Doctoral Dissertation Research: Women's Child Support Claims and Household Dynamics

密歇根大学（University of Michigan）博士候选人布雷迪·格塞尔（Brady G’sell）将在亚当·阿什福斯（Adam Ashforth）博士的指导下，研究女性子女抚养费要求在重塑家庭动态中的作用，以及子女抚养费政策如何塑造女性的政治身份。在南非，将近5%的国家预算用于儿童抚养费，这已成为主要的扶贫工具。这项提案跟踪了德班市的妇女，她们不仅从国家拨款，还从教堂、家庭成员、非政府组织和父亲那里寻求各种形式的支持。这些支持的来源要求妇女具有不同的人格（例如，好公民，有爱心的母亲）来证明她们的权利是正当的。这项研究询问这些不同的自我表现如何塑造女性与支持来源的关系，以及所获得的资源如何影响家庭内部的关系。经过12个月的实地研究，G'sell将使用多种定性方法。这将涉及(1)参与观察和分析妇女寻求支持的互动；(2)对妇女、大家庭、父亲以及非政府组织、政府机关和其他为妇女提供支持的机构的工作人员进行采访；(3)对1960年以来大众印刷媒体、围绕子女抚养政策的立法辩论和子女抚养法庭案件的选择性样本进行内容分析，以追踪突出主题及其在国民想象中的纵向共鸣。通过将这项研究定位在南非，这项研究提供了一个独特的视角来看待在国家援助发挥越来越重要作用的全球背景下更广泛的社会问题。它考虑了赠款如何作为获得儿童抚养的众多策略之一，将其置于更大的家庭、机构和社区关系网络中。这项研究将揭示国家政策对家庭关系、家庭结构和婚姻实践的意外后果，并将鼓励在政策设计和实施中考虑这些因素。这项研究有助于培养人类学博士生。

University of Michigan doctoral candidate Brady G'sell, under the supervision of Dr. Adam Ashforth, will examine the role of women's child support claims in remaking household dynamics and how child support policy shapes women's political identities. In South Africa, nearly 5% of the country's national budget funds a child support grant which has become the central poverty alleviation tool. This proposal follows women in the city of Durban as they seek support in various forms from not only the state grant, but also churches, family members, NGOs, and fathers. These sources of support demand that women embody different personae (e.g., the good citizen, the caring mother) to justify their entitlement. This research asks how these diverse self presentations shape women's relationships with support sources and how the received resources affect relationships within the household. Over 12 months of field research, G'sell will utilize a variety of qualitative methods. This will involve (1) participant observation and analysis of women's support seeking interactions; (2) interviews with women, extended family, fathers, and staff at NGOs, government offices, and other institutions that offer women support; and (3) content analysis of a selective sample of popular print media, legislative debates around child support policy, and child support court cases since 1960 to track salient themes and their longitudinal resonances in national imagination.By locating this study in South Africa, this research offers a unique insight into broader social issues in a global context where state assistance plays an increasingly critical role. It considers how the grant figures as one strategy among many for procuring child support, placing it in a larger network of familial, institutional, and community relations. This research will reveal the unintended consequences of state policy on family relationships, household structure, and marriage practices and will encourage such considerations in policy design and implementation. The research contributes to the training of a doctoral student in anthropology.