The Role of Culture in Negotiating Reproductive Rights of Diaspora Heterosexual Nigerian Women

Abstract

Central to Cultural Studies is the focus on constructions and contestations of various categories of identity, including sexuality, abilities and race (King, 2016). The definition of the term 'culture' is however, heavily debated (Bodley, 2011). While Stein and Rowe (2006) define culture as a learned and systematic behaviour passed down from one generation to the next, Kagawa-Singer and Chung (1994: 198) see culture 'as a tool which defines reality for its members', arguing further that people's perception of reality emerges through the process of socialisation which shapes beliefs, practices, norms, behaviours and values in a given society. The exploration of cultural factors in this article draws from the Kagawa-Singer and Chung's (1994) conceptualisation of culture because it effectively captures the inclusiveness and complexity of culture as a tool that crafts practices and influences decision-making. Historically, culture has always served as a tool which influences how ideas and practices gain hegemony and ultimately become normative (King, 2016). The concept of culture plays a significant role in influencing reproductive rights of Nigerian women living in Nigeria and more precisely in the decision making around birth control, where the outcomes of pregnancy shapes a woman's life trajectory (Iyanda and Nwankwo, 2018; Atchison et al., 2019). Some cultural factors achieve this through silencing of female voices, subordination of the female bodies and subjectivities to male ones, and outright devaluation of femininity (King, 2016). In this article, feminist poststructuralism as both an epistemological and theoretical approach informs the exploration of cultural factors that impact on the reproductive rights of women of Nigerian heritage living in the UK. According to Weedon (1987:40-41), feminist poststructuralism is 'a mode of knowledge production which uses poststructuralist theories of language, subjectivity, social processes and institutions to understand existing power relations and to identify areas and strategies for change'.