Читать книгу Contradicting Maternity - Carol Long - Страница 12

The women who participated in interviews were black women between the ages of 21 and 38. All had some level of schooling, but only one had received a university education. Sixty per cent were unemployed. About a third of the sample were first time mothers. Two women were interviewed who had been diagnosed as HIV-positive before falling pregnant. It is possible that other women were diagnosed before pregnancy, but were unwilling to admit this. About two-thirds were in a relationship of some sort with the fathers of their babies, although many feared that the relationship was breaking down and few actually lived with their partners. Of those who were not in a relationship with their babies’ fathers, more than half reported that their partners had left them after they had disclosed their HIV status. Many had also not told family members and had spoken to few people outside the clinic context.

The women interviewed were not a statistical minority. HIV statistics, such as the prevalence of infection among pregnant women, confront one with the sheer enormity of the pandemic, as well as its relevance for Africa and for women. For example, of the 33 million people infected worldwide, 22 million (or 67 per cent) live in sub-Saharan Africa, which is inhabited by just over 10 per cent of the world’s population (UNAIDS, 2008). This is not, however, necessarily comforting to those living outside the region. UNAIDS (2004) indicates that HIV infection is on the rise globally, particularly among women in every region of the world. For example, heterosexual infection in Western Europe more than doubled between 1997 and 2002, and HIV has been identified as the fastest-growing health problem in the United Kingdom.

South Africa has the highest number of HIV-infected people in the world at 5.7 million. South African women under 30 are particularly vulnerable (UNAIDS, 2008), i.e. women of childbearing age. HIV may produce marginalised identities, but statistics make clear that HIV-infected South African mothers are in the mainstream and not the margins.

Most women attending clinics were not first-language English speakers. An interpreter could have been used in interviews, but given the confidential and personal nature of interview discussion, it seemed that this would be too intrusive and threatening of confidentiality. Also, interpreter errors are common (Swartz, 1998) and may be ideological in nature (Gentzler, 1993; Venuti, 1992). The use of an interpreter might therefore have compromised the conversations, since HIV is discourse laden in South Africa. This meant that women who did not feel comfortable communicating in English were implicitly excluded from the study. However, South Africa is a multilingual society and many women felt comfortable conversing in English, preferring this to having an interpreter present. It also seemed that many women wanted to participate in interviews and wanted to make themselves understood. In some interviews with women whose English proficiency was relatively poor, they were nonetheless adept at communicating what was important to them: while their language use may not have been sophisticated, their ability to communicate their experience was.

Women were invited to conduct one or more interviews with me, with the flexibility to choose what they felt comfortable revealing. Two-thirds of the sample decided to conduct more than one interview. Second and subsequent interviews held the advantage of deepening interview data, as well as allowing comparison for verification of data and analysis, and for opportunities to examine shifts, continuities and contradictions (Hollway & Jefferson, 2000).