Abstract
Research with marginalised communities points to the need to understand political determinants of reproductive health. For residents of Kufr ‘Aqab neighbourhood, Israeli biopolitics in East Jerusalem can be barriers to access to maternal health. This is manifested in women having to cross military checkpoints to give birth in hospitals located in Jerusalem to make their children eligible for “permanent residency”, a document required for Palestinians to live in Jerusalem. A basic qualitative design is utilised, and semi-structured in-depth interviews with 27 women and 20 men were conducted and thematic analysis was used to extract themes and subthemes. Women reported exposure to risky conditions during pregnancy and worries of giving birth at checkpoints. Social support was restricted for some women due to inability of the husband/family to reach the hospital at the time of birth. Men reported distress related to inability to attend birth. Giving birth in a Jerusalem hospital, as part of passing residency to children, was perceived as reaffirming Palestinian presence in the City and transforming sites of suffering to sites of resistance. Israeli residency policies and segregation of Jerusalem affect Kufr ‘Aqab residents’ pregnancy and birth on physical, social and psychological levels. Results indicate the importance of incorporating political determinants of access to maternal care and safe pregnancy in the conceptualisation of reproductive rights.
Highlights
Conceptualisation of reproductive rights centres around individual freedom of choice with regards to number, spacing and timing of children.[1]
Our study focuses on Kufr ‘Aqab neighbourhood that was excluded from East Jerusalem after the construction of the
We aim to explore political determinants of reproductive health (RH) in East Jerusalem, in particular access to maternal care, through testimonies of mothers and fathers living in Kufr ‘Aqab
Summary
Conceptualisation of reproductive rights centres around individual freedom of choice with regards to number, spacing and timing of children.[1] Research in contexts of structural injustice, colonialism and conflict indicates the failure of this approach to account for political determinants of reproductive health (RH).[2,3,4,5,6] Studies from East Jerusalem show that pregnancy and birth are interwoven with Israeli discriminative biopolitical practices towards Palestinian residents of the city.[2] Israeli biopolitics, “the production, maintenance and control of ‘undesirable’ populations”, [2, p. Whereas the ICPD definition of reproductive rights accounts for the effect of Israeli occupation on certain reproductive behaviours like fertility,[13] it ignores other important links between RH and the political context of the occupied Palestinian territories
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