When going it all alone : four essays on stigma, health and social exclusion of single mothers in Thailand /

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Student Theses

2022

Zhang, Yu Herbary

Hong Kong : The Education University of Hong Kong

Thesis

This thesis folio investigates a range of major sociological debates and policy studies related to gender, family, marriage, health, intersectionality and social exclusion. It does so by analyzing ethnographic data gained from participant observation at NGOs and a psychiatric hospital, in-depth interviews with single mothers, social workers and medical workers, and a review of policy documents and reports from government departments and NGOs in Thailand between 2020 and 2021. The conceptual framework of the study draws on gender as a social construct and intersectionality as critical social theory. Using this framework, the thesis aims to offer new scholarly insights by looking at single mothers as a category of multiple and overlapping oppressions, marginalization and exclusion, which intersect not only with gender, class and ethnicity but also with other significant categories, such as hometown neighborhood, religion and health conditions - a significant but under-researched subject in the Thai context. Moreover, the thesis also provides policy recommendations to the Thai government to improve its social policies for single mothers and achieve gender equality in Thailand. This thesis folio consists of four essays. The first essay reveals that single mothers experience intersectional stigma in their everyday lives based on their gender, class, ethnicity, religious status and other dominant categories manifested in Thai society. Moreover, stigmatization is a differentiated process affected by social distance; it begins with self-stigmatization and moves outwards to family, community, and ultimately to the Thai state and society. With the increase in social distance, the degree of intersectional stigma becomes more severe and complex. By rejecting the view of stigmatization as a homogeneous, analogous and monolithic set of experiences, I have demonstrated that single mothers in Thailand face multiple forms of oppression and marginalization and have contributed to theorizing the plurality of intersecting stigmatization. The second essay focuses on single mothers living with HIV in Thailand. The stigma they experience is situated within the context of gender, class, ethnicity and other intersecting social inequalities, and is manifest at the self, family, community and societal levels. In this study, I found that in response to this stigmatization, single mothers have developed four coping strategies: self-presentation, identity talk, self-exclusion (through distancing and selective association) and empowerment. Findings from the study indicate that an intersectional approach is needed for academics, health workers, policy makers and even the individuals concerned to understand and respond effectively to the HIV-related stigma experienced by specific socio-demographic groups in Thailand. The third essay seeks to understand the self-stigma and family stigma faced by single mothers with mental illness and to explore their different mothering experiences in Thai society. This study highlights the connections of intersectional stigma with single motherhood and mental illness within the Thai socio-cultural context. Despite experiencing varying degrees of stigmatization, single mothers with mental illness attempted to navigate motherhood and fulfil their gender-specific obligations and expectations. This study develops a threefold typology to describe their mothering experiences: attempted mothering experience, absentee mothering experience, and failed mothering experience. The fourth essay is co-authored with Isabella Ng. We examine current government policy on single mothers in Thailand and its impact on this marginalized group. Using "passive-aggressive social exclusion" as a new typology to investigate the social exclusion of single mothers in Thailand, we discover that the government has been inactive in providing adequate support to the increasing number of single mothers. This inaction has resulted in the passive-aggressive social exclusion of single mothers, the impacts of which extend from political invisibility to social, cultural and economic negligence and thus deprivation. This study thus offers a new typology to understand how social exclusion can result from government inaction and administrative obstacles and calls on the Thai government to improve its policies for single mothers by considering multiple markers of marginalization compounding the risk of social exclusion

LG51.H43 Dr 2022eb Zhangyh

https://educoll.lib.eduhk.hk/records/or58Tpx8