This article is Part II in a series of articles wherein I explore teenage pregnancy and young motherhood in the context of HIV, specifically the ways in which young mothers interact with their families beyond pregnancy and into young motherhood. In the anecdotes below, some teenagers highlight reasons why their families help with childcare. Many…
Author: Sasheenie Moodley
Sasheenie is a PhD candidate at the University of Oxford. Her qualitative research focuses on understanding lived experiences of pregnant youth living with HIV. Email Sasheenie at sasheenie.moodley@area.ox.ac.uk.
Young Motherhood and Familial Care (Part I)
This article is Part I in a series of articles wherein I explore teenage pregnancy and young motherhood in the context of HIV, specifically the ways in which young mothers interact with their families beyond pregnancy and into young motherhood. The experiences I describe herein are based on my ethnographic fieldwork with teenagers and young…
A double-edged pandemic
Sasheenie Moodley & Ebony Hilton // Long Covid (also known as long-haul Covid, post-acute sequelae of SARS-CoV-2 infection, and chronic Covid) has been shown to include various long-term respiratory, cardiac, and brain complications1 (see Myalgic Encephalomyelitis/Chronic Fatigue Syndrome2) as well as body pain, insomnia, psychological challenges.3 Post-mortem examinations show irreversible inflammation (structural changes) in the…
Teenagers protecting their babies
Sasheenie Moodley // In this article, I explore the ways in which teenage mothers protect their babies. This article follows my earlier pieces in Synapsis: “Teenage mother love” and “Teenagers connecting with their babies”. The way some girls protect, love, and connect with their babies is a testament to what Elisabeth Badinter (1981) has called…
Teenagers connecting with their babies
Sasheenie Moodley // In this article, I explore what happens to teenage mothers – and the way they live their lives – after their babies are born. This article follows one of my earlier pieces in Synapsis titled “Teenage mother love.” Here, I argue that there is another dimension of teenage mothering that complements ‘mother…
Teenage mother love
Sasheenie Moodley // Some teenagers say that loving a baby means giving a baby what he needs, not what he wants. Attending to a baby’s needs is a form of mother love, protection, and care. Some teenage mothers seem to ‘delay’ love until they can overcome or reconcile the ‘mistake’ that is teenage pregnancy. In…
Understanding race in a pandemic
Sasheenie Moodley // Dr. Ebony Hilton explains that there is a painful intersection between the Covid-19 pandemic and the Black Lives Matter protests in the United States. That is, pandemic and protest are part of the same disease thread—racial prejudice and racial adversity. Dr. Ebony Hilton is an anesthesiologist and associate professor at the University…
A Collection of Corona Narratives
Sasheenie Moodley // The corona (Covid-19) virus has far-reaching consequences that are not exclusive to any single class, race, or ethnic group. In fact, these consequences are more ‘shared’ than unique. Below, I cite various international and national journals and newspapers. I reference a diverse group of ‘informants’ – including local residents, tourists, diplomats, politicians,…
Is teenage pregnancy a tragedy of the commons?
Sasheenie Moodley // Garrett Hardin might expect teenage pregnancy to be a ‘tragedy of the commons.’ On the contrary, teenage pregnancy might be an opportunity for communal care. Garrett Hardin (1968) argues that one of the greatest dangers to society is communal property. His “tragedy of the commons” is the notion that the “commons” is…
Gatekeepers who guard and unlock
Sasheenie Moodley // Some argue that ethnographic data collection, during fieldwork, sounds as easy as “picking apples from a tree” (Polkinghorne, 2005:141). In other words, research information regarding participants’ life experiences is ripe and ready for the taking. Yet this is not always the case. Seeking understanding in work with vulnerable participants is less about…