|
Year of grant: 2017 Research Area: Samfelag Project type: Ph.d.verkætlan Project title: Ein etnografisk kanning av tveimum mótstríðandi fosturtøkufatanum í Føroyum Grant number: 0522 Project manager: Turið Hermannsdóttir Institution/company: Søgu- og Samfelagsdeildin, Fróðskaparsetur Føroya Other participants: Firouz Gaini, University of the Faroe Islands, Betina Dybbroe, Roskilde University Project period: 13.08.2017-13.08.2020 13.08.2018 - 24.02.2023 Total budget: 1.758.647,56 Grant from the FRC in DKK: 1.172.431,71 Project description: Original Abortion is a feminist agenda, linking its relation to women’s reproductive rights (Timpson 1996, Markowitz 1990). Women’s access to abortion and other reproductive rights, have spread globally, especially in modern, Western societies, during the last 40 years (Lie et al. 2008). There are though modern, Western countries that do not follow this development of liberalisation, cultural acceptance and free access to abortion. Despite the technological development in contraceptive methods and access to methods or conservative abortion regulations, induced abortions are ‘here to stay’ (Timpson 1996, Pedersen 2008, Sedgh et al. 2016), which correctly implies that women and couples make reproductive decisions based on own moral values, and do what is necessary in the given situation (Timpson 1996: 778). The Faroe Islands have a restrictive abortion law, where an authorised medical examiner can grant an abortion based on medical criteria. I will seek to explain how women on the Faroe Islands adapt to the modern institution and values on abortion, e.g. neighbouring countries (especially Denmark), while living in a society with a conservative and restrictive abortion law. How does a woman navigate in the two conflicting moral values in terms of own decision-making and sexual behaviour? The proposed study seeks to answer these questions in an ethnographic study examining the interplay between modernity and traditional values and how the two conflicting values influence women on the Faroe Islands, from a feministic perspective (Simone de Beauvoir 1971, Alison Jaggar 1975, Markowitz 1990, Timpson 1996) Final The PhD thesis ’Reproductive manoeuvring: An ethnographic study about women’s abortion and other reproductive experiences in the Faroe Islands’ aims to explore women’s lived reproductive experiences in the restrictive abortion landscape in the Faroe Islands. This is accomplished through in-depth interviews with 20 women and ethno- graphic insight from the Faroe Islands. The study writes itself into a political hot topic. The abortion law in the Faroe Islands is an old Danish abortion law from 1956. In 2018 the law was delegated from Danish authorities to Faroe authorities in line with a standard procedure to delegate political affairs so that they are administered by Faroe authorities. The delegation initiated a more thorough debate in the society about the law. This has launched what I describe as a turbulent time in the reproductive landscape. These local turbulent times are amidst a global com- motion about reproductive politics. We are currently witnessing profound changes to longstanding abortion laws. For instance, the liberal decision of the US Supreme Court in the 1973 case Roe versus Wade was overturned, meaning that abortion is no longer a constitutional right for American women. On the other hand, Ireland’s deep rooted restrictions to abortion took a shift in 2018 with the repeal of the Eight Amendment, mean- ing that access to abortion care was liberalised. This is to my knowledge the first PhD project exploring women’s’ lived reproductive experiences in the Faroes. However, the study also contributes to an already growing field of interest in women’s experiences, parenthood, and societal ambiguities and transformations (Ísfeld 2019; Gaini 2022b; Vang 2022; Djurhuus 2022; Í Skorini, Albinus, and Sølvará 2022). Notably, this study advances women’s voices and their lived experiences. Theoretically the study draws on citizenship theories and anthropological and social science studies of morality and embodiment and emotion. The theoretical assemblage is found necessary because reproductive experiences are embedded in “social, cultural, economic and political relations and forces” (Inhorn 2007, 10; Ginsburg and Rapp 1991) and because the small-scale community constrains women’s reproductive experiences and choices in specific ways. The study illustrates that women navigate in the reproductive landscape to meet their reproductive needs, while also attending to and caring for their reproductive citizenship and belonging. I also employ the perspective of the small-scale island community to analyze what is at stake for the women. The small-scale community and its closely knit relations constrain women’s reproductive experiences and choices. Specifically, the study suggests the concept of ‘reproductive manoeuvring’ which entails managing one’s own reproductive life. It functions as an umbrella term for other terms like navigating, contesting, testing, and altering but with a purpose to understand them from a different perspective. It does so by analytically considering the seemingly unnoticed and unvoiced. This means that the concept considers ambivalences, subtleties, silences, imaginations and hopes as legitimate components of reproductive lives, experiences and choices. The first research article explores the abortion silence manifested in women’s lives. It suggests that the silences may be understood as strategic manoeuvrings since they are posed in a quest for belonging. I however also suggest that the constrained choice of silence places women’s subjectivity in a conflict and that the belonging only reaches what I term a ‘performed belonging’. The second research article co-authored with Prof. Emerita Betina Dybbroe, draws on the notion of embodied citizenship to analyze issues of reproductive citizenship. The analysis finds that women attain and maintain reproductive citizenship through interrelations. It is found that the interrelations refer to intimate relationships but also through trajectories of canonical narratives of e.g., the ‘Faroese grandmother’. The article concludes that reproductive citizenship is continuously sensed, remade, contested, and tested and that this is done in an inter-relational manner. The last analytical contribution explores the possibilities for subject positioning available to women who have had abortion. The analysis draws on the experienced turbulence in the reproductive landscape. The analysis finds that the turbulence, materialized in the pro-choice activist group Frítt Val – Fyri Fríari Abort, creates room for imaginations of an alternative subject positioning and understandings of selfhood. Furthermore, the analysis proposes that the imaginations are agentic transformations. The three analytical contributions thus discuss respectively what silences mean in women’s lives and lived experiences, how interrelations mediate reproductive citizenship and how imaginations are strategic and transformative. The analyzed silences, interrelations and imaginations highlight the contingencies and complexities of lived reproductive experiences. While the thesis draws on and focuses on narrated lived experiences, it also provides a discussion of when the women experience a health system in this Nordic welfare state where abortion access is restricted. The study discusses how women’s understandings of themselves as valuable citizens in a modern and welfare regime are made complex, when they are faced with their restricted access to abortion care. The Nordic welfare states are considered to be woman-friendly, (Freidenwall 2015) partly because the core principles of ‘equality, solidarity and universalism’ (Lister 2009, 246) pave the way for a more gender equal society. Faroese women are thus facing the ambiguous situation of perceiving themselves as modern and valuable citizens living in a society with equal access to social services, health and opportunities while also having restricted access to reproductive health care and having to ‘beg’ and have ‘the tail between my legs’, as women said. The study proposes the need for a conceptual framework that goes beyond frameworks of ‘choice’ to better understand the contingencies and complexities of reproductive lives and lived experiences. Other scholars have also pointed to this need (Van der Sijpt 2014; Gammeltoft 2014), however this has often been from contexts highly different from a Nordic welfare state. Therefore, the study contributes to the development of an alternative conceptual framework with empirical material from a Nordic welfare state. Project status: Liðug Project output: The PhD thesis was defended on 12 June 2023. Title: Reproductive manoeuvring - An ethnographic study about women’s abortion and other reproductive experiences in the Faroe Islands” For a full list of scientific publications,please see PURE profile Publications outside the scientific community, i.e. lectures, periodicals, articles in newspapers, television and radio Interviews: Camille Bas-Wohlert, international news agency AFP, Agence France-Presse, interview 9/11-2022. Adrienne Murray, BBC News, background knowledge til rapportage om abort i Færøerne, 21/3-2023 Contribution to other projects: Sandra Schwarts, childrens books writer. Interview and knowledge contribution to women’s ways to an abortion in the Faroes and their possible experiences. Co-Editor in books project together with Turið Nolsøe in book on abortion and pro-choice voices in the Faroes, and author to chapter. Co-Editor in book project on change in the Faroe Islands and co-author to chapter with Turið Nolsøe. Co-author to book project with Erika Anne Hayfield as co-Editor. Source to raport for the Danish Parliament, link: https://www.ft.dk/samling/20222/almdel/SRSR/bilag/11/2722257.pdf Oplæg: Lecture for teachers at Glasir, upper high school, 2020, on teaching about abortion. Ethical Council for Nurses 23/8-2022 seminar Amnesty, Kvindekampdagen 8. Marts, two panel debates (one for the public and other for politicians). Lecture, 6. Marts 2023 “At granska í egnari menta, research subjectivity and etchical considerations in relation to research in a small-scale island society Ethical Council, Day-seminar on abortion, contributed with a lecture, 20. Apríl 2023. The Alliance for Free Abortion (Alliancen for Fri Abort), presentation to their annual membersmeeting 20/4-2023. Media coverage: https://kvf.fo/non?sid=120404 https://kvf.fo/gmf?sid=110622 https://kvf.fo/non?sid=104494 Radio 4 – værdipolitik i Færøerne – 24/05-2023 Tiden, DR Lyd, link: https://www.dr.dk/lyd/special-radio/tiden/tiden-podcast-2023-01-01-05-00-124 DR, Godmorgen, 20/6-2023, link: https://www.dr.dk/lyd/p1/p1-morgen/p1-morgen-2023-06-19 Mentions: https://www.setur.fo/fo/setrid/tidindi/nyggj-ph-d-verkaetlan-av-bakkastokki-a-setrinum/ om phd projektet på universitshjemmesiden https://www.dimma.fo/grein/nanna-skal-kanna-sosialar-broytingar-i-foroyum-vid-utgangsstodi-i-modurskapi om postdoc projektet << Back |
| Administration Faroese |