Nohr, Anna Katrine;
(2024)
To Claim, or Not to Claim Human Rights in Childbirth: Mothers' Experiences of Claiming Human Rights and Demanding Accountability during their Childbirth Journey in Tanzania and the United Kingdom.
Doctoral thesis (Ph.D), UCL (University College London).
Preview |
Text
Anna Katrine Nohr - PhD thesis.pdf - Accepted Version Download (4MB) | Preview |
Abstract
The human rights-based approach to maternal mortality has been embraced as an attempt to address disrespect and abuse in childbirth, as well as overcome maternal mortality. Whilst the focus on human rights violations in childbirth is vital, the important role of women as agents during their childbirth journey seems to be neglected. The lack of focus on women’s rights claims during childbirth within a biomedical healthcare context is surprising, since the notion of women’s empowerment is integral to the human rights-based approach to maternal mortality. Ethnographic in-depth interviews with mothers in Tanzania and the United Kingdom are therefore central to this thesis, as their perceptions of ‘violations’ and ‘wellbeing’ during the childbirth journey are explored, as are their experiences of claiming their human rights and demanding accountability in childbirth. Drawing upon this ethnographic data, this thesis investigates whether the instrumental, linear rational policy assumptions inherent in the human rights-based approach to maternal mortality are relevant to the mothers own lived experiences, as well as explores whether there are any local consequences from introducing human rights policy into the arena of childbirth. This thesis shows that the majority of the respondents adopted a ‘pragmatic,’ rather than a human rights-based approach to claiming their rights and asserting their needs during childbirth due to the strong dyad mother/infant relationship. Finally, the thesis highlights that whilst the respondents did try to use rights-based approaches after childbirth to demand accountability and justice, many were re-traumatised rather than experiencing a sense of empowerment or justice, due to the replication of the biomedical knowledge/power hierarchy within associated accountability mechanisms.
| Type: | Thesis (Doctoral) |
|---|---|
| Qualification: | Ph.D |
| Title: | To Claim, or Not to Claim Human Rights in Childbirth: Mothers' Experiences of Claiming Human Rights and Demanding Accountability during their Childbirth Journey in Tanzania and the United Kingdom |
| Open access status: | An open access version is available from UCL Discovery |
| Language: | English |
| Additional information: | Copyright © The Author 2024. Original content in this thesis is licensed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International (CC BY-NC 4.0) Licence (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/). Any third-party copyright material present remains the property of its respective owner(s) and is licensed under its existing terms. Access may initially be restricted at the author’s request. |
| UCL classification: | UCL UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > UCL SLASH > Faculty of S&HS > Dept of Anthropology |
| URI: | https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/10194091 |
Archive Staff Only
 |
View Item |
