Help Support Marketa's Research Journey in Tanzania

Hello! My name is Marketa, and I was recently accepted to attend an Ethnographic Field School in Tanzania, led by Dr. Marnie Thompson at my college, Fort Lewis. I know this will be an incredibly valuable experience, and I could not be more grateful to have been accepted. However, the financial side of this is not so easy! I want to do valuable research, and would be incredibly grateful for any donations towards making it possible.

As far as my research, I will attach my essays containing my project details & importance below, but here I will provide two short summaries:

I hope to research how the use of birth control affects the career power of Tanzanian women. There is a lot of political controversy surrounding family planning in Tanzania (abortion is illegal) and some different standards regarding what a woman should do in her life, let alone her professional life.

Finding these connections is important research, because like many Americans, I have a limited perspective on the rest of the world. Controversies surrounding things such as birth control aren’t just American, and everyone can benefit from a global perspective.

Project Details:

I plan to research how the use of the birth control pill affects the career power of Tanzanian women. This concept stems from a research project I conducted for COMP 250, which asked “How does the birth control pill affect a women’s ability to achieve leadership career positions?” I found that through ease of access to the pill, career expansion (aka the growth in achievable careers through delayed childbearing and career investment), and the psychological shift that came with the pill were the main factors that led to the birth control pill allowing women to enter more powerful careers. However, this came from a very US oriented perspective. I believe it would be valuable to compare the US perspective with one I expect to be rather dissimilar cultural perspective in Tanzania.

I expect a different perspective based primarily on two major articles which demonstrate the controversy of birth control in Tanzania. In September of 2019, John Magufuli, the former president of Tanzania, called for the end of the use of birth control in the country, claiming “The country needs more people” and that “Those going for family planning are lazy... they are afraid they will not be able to feed their children” (Busari). Yet, just three years later in October 2022, the current president of Tanzania, Samia Suluhu Hassan (Vice President to Magufuli and took over after his death), urged for better and expanded birth control use in the country. After visiting a clinic with over 1,000 births per month, Hassan worried of the rapid population growth, concerned for the multitude of resources that would need to be provided even just a few years later (Burke). Such a drastic change of perspective in a relatively brief timeframe reveals the real-time prevalence of my research and offers a perspective my previous findings lacked, as well as providing substance to the clear political controversy surrounding the pill.

Considering my previous definition of career power and reasons for the use of the pill, it will be important to define in my new research how Tanzanian women define career power, as well as to find a path between the use of the birth control pill leading to said career power. Previous research conducted by Aristide et al. in 2022 on the use of contraceptives in rural Northwest Tanzania offers some perspective on birth control. Their general findings revealed women seek contraceptives primarily due to fear (of a hard pregnancy, of raising a child alone, etc.). The research also revealed parents occasionally bring in schoolgirls “to prevent possible pregnancy and school drop-out for their daughters” (3). However, there are still many barriers which prevent further contraceptive use, those most relevant to my research being intrapersonal, like the stigma that the only women who use contraceptives are prostitutes (3), or husbands preventing usage because they married for the wife to bear children (3). This considered, it will be important for my research to address those barriers, and consider how the outcome could be different if access was expanded.

As far as career power, I do expect education to have a part in achieving high power positions, reflecting a similarity to my US research. Additionally, I expect this path to powerful careers to begin in younger women, as they are most likely to be in higher education. Research conducted in Tanzania shows a clear connection between education and the social capital available to youth (Posti-Ahokas 2), and some young women even agree “that you don’t have any alternative but going to school” (Posti-Ahokas 9). Generally, Tanzanian women considered being highly educated to be an essential part of a good life, putting education at the forefront of youth.

My research will be conducted through the Ethnographic Field School in Tanzania, led by Dr. Marnie Thomson. From May 19 to May 30, I will attend class to learn some Swahili and further design my research. From June 3 to June 17, I will conduct my research in Tanzania. I will mainly utilize open-ended interviews to carry out my research, editing questions and forming my essential definitions based upon said interviews. Some sample interview questions include: Do you use contraceptives? If so, what kind? How do you define career power? What do you think the link between career power and education is? These questions will help me to understand the usage birth control, define Tanzanian career power, and find the connections between education and career power.

Works Cited

Aristide, Christine et al. “Health providers' perspectives on contraceptive use in rural Northwest Tanzania: A qualitative study.” Contraception: X vol. 4 100086. 13 Oct. 2022, doi:10.1016/j.conx.2022.100086

Busari, Stephanie. “‘Don’t Use Birth Control,’ Tanzania’s President Tells Women in the Country.” CNN, Cable News Network, 11 Sept. 2018, www.cnn.com/2018/09/11/africa/tanzania-birth-control-magufuli-intl/index.html.

Burke, Jason. “Tanzania’s President Calls for Better Birth Control in Country.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 19 Oct. 2022, www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/19/tanzania-president-calls-for-more-birth-control-use-to-reduce-birthrate.

Posti-Ahokas, Hanna, and Mari-Anne Okkolin. “Enabling and Constraining Family: Young Women Building Their Educational Paths in Tanzania.” Community, Work & Family, vol. 19, no. 3, July 2016, pp. 322–39. EBSCOhost, https://doi.org/10.1080/13668803.2015.1047737.

Project Importance:

Like most Americans, I have a very limited perspective on the rest of the world. I believe research done in other countries, especially ones without white-dominant populations, can help to better understand deeply debated issues, such as birth control, and women in power. As far as my specific research, as mentioned in my project details, I have researched this previously from a US perspective. Researching how the use of birth control affects the career power of Tanzanian women is likely to offer an entirely new perspective which should be taken into account when considering the constant change of policies and cultural perspectives that occur in the US. Knowing the controversy surrounding contraceptives overall in Tanzania, and after my research, learning the effects of said controversy on Tanzanian women’s livelihood will offer people like me and many others a new global understanding of issues we are usually only familiar with domestically. Everyone needs to be able to make informed decisions, whether it be voting for policies, choosing contraceptives, or anything else, and my research will aid heavily in making that informed decision possible.