Reshaping the narrative: materiality and young women’s experiences of using hormonal contraceptives in Kimberley, South Africa

Abstract

This study focused on how young women use the medicinal qualities of hormonal contraceptives in conjunction with their own agency to change perceptions on use of and access to contraceptives within conservative social institutions such as the family and religion. Dominant discourses on access to contraceptives have attributed the success to human, particularly feminist agency, but have largely ignored the material qualities of the contraceptives themselves in changing perceptions in conservative societies. Engaging with debates about materiality, and the agency, affordances, and qualities of objects, I argue that the material (medicinal) qualities of hormonal contraceptives play a significant role in the shifting perceptions about the use of and access to contraceptives. The materiality of hormonal contraceptives enables them to be useful as a method for birth control, as a beauty product and as medicine to treat different medical conditions. The differing material qualities of the contraceptives make it efficacious for all these different purposes. Its qualities offer different things for different people, according to its varying materialities intertwined with various repertoires and regimes of knowledge. Contraceptives, therefore, have agency as uneasy and unconscious ‘objects’ (Latour 2007) that provoke responses from people. Contraceptives as are not affective beyond human action, but rather emerges out of assemblages on humans and non-humans. Findings in this research revealed that perceptions around the use of contraceptives within conservative societies are changing and the reason for that change is a combination of economic circumstances, personal development, and the material properties of hormonal contraceptives themselves. This study was carried out in the Frances Baard district of Kimberley, Northern Cape, South Africa. As the subject was sensitive, qualitative research was used which relied on interviewing techniques. In-depth interviews allow the participant to feel at ease while also allowing the research to comprehend and investigate. Young women in Kimberley over the age of 18 years were the study’s target population. Most of the interviews were conducted in-person, while others were conducted online, and the instruments utilized were audio recordings. Four themes emerged from the data analysis, women’s experiences of contraceptives, medical qualities of contraceptives and challenging the dominant narrative, changing perceptions within the family, reshaping that narrative within religious institutions.