How Irish Women's Experiences Of Travelling For Abortions Challenge Our Understanding of Citizenship, Gender and Failure

我提出的博士课题结合了定性研究、批判性话语分析和女权主义理论，探讨爱尔兰妇女出国堕胎与公民和性别的国家理想之间的联系。在过去的三十年里，爱尔兰的公民理想发生了变化，尤其是在性别和异性恋规范方面，而且这种变化还在继续。通过接受人类学中关于阈限的理论，我将能够将爱尔兰视为一个性别和公民身份概念不断变化的民族国家。最近对爱尔兰宪法的修改减少了父权制、异性恋规范和宗教理想对性别、性行为和异性恋规范的影响，包括允许避孕、离婚和同性婚姻的全民公投——后者已于2015年举行。这些社会和文化的变化挑战了传统的性别角色以及作为一名爱尔兰女性的意义。这些转变也影响了爱尔兰关于堕胎的言论，因为社会变革似乎迫在眉睫。在爱尔兰，支持堕胎的运动重新焕发了活力，但对这一运动也有明显的反弹，导致反堕胎言论的传播，其中许多言论直接攻击了为堕胎而旅行的妇女的性格。由于爱尔兰作为一个国家的独特地位和文化在性别和性方面经历着独特的转变，这个国家提供了一个有趣的案例来探索性别公民身份是如何被感知、制定的，以及它是如何演变的。批判性话语分析将使我能够探索最近的变化如何影响爱尔兰关于爱国主义的言论，以及成为爱尔兰的“好”公民意味着什么，以及作为一名女性在不断变化的社会景观中导航意味着什么。通过采用中批判话语分析来研究关于性别、性和堕胎的公共话语是如何被支持和反对选择的活动家和主流媒体创造和延续的，我将能够研究爱尔兰的机构和活动家是如何产生和延续特定的女性理想的。然后，宏观批判话语分析将允许我探索这些性别和性观念的转变如何影响爱尔兰妇女如何体验爱尔兰不断发展的公民理想，她们作为爱尔兰女性公民的身份，以及她们对有关堕胎的现行法律的态度。这种形式的宏观分析将用于集中和分析我对出国堕胎的爱尔兰妇女的定性访谈。我已经有了进行与这个主题相关的定性研究的经验，我很高兴能利用我的博士学位来扩展我的工作，并贡献大量的定性数据和生成分析框架。在我获得性研究硕士学位期间，我利用自己作为女权主义记者和公共知识分子的平台，招募了一些到国外堕胎的爱尔兰妇女接受采访。我的招募非常成功，以至于我最终无法采访到所有自愿参与我研究的女性，但这些积极的回应对我未来的工作非常鼓舞人心。使用半结构化的访谈指南和主题编码，我的论文最终集中在我的参与者的内疚、母性、模糊、空间和流亡的经历上。在我的采访中，许多妇女谈到，她们因为决定堕胎而感到被爱尔兰和生活中的其他人拒绝，为了堕胎而感到被驱逐出自己的祖国，然后因为自己的决定而被人们羞辱或排斥。许多女性通过使用失败的语言来表达她们的公民身份和女性身份。

My proposed PhD topic combines qualitative research, critical discourse analysis, and feminist theory to explore the link between Irish women who travel abroad for abortions and national ideals of citizenship and gender.Ireland's ideals of citizenship have transformed over the past three decades, particularly in relation to gender and heteronormativity, and continue to do so. By embracing theories regarding liminality in anthropology, I will be able to examine Ireland as a nation state whose concept of gender and citizenship is in flux. Recent changes to the Irish constitution have reduced the impact of patriarchal, heteronormative and religious ideals regarding gender, sexuality and heteronormativity, including public referenda allowing contraception, divorce, and same-sex marriage - the latter having taken place in 2015. These societal and cultural changes have challenged traditional gender roles and what it means to be an Irish woman. These transformations have also impacted the rhetoric around abortion in Ireland, as social change seems imminent. There is a renewed vigor among pro-choice movements in Ireland, but there is also a notable backlash to this movement, resulting in the dissemination of anti-choice rhetoric, much of which directly attacks the character of women who travel for abortions.Due to Ireland's unique position as a State and culture undergoing a distinct transformation regarding gender and sexuality, the country provides a fascinating case study to explore how gendered citizenship is felt, enacted, and how it evolves. Critical discourse analysis will enable me to explore how recent changes have affected Ireland's rhetoric regarding patriotism and what it means to be a "good" citizen of Ireland, and what it means to be a woman currently navigating that shifting social landscape. By employing meso critical discourse analysis to examine how public discourse regarding gender, sexuality and abortion is created and perpetuated by pro- and anti-choice campaigners and the mainstream media, I will be able to examine how Irish institutions and campaigners produce and perpetuate particular ideals of womanhood. Macro critical discourse analysis will then allow me to explore how these shifting ideals of gender and sexuality affect how Irish women experience Ireland's evolving ideals of citizenship, their identity as female Irish citizens, and their attitudes towards existing laws regarding abortion. This form of macro analysis will be used to focus and analyze my qualitative interviews with Irish women who have travelled abroad for abortions.I already have experience conducting qualitative research related to this topic, and am excited to use my PhD to expand upon my work and contribute substantial qualitative data and generative frameworks of analysis. During my M.A. in Sexuality Studies, I used my platform as a feminist journalist and public intellectual to recruit Irish women who had travelled abroad for abortions to be interviewed. My recruitment was so successful that I was ultimately unable to interview all the women who volunteered to be part of my research, but the positive response was very encouraging for future work. Using a semi-structured interview guide and thematic coding, my thesis eventually focused on my participants' experiences of guilt, motherhood, ambiguity, and space and exile.During my interviews, many women spoke of feeling rejected both by Ireland and by individual people in their lives because of their decision to have an abortion, feeling literally exiled from their home country in order to have an abortion, and then being shamed or ostracized by people because of their decision. Many women expressed this by using the language of failure in relation to both their citizenship and womanhood.