Primary production of the kelp Lessonia corrugata varies with season and water motion: Implications for coastal carbon cycling.

Kelp forests provide vital ecosystem services such as carbon storage and cycling, and understanding primary production dynamics regarding seasonal and spatial variations is essential. We conducted surveys at three sites in southeast Tasmania, Australia, that had different levels of water motion, across four seasons to determine seasonal primary production and carbon storage as living biomass for kelp beds of Lessonia corrugata (Order Laminariales). We quantified blade growth, erosion rates, and the variation in population density and estimated both the net biomass accumulation (NBA) per square meter and the carbon standing stock. We observed a significant difference in blade growth and erosion rates between seasons and sites. Spring had the highest growth rate (0.02 g C · blade-1 · d-1 ) and NBA (1.62 g C · m-2 · d-1 ), while summer had the highest blade erosion (0.01 g C · blade-1 · d-1 ), with a negative NBA (-1.18 g C · m-2 · d-1 ). Sites exhibiting lower blade erosion rates demonstrated notably greater NBA than sites with elevated erosion rates. The sites with the highest water motion had the slowest erosion rates. Moreover, the most wave-exposed site had the densest populations, resulting in the highest NBA and a greater standing stock. Our results reveal a strong seasonal and water motion influence on carbon dynamics in L. corrugata populations. This knowledge is important for understanding the dynamics of the carbon cycle in coastal regions.

Regimes of truth regarding 'sexual justice' in academic literature from 2012 to 2022: a scoping review.

The notion of 'sexual justice' has gained traction in academic and policy arenas in recent years. This paper presents a scoping literature review of the regimes of truth, following Foucault, of 'sexual justice' appearing in the scientific literature from 2012 to 2022. Thirty-eight papers were coded using (1) content analysis of the studies' central problematics, the programmes referred to, and institutional location(s); and (2) thematic analysis of how the notion was deployed. Central problematics centred on (1) critiques of, or alternatives to, dominant approaches to sexual and reproductive health; and (2) highlighting injustices. As such, 'sexual justice' is fighting for legitimacy in the truth stakes. There is a distinct paucity of papers tackling the translation of 'sexual justice' into practice. South Africa dominates as the site in which papers on 'sexual justice' have been produced, but there is a lack of South-South collaboration. Two themes were apparent around which conceptions of sexual justice cohere. Firstly, sexual justice is seen as a vital, yet politically ambivalent goal, with neoliberal co-optation of progressive rights agendas being warned against. Secondly, sexual justice is viewed as a means, in which sexual justice is described as having potential to repair established frameworks' shortcomings and oppressive legacies.

Sistering and sexual socialisation: a discursive study of Xhosa women's sisterly interactions concerning sex and reproduction.

Considerable research has been devoted to understanding and promoting parent-child sexual socialisation. Less attention has been paid to experiences of sibling interactions concerning sex. Drawing on discursive psychology, this study explores how women report interacting about sex and reproduction in their sisterly relationships. Ten in-depth interviews were conducted, using Free Association Narrative Interview technique, with five Black isiXhosa-speaking, middle-aged and working class women in South Africa. Findings show that the participants construct their sisterly interactions concerning sex drawing on three interpretative repertoires: silence; safety and secrecy; risk and responsibilisation. The silence repertoire constructs sex talk between sisters as vague and non-viable. Within the safety and secrecy repertoire, sisters are constructed as sharing sexual secrets and providing a safe space for sexual exploration. The risk and responsibilisation repertoire is deployed when understandings of 'proper' feminine behaviour and sexual purity are breached, with sisters emphasising the importance of avoiding risk and acting responsibly. Thus, alongside encouraging the expression of women's agency in relation to sexuality, sisters potentially join a patriarchal policing and the shaming of women's sexuality. These contradictory repertoires have implications for sexual health programmes and interventions targeted at family communication about sex.

Alcohol use during pregnancy: prevalence and patterns in selected Buffalo City areas, South Africa.

The high rate of foetal alcohol spectrum disorders, which results from alcohol consumption during pregnancy, is of concern in South Africa. The aims of this research were to establish the prevalence, patterns and factors associated with alcohol use amongst pregnant women attending antenatal clinics in two former township areas of Buffalo City, South Africa. A survey was conducted using a structured questionnaire that included socio-demographic questions, and the Alcohol Use Test (AUDIT). The questionnaire was administered in English, Afrikaans or isiXhosa by healthcare providers trained in its administration. Consecutive sampling was used, with all willing women presenting at public clinics offering antenatal care in the two townships being invited to participate. Of the 18 clinics operating in the two townships, 16 were willing to participate, resulting in a sample of 1028 women over a nine-month period. Data were analysed in Medcalc using descriptive statistics, one-way analysis of variance, independent samples t-test and a multivariable binary logistic regression analysis. Two-thirds of the sample did not drink alcohol, but results showed high levels of risky alcohol use: 20.1% on the total AUDIT scale, and 16.8% on the AUDIT-C scale. The following variables were found to be significantly associated with risky drinking: age; race; report of intimate partner violence (IPV); and other regular drinker in the home. Employment status, education status, relationship status, parity and gestation were not associated with risky drinking. Interventions aimed at reducing alcohol use during pregnancy should address: drinking youth cultures; drinking norms within the home; and intimate partner violence. Future studies should include additional mental and physical health variables.

Resisting abortion stigma in situ: South African womxn's and healthcare providers' accounts of the pre-abortion counselling healthcare encounter.

Abortion providers and pregnant people who undergo abortion potentially face significant stigma. Researchers have started to explore how womxn respond to abortion stigma, usually focusing on individual strategies in managing or reducing stigma effects. Drawing on narrative data from research conducted on womxn's and healthcare providers' experiences of the pre-abortion healthcare encounter in the South African public health sector, we highlight how stigma may be resisted in social ways within this context. Everyday chatter and informal social support amongst womxn in the waiting room provided a counterpoint for health service providers' ascription of shame to the womxn, and a sense of solidarity amongst the womxn. Health service providers narrated their decision to do abortion work through the socially affirming hero canonical narrative, and womxn described their counselling as helpful. These social and discursive practices resist the awfulisation of abortion and provide relief for the womxn and the healthcare providers in particular contexts.

Contradictions in womxn's experiences of pre-abortion counselling in South Africa: Implications for client-centred practice.

Pre-abortion counselling may play a key role in abortion seekers' understanding of their decision to terminate a pregnancy and the subsequent emotions that they feel. In this paper, we report on a study conducted in the Eastern Cape province of South Africa concerning womxn's experiences of the pre-abortion counselling offered as part of the implementation of the Choice of Termination Act that governs the provision of legal abortion in the country. Using a narrative-discursive lens, the analysis revealed four micro-narratives in which participants appreciated non-directive and empathic counselling, as well as being provided with information. They also indicated that the counselling was upsetting and hurtful, particularly when providers drew on the awfulisation of abortion discourse to suggest that abortion leads to terrible consequences, and foetal personhood discourse to intimate that terminating the pregnancy is wrong and other alternatives (adoption, parenting) are better. The connection between these broadly positive and negative responses may lie in the dominance of anti-abortion discourses coupled with the powerful positioning of healthcare providers as experts. The attendant disempowerment of clients within the health clinic setting may constrain pregnant people's ability to question such 'expert' information. The implications for feminist client-centred pre-abortion counselling are discussed.

Expanding reproductive justice through a supportability reparative justice framework: the case of abortion in South Africa.

Theoretical refinement of the concept of reproductive justice has been called for. In this paper, I propose the use of a supportability reparative justice approach. Drawing on intra-categorical intersectionality, the supportability aspect starts from the event of a pregnancy to unravel the interwoven embodied and social realities implicated in women experiencing pregnancy as personally supportable/unsupportable, and socially supported/unsupported. The reparative justice aspect highlights the need for social repair in the case of unsupportable pregnancies and relies on Ernesto Verdeja's critical theory of reparative justice in which he outlines four reparative dimensions. Using abortion within the South African context, I show how this framework may be put to use: (1) the facilitation of autonomous decision-making (individual material dimension) requires understanding women within context, and less emphasis on individual-driven 'choice'; (2) the provision of legal, safe state-sponsored healthcare resources (collective material dimension) demands political will and abortion service provision to be regarded as a moral as well as a healthcare priority; (3) overcoming stigma and the spoiled identities (collective symbolic dimension) requires significant feminist action to deconstruct negative discourses and to foreground positive narratives; and (4) understanding individual lived experiences (individual symbolic dimension) means deep listening within the social dynamics of particular contexts.

Lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) people's experiences of nursing health care: An emancipatory nursing practice integrative review.

AIM: To review current research on lesbian, gay, and bisexual (LGB) individuals' experience of nursing services from an emancipatory nursing practice framework. BACKGROUND: As LGB issues are marginalized in health care, it is important to understand LGB individuals' experiences of nursing. DESIGN: An integrative literature review using critical analysis based on an emancipatory nursing practice framework was conducted. DATA SOURCES: A search of all English nursing journals in the World of Science database was conducted. REVIEW METHODS: Established methods were used to search, identify, and appraise articles meeting the criteria of examining LGB individuals' experiences of nursing services, published in the years 2009 to 2015. Sixteen articles that met the inclusion criteria were identified independently by the two authors. Data were analysed using descriptive and critical phases of enquiry. RESULTS: Results show a nexus of experiences of exclusion and oppressive social norms. Our analytical framework highlighted absences in nursing practice. No research indicates that LGB people experience nurses as advocates or participatory health care processes. CONCLUSION: Standards, training, and systems need to be devised that ensure inclusionary nursing practices, that encourage nurses to act as advocates for LGB health care justice, and that allow LGB individual to participate in the development of health care policies and procedures.

Cultural De-colonization versus Liberal Approaches to Abortion in Africa: The Politics of Representation and Voice.

Political discussions on abortion in Africa take place in the context of most countries having restrictive abortion legislation and high levels of unsafe abortion. In this paper two major political positions regarding abortion in Africa: a de-colonisation approach based on a homogenized view of "culture", and a liberal approach based on "choice" and rights are outlined. Using the Questions and Answers sessions of a United Nations event on maternal health in Africa as an exemplar of these positions, the paper argues that neither approach is emancipatory in the African context. A de-colonisation approach that uses static and homogenized understanding of "culture" risks engaging in a politics of representation that potentially silences the "Other" (in this case women who terminate their pregnancies) and glosses over complexities and multiple power relations that exist on the continent. A liberal approach, premised on choice and reproductive rights, risks foregrounding individual women's agency at the expense of contextual dynamics, including the conditions that create unsupportable pregnancies. The paper argues for a grounded reproductive justice perspective that draws on the insights of the reproductive justice movement, but grounds these notions within the African philosophy of Hunhu/Ubuntu.

'If You Choose to Abort, You Have Acted As an Instrument of Satan': Zimbabwean Health Service Providers' Negative Constructions of Women Presenting for Post Abortion Care.

PURPOSE: Health service providers play a crucial role in providing post abortion care in countries where abortion legislation is restrictive and abortion is stigmatised. Research in countries where these factors apply has shown that health service providers can be barriers to women accessing post abortion services. Much of this research draws from attitude theory. In this paper, we utilise positioning theory to show how the ways in which Zimbabwean health service providers' position women and themselves are rooted in cultural and social power relations. In light of recent efforts by the Zimbabwean Ministry of Health and foreign organisations to improve post abortion care, we explore the implications that these positionings have for post abortion care. METHOD: As part of a larger study on abortion decision-making, the data featured in this article were collected using in-depth semi-structured interviews with six health service providers working in different facilities in Harare, Zimbabwe. Discursive and positioning thematic analysis was used to analyse the data. RESULTS: Our analysis points to women who have abortions being positioned in negative terms, as transgressors of acceptable norms; irresponsible and manipulative; and ignorant. The health service providers drew from cultural, religious, gender and trauma discourses that portray abortion as evil and socially unacceptable. Reflexive positions taken up by the health service providers include positions as being experts, helpers and protectors of culture/religion, sympathisers and professional positions as health care providers. CONCLUSION: The continued strengthening of post abortion services should be conducted in conjunction with dialogical interventions that challenge health service providers to reflect on the power relations within which women who terminate pregnancies are located, that contest their negative positionings of these women and that present alternative narratives and subject positionings for both the women who have abortions and the health service providers.

Breaking the silence on abortion: the role of adult community abortion education in fostering resistance to norms.

Meanings of abortion in society are constructed within sociohistorical and gendered spaces and manifested through myriad discourses that impact on the perception and treatment of the issue in that society. In societies with powerful oppressive anti-abortion norms, such as Northern Ireland, little is known as to how these norms are resisted by the adult population. This study uses a Foucauldian feminist approach to show how resistance to religious and patriarchal norms can be fostered through adult community abortion education. This resistance is multi-faceted and bolstered by a lived experience discourse, which does not necessarily involve eschewing religious notions held within society.

Articulating reproductive justice through reparative justice: case studies of abortion in Great Britain and South Africa.

Public health and rights-based approaches to abortion advocacy are well established. Feminists are, however, increasingly using a broader framework of 'reproductive justice', which considers the intersecting conditions that serve to enhance or hinder women's reproductive freedoms, including their capacities to decide about the outcome of their pregnancies. Nonetheless, reproductive justice approaches to abortion are, conceptually, relatively under-developed. We introduce a reparative justice approach as a method of further articulating the concept of reproductive justice. We first explain how this approach can be used to conceptualise safe, accessible and supportive abortion as a key element of reproductive justice in relation to the injustice of unwanted or unsupportable pregnancies. Using Ernesto Verdeja's critical theory of reparative justice and case studies of two countries (South Africa and Great Britain) where abortion is legal, we show how such an approach enables an analysis of reproductive justice within the specificities of particular contexts. We argue that both the rights-based legal framework adopted in South Africa and the medicalised approach of British law have, in practice, limited reparative justice in these contexts. We discuss the implications of reparative justice for abortion advocacy.

"Girls need to behave like girls you know": the complexities of applying a gender justice goal within sexuality education in South African schools.

Sexuality education, as a component within the Life Orientation (LO) programme in South African schools, is intended to provide young people with knowledge and skills to make informed choices about their sexuality, their own health and that of others. Key to the programme are outcomes relating to power, power relations and gender. In this paper, we apply a critical gender lens to explore the ways in which the teaching of sexuality education engages with larger goals of gender justice. The paper draws from a number of ethnographic studies conducted at 12 South African schools. We focus here on the data collected from focus group discussions with learners, and semi-structured interviews with individual learners, principals and Life Orientation (LO) teachers. The paper highlights the complexities of having gender justice as a central goal of LO sexuality education. Teaching sexuality education is reported to contradict dominant community values and norms. Although some principals and school authorities support gender equity and problematize hegemonic masculinities, learners experience sexuality education as upholding normative gender roles and male power, rather than challenging it. Teachers rely heavily on cautionary messages that put more responsibility for reproductive health on female learners, and use didactic, authoritative pedagogical techniques, which do not acknowledge young people's experience nor facilitate their sexual agency. These complexities need to be foregrounded and worked with systematically if the goal of gender justice within LO is to be realised.

Public reproductive health and 'unintended' pregnancies: introducing the construct 'supportability'.

In this Perspectives paper, I outline the limitations of the concept of 'intentionality' in public reproductive health understandings of pregnancy. 'Intentionality', 'plannedness', 'wantedness' and 'timing' place individual cognitions, psychology and/or behaviors at the center of public health conceptualizations of pregnancies, thereby leaving the underlying social and structural dynamics under-examined. I propose a model that places 'supportability' at the center of thinking about pregnancies and that allows for an analysis of the intersection of individual cognitions, emotions and behavior with micro-level interactive spaces and macro-level issues.

Optimising survey effort to monitor environmental variables: A case study using New Zealand kiwifruit orchards.

Environmental monitoring is increasingly used to assess spatial and temporal trends in agricultural sustainability, and test the effectiveness of farm management policies. However, detecting changes in environmental variables is often technically and logistically challenging. To demonstrate how survey effort for environmental monitoring can be optimised, we applied the new statistical power analysis R package simr to pilot survey data. Specifically, we identified the amount of survey effort required to have an 80% chance of detecting specified trends (-1 to -4% pa) in 13 environmental variables on New Zealand kiwifruit orchards within an 11-year period. The variables assessed were related to soil status, agricultural pests (birds), or ecosystem composition (birds). Analyses were conducted on average values (for each orchard and year combination) to provide a consistent scale for comparison among variables. Survey frequency varied from annual (11 surveys) to every 5 years (3 surveys). Survey size was set at either 30, 60, 150 or 300 orchards. In broad terms, we show the power to detect a specified range of trends over an 11-year period in this sector is much higher for 'soil status' than for 'agricultural pest' or 'ecosystem composition'. Changes in one subset of native bird species (nectar-feeders) requiring a particularly high level of relative survey effort to detect with confidence. Monitoring soil status can thus be smaller and less frequent than those which also want to detect changes in agricultural pests or ecosystem composition (with the latter requiring the most effort) but will depend on the magnitude of changes that is meaningful to detect. This assessment thus allows kiwifruit industry in New Zealand to optimise survey design to the desired information, and provides a template for other industries to do likewise. Power analyses are now more accessible through the provision of the simr package, so deploying and integrating them into design and decision-making should be routine to reduce the risk of inefficiencies and opportunity costs.

The emancipatory potential of nursing practice in relation to sexuality: a systematic literature review of nursing research 2009-2014.

Nurses play a key role in the provision of services in relation to sexuality in both primary and sexual and reproductive health-care. Given the intersection of sexualities with a range of social injustices, this study reviews research on nursing practice concerning sexuality from an emancipatory/social justice perspective. A systematic review of English articles published in nursing journals appearing on the Web of Science database from 2009 to 2014 was conducted. Thirty-eight articles met the inclusion criteria. Analysis consisted of a descriptive phase (types and location of studies, aspects of sexualities focused on, target health users and aspects of nursing practice focused on) and a critical/emancipatory phase. In terms of practice, our analysis revealed that: barriers exist to the integration of issues relating to sexuality in nursing practice; the social location of nurses and their personal feelings regarding sexuality influence their practice; content that addresses gendered norms and media that assist in communication underpin some emancipatory practices. Few studies locate analyses of nursing practice within gendered, cultural and social norms; consider advocacy as part of the practice of nurses; or analyse the promotion of health user participation in health services and structures. The implications for emancipatory practice are drawn out.

Public foetal images and the regulation of middle-class pregnancy in the online media: a view from South Africa.

Ultrasonography images and their derivatives have been taken up in a range of 'public' spaces, including medical textbooks, the media, anti-abortion material, advertising, the Internet and public health facilities. Feminists have critiqued the personification of the foetus, the bifurcation of the woman's body and the reduction of the pregnant woman to a disembodied womb. What has received less attention is how these images frequently intersect with race, class, gender and heteronormativity in the creation of idealised and normative understandings of pregnancy. This paper focuses on the discursive positioning of pregnant women as 'mothers' and foetuses as 'babies' in online media targeted at a South African audience, where race and class continue to intersect in complex ways. We show how the ontologically specific understandings of 'mummies' and 'babies' emerge through the use of foetal images to construct specific understandings of the 'ideal' pregnancy. In the process, pregnant women are made responsible for ensuring that their pregnancy conforms to these ideals, which includes the purchasing of the various goods advertised by the websites. Not only does this point to a commodification of pregnancy, but also serves to reinforce a cultural understanding of White, middle-class pregnancy as constituting the normative 'correct' form of pregnancy.

Demanding doctorability for abortion on request: a conversation analysis of pre-abortion counselling in public hospitals in the Eastern Cape, South Africa.

BACKGROUND: Research on abortion counselling generally uses retrospective interviewing regarding providers' and users' experiences. In this article we explore how requests for abortion are made and received in real time in (officially non-mandatory) pre-abortion counselling conducted by nurses and counsellors in South African public abortion clinics. METHODS: To capture turn-by-turn interactions, we recorded, using consecutive sampling, 28 sessions at three abortion clinics in 2017/2018. No researcher was present. Conversation analysis, based on an ethnomethodological paradigm, was used to understand the conversational projects of the sessions and to outline how the provider and user oriented to the request for an abortion as a conversational task. RESULTS: Establishing reasons for the abortion featured in most individual counselling sessions. Through posing directive questions, providers required users to justify their request to access abortion. Users complied by providing multiple reasons. These reasons were often followed by a provider question demanding accountability in relation to contraceptive (non)use, thus establishing poor usage as the real reason. CONCLUSIONS: As abortion is legal on request in the first trimester in South Africa, no reason for presenting for an abortion is needed. The demand for users to perform 'doctorability' - that is, to present their situation as worthy of a health professional's (in this case abortion provider's) time - served as a precursor to discipline the abortion seeker for assumed poor contraceptive usage. Providers should be trained in user-centred care that supports pregnant people's autonomy in accessing legally induced abortion. A limitation of this study is its restriction to three abortion clinics in one region of South Africa.

Violence Against Women Who Sell Sex in Eastern and Southern Africa: A Scoping Review.

Women who sell sex (WSS) are vulnerable to violence. We present a scoping review of the last decade of research on the prevalence and incidence of, factors associated with, and services regarding violence against WSS in Eastern and Southern African (ESA). A systematic search of various databases resulted in 20 papers being reviewed. Inclusion criteria, applied by the first two authors, were as follows: empirical papers, key research problem is violence against WSS, and conducted in ESA countries. The lifetime prevalence of violence revealed in the studies ranged from 21% to 82%. A pattern of generalized violence against WSS from paying clients, male partners, strangers, family members, friends/acquaintances, and the authorities emerged. Factors associated with violence included the context within which the sex work occurs, alcohol use, type of sex exchange interactions, and personal factors (low education, low income, marriage, youth, high client volume, time in sex work, forced sexual debut, and internalized sex work stigma). WSS seldom access services after violence. Evaluations of two programs, a woman-focused HIV intervention, and the Diagonal Interventions to Fast-Forward Reproductive Health project, showed improvements in gender-based violence services. Findings suggest that targeted programmes should be paired with improving general health services and focus on promoting collective agency among WSS.

Men and talk about legal abortion in South Africa: equality, support and rights discourses undermining reproductive 'choice'.

Discursive constructions of abortion are embedded in the social and gendered power relations of a particular socio-historical space. As part of research on public discourses concerning abortion in South Africa where there has been a radical liberalisation of abortion legislation, we collected data from male group discussions about a vignette concerning abortion, and newspaper articles written by men about abortion. Our analysis revealed how discourses of equality, support and rights may be used by men to subtly undermine women's reproductive right to 'choose' an abortion. Within an Equal Partnership discourse, abortion, paired with the assumption of foetal personhood, was equated with violating an equal heterosexual partnership and a man's patriarchal duty to protect a child. A New Man discourse, which positions men as supportive of women, was paired with the assumption of men as rational and women as irrational in decision-making, to allow for the possibility of men dissuading women from terminating a pregnancy. A Rights discourse was invoked to suggest that abortion violates men's paternal rights.