Category: Cultural safety

‘This child is a planned baby’: skilled migrant fathers and reproductive decision-making

Article first published online: 13 MAY 2014  De Souza, Ruth Noreen Argie. (2014). ‘This child is a planned baby’: skilled migrant fathers and reproductive decision-making. Journal of Advanced Nursing. doi: 10.1111/jan.12448 Risk management and life planning are a feature of contemporary parenting, which enable children to be shaped into responsible citizens, who are successful and […]

Korean migrant mothers on giving birth in Aotearoa New Zealand

Cite as: DeSouza, Ruth. (2014). One woman’s empowerment is another’s oppression: Korean migrant mothers on giving birth in Aotearoa New Zealand. Journal of Transcultural Nursing. doi: 10.1177/1043659614523472.  Download pdf (262KB) DeSouza J Transcult Nurs-2014. Published online before print on February 28, 2014. Abstract Purpose: To critically analyze the power relations underpinning New Zealand maternity, through analysis of discourses […]

Regulating migrant maternity: Nursing and midwifery’s emancipatory aims and assimilatory practices

I’ve just had the first paper from my PhD published: DeSouza, R. (2013), Regulating migrant maternity: Nursing and midwifery’s emancipatory aims and assimilatory practices. Nursing Inquiry. doi: 10.1111/nin.12020 In contemporary Western societies, birthing is framed as transformative for mothers; however, it is also a site for the regulation of women and the exercise of power relations by […]

Sisters, friends or whānau?

This is a lengthier version of an editorial published in this month’s Kai Tiaki New Zealand Nursing Journal. It is based on an invited address I gave at the 10th Annual Conference of the Women’s Health Section:’Divine Secrets of the Sisterhood’ on April 26th  2012. I recently spoke at the NZNO Women’s health conference about sisterhood. Not that […]

Questions haunt nursing student

In 2007 a student nurse called Lisa Kenyon wrote to the Kai Tiaki asking questions about nursing. I’ve reprinted her letter here and then my response. It seems relevant at the moment I am a year-one nursing student from Waiariki Institute of Technology, doing my bachelor of nursing at Windermere in Tauranga. I have recently […]

When activists become oppressors: Nurses and migrant mothers.

This Sunday I’ll be doing a Picnic lecture where I’ll be sharing stories from nurses and migrant mothers from my PhD to discuss how well intentioned activism can become a form of oppression. The lecture will be held in the Albert Park rotunda in Auckland on Sunday 1st April at 3pm and is linked with Te […]

Adapting to New Zealand’s super-diversity

Originally published in  Contact: Newsletter for members of the Pharmacy Guild of New Zealand, December 2011-January 2012  (Issue 11), Pages 8-9. New Zealand has earned the right to call itself super-diverse. this term refers to an unprecedented level and kind of complexity that surpasses anything previously experienced in a particular society. This super-diversity leads to […]

Pregnant with possibility: Migrant motherhood in New Zealand

First published in Mindnet  Issue 6 – Winter 2006 When my family arrived in New Zealand in 1975 there were very few people from Goa living here. We quickly got know every Goan in the country and, in hindsight, this connection provided me with an early interest in and focus on both maternal mental health […]