Fragmented Families addresses a central question in the demographic
debates on poverty and fertility transition in southern Africa: .
In what ways do women's recurrent encounters with poverty serve to
shape their sexual unions, social relationships and reproductive
practices? The book focuses on the lives of a group of mothers and
daughters from fifteen families in a demarcated part of the
Winterveld area in South Africa, and draws attention to historical,
socio-cultural, political and economic concerns in order to place
in context or make sense of reproductive dynamics and family life
at the micro-level. Vignettes, drawn from fieldwork, highlight the
particularities of the area: the persistence of historical
tensions, diverse livelihoods and complex gender relationships. The
intergenerational stories of the women suggest that they live with
immense and increasing adversity and that strategies to contend
with them sometimes include attempts to assert control over sexual
encounters and reproductive outcomes. The book contributes to a
continuing debate on how changing socio-economic conditions could
influence prospects for and the nature of fertility transition in
African countries. The study concurs with alternative arguments
that shifts toward lower levels of fertility might be due, in
certain contexts, to experiences of severe hardship rather than
favourable economic circumstances. Instead of seeking security and
risk-aversion through bearing many children the response of
indigent women in this area has been largely to resist
reproduction, at particular stages of their lives, whilst using
sexual relationships and child-bearing as strategies to manipulate
and secure resources. In reflecting on methodological approaches,
the book draws attention to the limitations of survey research in
efforts to elicit 'accurate' representations of reproductive
behaviour and fertility preferences, and emphasises the usefulness
of more engaged, qualitative and long-term fieldwork endeavours in
building substantive insights on women's familial and reproductive
lives. _________________________________________ Kammila Naidoo is
an Associate Professor in the Department of Sociology at the
University of Pretoria, South Africa. She completed her PhD at the
University of Manchester in 2001 where she was a Commonwealth
Scholar between 1998 and 2000. Her work on poverty, family and
women's lives has been published in several journals including the
Journal of Asian and African Studies, African Sociological Review,
South African Review of Sociology and Forum: Qualitative Social
Research. Contact:
[email protected]. Publication date:
August 2009
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