the thesis also demonstrates how "the body" itself often becomes transfused into women's talk about birth, resulting in paradoxical and contradictory forms of subjectivity. 2014-10-06T11:37:01Z 2014-10-06T11:37:01Z 2007 Doctoral Thesis Doctoral PhD http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8187 eng application/pdf Department of Psychology Faculty of Humanities University of Cape Town |
| spellingShingle | Psychology Chadwick, Rachelle Joy Paradoxical Subjects - Women Telling Birth Stories |
| thesis_degree_str | Doctoral |
| title | Paradoxical Subjects - Women Telling Birth Stories |
| title_full | Paradoxical Subjects - Women Telling Birth Stories |
| title_fullStr | Paradoxical Subjects - Women Telling Birth Stories |
| title_full_unstemmed | Paradoxical Subjects - Women Telling Birth Stories |
| title_short | Paradoxical Subjects - Women Telling Birth Stories |
| title_sort | paradoxical subjects women telling birth stories |
| topic | Psychology |
| url | http://hdl.handle.net/11427/8187 |
| work_keys_str_mv | AT chadwickrachellejoy paradoxicalsubjectswomentellingbirthstories |