Why feminism: some notes from ‘the field’ on doing feminist research

On Wednesday 27 September 2017, LSE Gender PhD students organised an event titled Why feminism? An open discussion about doing gender research. During this event, PhD and MSc students from a range of disciplines engaged in a conversation framed around a series of questions: What does it mean to say we are working with gender studies? What does a gender perspective allow in research? How do we know research to be feminist, queer and/or postcolonial? What questions does that raise for our work? This series of posts presents the transcripts of the speakers’ discussion papers, continuing with Rishita Nandagiri’s account of feminist research and ‘field’ work

Book review: the country of first boys by Amartya Sen

In The Country of First Boys, Amartya Sen offers a collection of thirteen essays that could be read as a ‘best of’ set of his reflections on Indian society, economics, culture, policy and intellectual thought. Writing on Sen’s defence of the importance of reasoned argument and plurality, Rishita Nandagiri praises this clarion call against injustice for its accessibility, dry wit and engaging conversational style

Like a mother-daughter relationship: community health intermediaries' knowledge of and attitudes to abortion in Karnataka, India

Community Health Intermediaries (CHIs)- ANMs, ASHAs, and pharmacists- are key to realising task-sharing efforts to increase abortion access in LMICs, but their knowledge of and attitudes to abortion remains underexplored. Evidence on abortion task-sharing has focused primarily on CHIs' technical and clinical abilities, overlooking social contexts and norms that influence attitudes and behaviours. This mixed-methods study describes the abortion knowledge, attitudes, and roles of three cadres of CHIs in rural districts of Karnataka, India. Quantitative data on CHIs' abortion attitudes (n = 118) were collected using the Stigmatising Attitudes, Behaviours, and Actions Scale (SABAS), followed by in-depth interviews (n = 21) with a subset of the population over eight months in 2017. Findings show that CHIs, present at multiple points in women's abortion trajectories, serve as barriers or facilitate access to abortion care. Their abortion attitudes reflect social contexts and environments, drawing on social norms surrounding fertility, woman- and mother-hood. They demonstrate poor knowledge of abortion laws, conflating them with sex-selection laws. CHIs also reflect poor knowledge of abortion methods. They report little to no training on abortion. CHIs contend with entrenched social and structural inequalities in carrying out their tasks, affecting the kind and quality of care they are able to provide. Understanding CHIs' experiences, knowledge and attitudes can advance abortion care-provision, support task-sharing efforts, and potentially improve the quality of women's abortion-seeking experiences

Post-what? global advocacy and its disconnects: the Cairo legacy and the post-2015 agenda

As part of the emerging new research on civic innovation, this book explores how sexual politics and gender relations play out in feminist struggles around body politics in Brazil, Colombia, India, Iran, Mexico, Nepal, Turkey, Nicaragua, as well as in East Africa, Latin America and global institutions and networks. From diverse disciplinary perspectives, the book looks at how feminists are engaged in a complex struggle for democratic power in a neoliberal age and at how resistance is integral to possibilities for change. In making visible resistances to dominant economic and social policies, the book highlights how such struggles are both gendered and gendering bodies. The chapters explore struggles for healthy environments, sexual health and reproductive rights, access to abortion, an end to gender-based violence, the human rights of LGBTIQA persons, the recognition of indigenous territories and all peoples’ rights to care, love and work freely. The book sets out the violence, hopes, contradictions and ways forward in these civic innovations, resistances and connections across the globe

(Re)conceptualising abortion safety: centering lived realities

“Safety” is a driving concern in abortion care provision, shaping laws, policies, care guidelines and public discourse, but remains largely understood within biomedical and legal frames. Evidence highlights - irrespective of understandings of safety- that abortion seekers often risk their health and lives to access abortion. Definitions of abortion safety have shifted from a binary understanding of safe/unsafe to a spectrum of risk that accounts for a range of methods, risk profiles and legal settings that affects abortion safety and outcomes. Yet, these newer definitions still fail to adequately account for social and political contexts of abortion seekers’ lives that shape perceptions and experiences of “safety” and “risk”. This is because "safety" and "risk" are also socially constructed, evolving over time and context. Theorisations of safety and risk attach a set of meanings to abortion (e.g., good/bad abortions), which then constitute and influence abortion seekers’ relationships with their partners and families, and their interactions with health facilities and providers. Using in-depth, semi-structured interviews (n=31) conducted in two rural districts in Karnataka, India in 2017, this seminar reflects on current understandings and classifications of abortion safety. I suggest expanding existing approaches by linking it to women’s needs, their contexts of abortion-seeking and treatment, and their experiences of navigating care. Centring women’s experiences, negotiations, and understandings of abortion-related care allows for an exploration of what, for them, constitutes safety in abortion access, care, and outcomes. This disrupts entrenched notions of who is considered a provider, what constitutes ‘trained’ and what the ‘minimum standards’ are for a "safe" abortion environment; challenging how un/safe abortion is currently conceptualised. This can potentially expand understandings of abortion safety beyond clinical and biomedical outcomes to account for the broader conditions that women experience and negotiate in seeking safe(r) abortion care

I feel like some kind of namoona: examining sterilisation in women's abortion trajectories in India

Sterilisation in India (and globally) has a contentious and deeply politicised history. Despite this troubling legacy, India continues to rely on female sterilisation as the main form of contraception and family planning. Abortion, which has been legal under broad grounds since 1971, intersects with sterilisation at different points over women's reproductive lifecourse. Drawing on three case studies exploring women's abortion trajectories in Karnataka, India (2017), this chapter examines sterilisation as a reproductive technology (RT) in women's abortion narratives. These include experiences of failed sterilisation necessitating abortion, as well as narratives around pre- and post-abortion counselling with sterilisation conditionalities. Women report healthcare workers shaming or scolding them for not being sterilised after their last pregnancy – demonstrating the prominence of sterilisation as an enforced social norm using ‘health’ frames. Using reproductive justice (RJ) as a lens, I analyse how sterilisation interacts with abortion and the narratives of shame and stigma that surround the two technologies and make visible the ways in which it results in the denial and restriction of women's reproductive freedoms

"Can you keep a secret?": methodological considerations for qualitative research on women’s abortion experiences

Empirical abortion research is shaped by the stigma, attitudes, and beliefs surrounding abortion experiences. It thus requires managing complex ethical and methodological issues. There is an inherent tension in conducting abortion research: (i) navigating secrecy to recruit participants who have terminated a pregnancy and are willing to reveal this information, while (ii) maintaining and securing that secrecy. This need for secrecy- by providers, gatekeepers, and women- profoundly affects research design. Drawing on nine months of primary qualitative research in two rural districts in India, this paper explores the management of secrecy and privacy, and the roles of relationship-building and trust in qualitative abortion research. It considers recruitment strategies, safeguarding mechanisms, minimisation of exposure, ethics, and reflexivity. Understanding and accounting for the roles that concealment, silence, and trust play in abortion research can build more responsive, flexible, and ethical research designs, contributing to more robust and rigorous studies of abortion

"They know everything": community health workers' attitudes to and influence on abortion access in India

Safe abortion access is impeded by multiple barriers, including legal status of abortion, availability of trained providers, and degree of abortion knowledge. Even where abortion is legally available, it may remain inaccessible due to lack of accurate abortion information and knowledge, lack of trained providers, especially in rural areas, and limiting provision of services to physicians or specialists. The paucity of trained/available providers may lead to delays in access to care or abortions taking place under unsafe conditions. Task‐sharing/task‐shifting enables lay and mid‐level healthcare professionals such as nurses, midwives, pharmacists, and community health workers (CHWs) in healthcare service provision. In India, female CHWs and pharmacists act as the key interface between public health systems and rural communities. Equipped with pregnancy testing kits, they are present for women’s first acknowledgement or confirmation of pregnancy. As trusted confidants and sources of information, women turn to CHWs for advice and support in their abortion decision‐making. Yet, their attitudes to abortion, and current and potential roles in abortion access remain underexplored. A nested mixed‐methods (questionnaires=112, in‐depth interviews=21) study design was utilised to collect data over eight months in rural villages in two districts in Karnataka, India. Preliminary findings suggest that CHWs display some stigmatising attitudes and lack knowledge of current laws; and influence abortion trajectories by providing advice or withholding information. Their roles and attitudes are shaped by and function within social, political, and cultural contexts. Task‐sharing efforts must account for social, political, and cultural relations that inform CHWs negotiations, subversions, & service provision

“They know everything”: the role of Community Health Workers in abortion access

In India, female community health workers (CHWs) are equipped with pregnancy testing kits, and are often present for women’s first acknowledgement or confirmation of pregnancy. As trusted confidants and sources of health information, women turn to CHWs for advice and support in their abortion decision-making. Task-shifting recommendations and policies centre CHWs as key personnel in abortion access, but their current roles in abortion access remain underexplored. Questionnaire data (n= 112) and in-depth interview data (n= 21) collected in two rural districts in India (2017) show that CHWs can enable or cause additional barriers in women’s abortion care-seeking pathways. Preliminary findings suggest that CHWs take on ‘counselling’ roles, and negative or positive attitudes towards abortion can affect the quality and nature of their advice. Where abortion is legal, recognising CHWs as pivotal actors and investing in their knowledge and training can make safe abortion more accessible, affecting women’s pathways to abortion