Abstract
This thesis explores the historical landscape of biomedical contraceptive use in the rural Transkei region of South Africa during the apartheid era (1960s-1980s). It examines the introduction, accessibility, and adoption of these technologies within a specific social, political, and cultural context. The research investigates how factors such as gender roles, traditional beliefs about fertility, state-driven population control policies, and limited healthcare infrastructure influenced the practice of contraception among rural Transkei communities.
The thesis employs an oral history methodology. It utilises 15 oral interviews with women from the Transkei region who are above the age of 50 years as its primary source material, offering a unique perspective on the lived experiences of individuals and communities within this region regarding fertility control. The research significance lies in its contribution to a nuanced understanding of reproductive healthcare in South Africa's rural past. It illuminates the agency of women in shaping their fertility decisions while acknowledging the influence of broader social and political forces. The findings offer valuable insights for contemporary discussions on reproductive rights, gender equality, and healthcare access in rural South Africa.
The interviews reveal a delay in the widespread adoption and realisation of biomedical methods of contraception as a result of the lack of sex education, the high pressure for women to have children in order to prove their fertility and the high value of large families. The traditional and older methods of fertility control were still dominant in the rural Transkei during the period of the 1960s into the 1970s. This is not to say that these traditional practices of fertility did not go unchallenged. And this is evident from the anxieties that these women revealed during their interviews about the breakdown of cultural sanctions against premarital intimacy and child-bearing, that led to the rise in premarital marital pregnancies during the late 1970s into the 1980s. Moreover, Xhosa women’s delayed realisation of biomedical contraceptive technologies was fuelled by the side effects and efficacy of the biomedical contraceptive methods that were readily available to black women. Some nurses and family planning clinics in rural Transkei provided a great barrier for unmarried women to access and use biomedical contraceptive methods. This thesis argues that the introduction of biomedical contraceptive technologies in the rural Transkei of the Eastern Cape did not have the National Party-led government’s intended goal of widespread adoption of biomedical contraceptive
technologies, that were distributed via the National Family Planning Program, by Xhosa women in rural Transkei during the period of 1960s to 1980s.