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- Convenors:
-
Sonja Merten
(Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute)
Joelle Schwarz (University of Lausanne)
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- Stream:
- Health
- Location:
- Gordon Aikman Lecture Theatre
- Sessions:
- Friday 14 June, -
Time zone: Europe/London
Short Abstract:
Family planning programmes respond to a global ecopolitical dynamic, reflecting and reproducing the global discourse of population control in the global South. This panel explores the population control discourse as masking global and local inequalities and local practices of family planning.
Long Abstract:
While the global wealth gap continues to increase, expressions of the intention to reduce poverty have gained momentum on the international political agenda. Concomitantly, private initiatives of a small number of super-wealthy individuals increasingly define the development strategies that are applied to poor populations. Tracing back to Malthus, one of the primary axes of action for sustainable development and poverty reduction is population control. Based on the assumption that having too many children is a risk for further impoverishment of already poor households and the constraints of many countries to meet the needs of increasing populations, family planning programmes experience intense funding on the African continent. Behavior change approaches dominate the focus of current family planning policies and interventions aiming at controlling the size of poor populations, rather than pursuing politics of redistribution. Family planning programmes further respond to a global economic dynamic and don't necessarily translate into a large offer of contraception methods. Global economies and power-structures are thus reflected and reproduced in the global discourse of population control in the global South. In this context it is often overlooked that local elites are partly benefitting from the population control discourse as this doesn't challenge the widening socioeconomic gap and unequal power-structures within their countries - instead it masks them by shifting the attention to the unruly behavior of poor people. To what extent does this lead to resistances towards family planning programmes?
Accepted papers:
Session 1 Friday 14 June, 2019, -Joelle Schwarz (University of Lausanne)
Paper short abstract:
In this paper, we describe how the "population problem" was constructed and how the FP discourse - responding to global ecopolitical dynamics - is displayed and transformed from the national level of policies and programme to the local level of rural households.
Paper long abstract:
Family planning (FP) was introduced in Burundi as a national programme in 1983 to control population growth, described as a barrier to economic growth and a cause of socio-political instability. Today, using the same rationale and supported by international donors, the government pursues the same objective of population control - promoting uptake of modern contraception and fertility reduction - setting it legitimacy on land pressure and conflict, distant from the reproductive health and rights rhetoric. In this paper, we describe how the "population problem" was constructed and how the FP discourse - responding to global ecopolitical dynamics - is displayed and transformed from the national level of policies and programmes to the local level of rural households. Using qualitative data collected in rural Burundi, we analyse how individuals and couples relate to the hegemonic discourse, sometimes adhering and adopting the technical solution - modern contraception -, sometimes resisting it and adopting the alternative solution promoted by the Catholic Church - natural methods. We further emphasize how reproductive preferences and practices are influenced by other factors contingent on the current changing social order, for instance gender and generational power dynamics. Finally, we discuss how the government promotes modern contraception as a (a-political) technical solution to the identified population problem and benefits from its instrument-effects. The discourse sets the responsibility for socioeconomic uncertainty, political instability and environmental concerns on individuals and couples by calling for responsible and disciplined reproductive practices, rather than on the duties of political elites to provide for stability, opportunities and redistribution.
Selina Felber (Institute of Social Anthropology University of Bern) Sonja Merten (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute)
Paper short abstract:
While modern contraception is strongly promoted for young women in North Kivu DRC, uptake remains limited. The gap between young women's perceptions of family planning and the public health and development discourse is explored.
Paper long abstract:
Young women in North Kivu increasingly have access to family planning methods through government health facilities. However, previous empirical research has shown that family planning is widely portrayed as a means for married couples to reduce household poverty, is often not acceptable for religious leaders, or may be perceived as an external intervention aiming at reducing African populations. Offering family planning to young people in turn bears a connotation of inciting premarital sex, which is socially discredited, and concerns with the safety of contraceptive commodities prevail. Young people themselves are often sexually active before their marriage, and are confronted with many different viewpoints and sources of information, including information about many ineffective ways to prevent or end a pregnancy. As a consequence, abortion rates and adolescent pregnancy are rampant, as is maternal mortality. In the local context where young unmarried women are not expected to be sexually active, using hormonal contraception outside marriage is quickly understood as synonymous with a damaged reputation, compromising prospects for future marriage and affecting family relations. Pregnancy, however, may lead to an undesired marriage that young women try to avoid. This paper explores why young women take the risk not to use contraception, potentially exposing themselves to risky abortions in a context where the government and non-governmental organizations strongly promote modern contraceptives for young people and outlines how young people relate to the discourse of family planning as a means for poverty reduction and for women's empowerment.
Sonja Merten (Swiss Tropical and Public Health Institute)
Paper short abstract:
How do young people navigate expectations inherent in a political discourse of fertility control to enhance economic development and concomitantly manage experiences of intimacy? Referring to Hochschild's concept of emotion work and feminist theory I discuss findings from different African countries
Paper long abstract:
Referring to Arlie Hochschild's concept of emotion work, and to feminist and critical theory, this paper investigates how young people navigate expectations inherent in a public/political discourse of controlling fertility to enhance economic development while negotiating at the same time intimacy, social reputation, education, income-generation, and gendered expectations from their family network. Partly based on previously published literature, partly based on empirical findings from Bénin, DRC, Ghana, Rwanda and Zambia collected by different teams of researchers in the context of implementation research around sexual and reproductive health interventions, I explore how young women and men speak about emotions related to intimacy, sexuality, early pregnancy, and family planning. I delineate the emotional work appearing in the accounts of young women and men who speak about marriage, their fertility intentions and contraception, in settings where sexuality and pregnancy outside the dominant social norm are sanctioned to different degrees. At the same time, in the different contexts, external actors strongly promote the introduction of specific family planning methods, adding a layer of complexity to young people's lives. I investigate intersections between the emotional work needed to manage intimacy and social expectations, and the structural, gendered inequalities young people face, aiming at achieving a better understanding of the interplay of emotions, intimacies, and social and economic power structures and interests, which shape young people's intimate lives.