‘Culturespeak’ is everywhere: an analysis of culturalist narratives in approaches to sexuality education in Mozambique

Abstract

Building on postcolonial feminist scholars and critical anthropological work, this paper analyses the frequent deployment of the notion of 'culture' by decision-makers, educators, international agency staff and young people in the design, delivery and uptake of sexuality and HIV prevention education in Mozambique. The paper presents qualitative data gathered in Maputo, Mozambique to highlight the essentialising nature of culturalist assumptions underpinning inschool sexuality education. I argue that conceptions of 'traditional' and 'modern' culture are deployed to explain the epidemic, both of which spectacularise and decontextualise phenomena and practices, and perpetuate the western trope of the Third World Woman. The paper concludes by arguing that a singular emphasis on 'culture'in its various guisesdiverts attention from structural causes of young Mozambican women and men's vulnerability to HIV and AIDS, and crucially, rather than problematise gender relationships, reifies and solidifies these. Thus, while sexuality and HIV prevention education cannot be understood or delivered independently of the cultural context in which it is situated, a more nuanced conception of culture is requiredthat is, one that is attentive to questions of power and specifically, who is in a position to make meanings 'stick'.

Putting On and Taking Off the Capulana: A Grounded Theory of How Mozambican Women Manage Gender Oppression

“…In previous research, authors often depicted women and girls either as vulnerable victims preyed upon by men ( International Youth Foundation, 2012 ; Tvedten et al, 2010 ; UNICEF, 2015 ), or as ruthless opportunists using their sexuality to gain power and status through the very structures that oppress them ( Bandali, 2011 ; Bagnol & Mariano, 2008 ; Groes-Green, 2009 , 2011 , 2013 ). Findings from this study enhance a nuanced understanding of the complexity of gender-based oppression in Mozambique ( Arnfred, 2015 ; Miedema, 2018 ). We found that, although these polarities were there, the previous dualism was an oversimplification that obscured the degrees of agency that women were able to exert.…”

“I have never seen something like that”: Discrepancies between lived experiences and the global health concept of child marriage in northern Tanzania

“…Global health narratives frequently promote the idea that parents cause child marriage for their own personal financial gain via coercion of daughters. Placing the blame for the 'bad' behavior on individuals underplays the role of local histories and structures which can incentivize ostensibly unhealthy behaviors, like marriage in adolescence [50][51][52][53]. This can be seen to play out in observed contrasts between global health concepts and lived experiences of early marriage recorded in this study and elsewhere.…”

Early Marriage in Perspective: Practicing an Ethics of Dialogue with Syrian Refugees in Jordan

“…Research has shown how development and humanitarian policies’ focus on education in gender and sexuality sometimes creates or reinforces sociocultural divisions between communities (e.g., Bernal and Grewal, 2014; Grabska, 2011; Miedema, 2019; Pigg and Adams, 2005). Sexual norms then start to operate as a mark of differentiation between groups: those with ‘acceptable’, educated (modern) practices and those with traditional, uneducated (‘backward’) practices in need of correction.…”