Female agency in action
an examination of interactions in an online ‘Love and Relationships’ discussion forum
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.27529Keywords:
mHealth, Conversation Analysis, female agency, adolescent relationships, South AfricaAbstract
This study examined the discursive and interactional processes by which adolescent female participants present and discuss their romantic relationships in a ‘Love and Relationships’ MXit forum, a mobile phone-based project created by the South African Non-Governmental Organisation, HIVSA. In doing so, it was possible to explore some of the norms and ‘taken-for-granted’ practices of romantic relationships that the participants describe, which offered insight into present research into adolescent experiences of gender and romantic relationships, as well as new subjects for consideration during intervention or analysis. In particular, it is suggested that because conceptions of love and having children appeared not to be foreclosed normative practices, these could prove fertile points of intervention with young women’s choices, agency, and ultimately, empowerment. This study thus recommends disseminating and increasing the scope of hi4LIFE and similar projects that provide platforms for the production of female agency.
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Wilson, H. and Huntington, A. (2006) Deviant (m)others: the construction of teenage motherhood in contemporary discourse. Journal of Social Policy 35: 59–76. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279405009335
Wood, K. and Jewkes, R. (1997) Violence, rape, and sexual coercion: everyday love in a South African township. Gender and Development 5: 41–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/741922353
Bhana, D. (2012) ‘Girls are not free’ – in and out of the South African school. International Journal of Educational Development 32: 352–58. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijedudev.2011.06.002
Bhana, D. and Pattman, R. (2011) Girls want money, boys want virgins: the materiality of love amongst South African township youth in the context of HIV and AIDS. Culture, Health and Sexuality 13: 961–72. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691058.2011.576770
Blair, B. and Fletcher, A. (2011) ‘The only 13-year-old on planet Earth without a cell phone’: meanings of cell phones in early adolescents’ everyday lives. Journal of Adolescent Research 26: 155–77. https://doi.org/10.1177/0743558410371127
Breheny, M. and Stephens, C. (2007) Individual responsibility and social constraint: the construction of adolescent motherhood in social scientific research. Culture, Health and Sexuality 9: 333–46. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691050600975454
Christofides, N., Jewkes, R., Dunkle, K., McCarty, F., Jama Shai, N., Nduna, M. and Sterk, C. (2014) Risk factors for unplanned and unwanted teenage pregnancies occurring over two years of follow-up among a cohort of young South African women. Global Health Action 7: 23719. https://doi.org/10.3402/gha.v7.23719
Dean, A., Walters, J. and Hall, A. (2010) A systematic review of interventions to enhance medication adherence in children and adolescents with chronic illness. Archives of Disease in Childhood 95: 717–23. https://doi.org/10.1136/adc.2009.175125
Edin, K. and Kefalas, M. (2005) Promises I Can Keep: Why Poor Women Put Motherhood before Marriage. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
Ensink, T. (2003) The frame analysis of research interviews. In H. van den Berg, M. Wetherell and H. Houtkoop-Steenstra (eds) Analyzing Race Talk: Multidisciplinary Perspectives on the Research Interview 156–77. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
Fine, M. (1995) The politics of who’s ‘at risk’. In B. Swadener, and S. Lubeck (eds) Children and Families ‘At Promise’: Deconstructing the Discourse of Risk 76–94. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press.
Frost, L. and Hoggett, P. (2008) Human agency and social suffering. Critical Social Policy 28: 438–60. https://doi.org/10.1177/0261018308095279
Harrison, A. (2008) Hidden love: sexual ideologies and relationship ideals among rural South African adolescents in the context of HIV/AIDS. Culture, Health and Sexuality 10: 175–89. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691050701775068
Harrison, A. and O’Sullivan, L. (2010) In the absence of marriage: long term concurrent partnerships, pregnancy, and HIV risk dynamics among South African young adults. AIDS and Behaviour 14: 991–1000. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-010-9687-y
HIVSA. (2012) HI4LIFE. Retrieved 8 October 2013 from www.hivsa.com/projects/entry/hi4life.
Hunter, M. (2010) Love in the Time of AIDS: Inequality, Gender and Rights in South Africa. Bloomington, IN: Indiana University Press.
Hutchby, I. and Woofit, R. (2008) Conversation Analysis (2nd edition). Cambridge, UK: Polity Press.
Jewkes, R. and Morrell, R. (2012) Sexuality and the limits of agency among South African teenage women: theorising femininities and their connections to HIV risk practices. Social Science and Medicine 74: 1729–37. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2011.05.020
Kalichman, S., Simbayi, L., Kaufman, M., Jooste, S. and Mathiti, V. (2005) Gender attitudes, sexual violence, and HIV/AIDS risks among men and women in Cape Town, South Africa. Journal of Sex Research 42: 299–305. https://doi.org/10.1080/00224490509552285
Kim, J., Watts, C., Hargreaves, J., Ndhlovu, L., Phetla, G., Morison, L. … Pronyk, P. (2007) Understanding the impact of a microfinance-based intervention on women’s empowerment and the reduction of intimate partner violence in South Africa. American Journal of Public Health 97(10): 1794–1802. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2006.095521
Kress, G. and van Leeuwen, T. (2001) Multimodal Discourse: The Modes and Media of Contemporary Communication. London: Arnold.
Macleod, C. and Tracey, T. (2010) A decade later: follow-up review of South African research on the consequences of and contributory factors in teen-aged pregnancy. South African Journal of Psychology 40: 18–31. https://doi.org/10.1177/008124631004000103
Patton, G., Coffey, C., Cappa, C., Currie, D., Riley, L., Gore, F., Degenhardt, L., Richardson, D., Astone, N., Sangowawa, A. O., Mokdad, A. and Ferguson, J. (2012) Health of the world’s adolescents: a synthesis of internationally comparable data. The Lancet 379: 1665–75. https://doi.org/10.1016/S0140-6736(12)60203-7
Potter, J. (2011) Discursive psychology and the study of naturally occurring talk. In D. Silverman (ed.) Qualitative Research (3rd edition) 187–207. London: Sage.
Samman, E. and Santos, M. (2009) Agency and Empowerment: A Review of Concepts, Indicators and Empirical Evidence. Oxford: Oxford Poverty and Human Development Initiative.
Schegloff, E. (2007) A tutorial on membership categorization. Journal of Pragmatics 39: 462–82. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2006.07.007
Shefer, T., Bhana, D. and Morrell, R. (2013) Teenage pregnancy and parenting at school in contemporary South African contexts: deconstructing school narratives and understanding policy implementation. Perspectives in Education 31: 1–10.
Steyn, M. and van Zyl, M. (eds) (2009) The Prize and the Price: Shaping Sexualities in South Africa. Cape Town: HSRC Press.
Tomlinson, M., Rotheram-Borus, M., Swartz, L. and Tsai, A. (2013) Scaling up mHealth: where is the evidence? PLoS Medicine, 10: e1001382. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.1001382
Vasudevan, L. and Campano, G. (2009) The social production of adolescent risk and the promise of adolescent literacies. Review of Research in Education 33: 310–53. https://doi.org/10.3102/0091732X083300
Williams, A. and Merten, M. (2014) Linking community, parenting, and depressive symptom trajectories: testing resilience models of adolescent agency based on race/ethnicity and gender. Journal of Youth and Adolescence 43: 1563-1575. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10964-014-0141-8
Wilson, H. and Huntington, A. (2006) Deviant (m)others: the construction of teenage motherhood in contemporary discourse. Journal of Social Policy 35: 59–76. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0047279405009335
Wood, K. and Jewkes, R. (1997) Violence, rape, and sexual coercion: everyday love in a South African township. Gender and Development 5: 41–6. https://doi.org/10.1080/741922353
Published
2017-09-13
Issue
Section
Articles
How to Cite
Cresswell, C. (2017). Female agency in action: an examination of interactions in an online ‘Love and Relationships’ discussion forum. Gender and Language, 11(3), 365-388. https://doi.org/10.1558/genl.27529
