Contentious Care: Foster Care Grants and the Caregiver–Orphan Relationship in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa

Abstract

It is widely recognized that HIV/AIDS has devastating but also uneven effects on afflicted communities. While much research has rightly focused on the impact of HIV/AIDS on families, communities and countries, less attention has been paid to foster carers' experiences and to the network of care. Based on qualitative fieldwork carried out over a 3-month period in KwaZulu-Natal Province, South Africa, this study analyses the experiences of those caring for orphans who receive a state-funded Foster Care Grant. Conversations with caregivers suggest the contentious nature of care; this is worth exploring further, as it can cast light on how such macro-level interventions are shifting what it means to be an orphan at the community level. The main reason for bringing these issues to the fore is to make development interventions better informed and therefore better able to address those factors giving rise to the challenges faced by caregivers.

Notes

Chris Hearle would like to thank the non-governmental organization workers at the Valley Trust for their hospitality and help in conducting discussions and translating documents, particularly Nano Ngwane, Piya Thabethe, Nellie Ngidi, Lungi Mchunu, Thandi Mbatha, Sthe Mkhize, Thando Mtshali and Brian Khoza. He is grateful to Sam Buckas, Tuki Maseatile and Clive Bruzas for granting permission for this research as well as Bisola Ojikutu for arranging the funding. He is heavily indebted to Fofie Mgbako for his help, financial and otherwise, in working together on related research themes while in KwaZulu Natal Province. We both appreciate the institutional support offered by the Geo Data Institute and the School of Geography, University of Southampton, for making it possible to do and translate the fieldwork research into a publishable output. Our thanks also go to Leanne Roncolato for her careful reading of a previous version of this paper, and last but not least, to Ann Newton for her thorough proof reading and editing, which helped bring this paper up to publishable standard.

¹ The paper by Woolard & Klasen (2005), however, offers an overview of poverty dynamics in KwaZulu-Natal Province where non-labour income is one of many variables in determining the ability of households to escape poverty traps. State grants are likely to offset the downward pressure on poverty.

² This lacuna contrasts with the significant press and media coverage of the scheme, where the media have attempted to explore the experiences of caregivers (Nhlapo, 2002; Philip, 2002; Ancer, 2005, all cited in Goldblatt, 2005).

³ We did not, however, speak to the children. This is because working through the local charity meant abiding by their rules, and interviewing children was considered unethical. Additionally, our university research and fieldwork policies also consider this unethical. This paper, therefore, draws on fieldwork data mainly from the perspective of caregivers.

⁴ The distinct components of the PI's time in the field, therefore, did not involve active information-gathering for this research project. This paper draws primarily on data gathered from 42 foster carers because they were the foci of this research and our interest was on how caregivers experience their everyday lives. We do not, therefore, use any of the information from other work situations as we had not obtained explicit permission to do so from colleagues in the NGO or social work and community health-care professions. As is recognized in the literature, working with/through local organizations can be a fraught business and needs careful negotiation (Leyshon, 2002).

⁵ Both Conrad & Doss (2008) and Akintola's (2008) contributions are key in pointing to how informal systems of care are drawn upon in the context of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, to the critical import of such care work and to its gendered aspects.

⁶ We used informed consent forms approved and commonly used by the academic institution within UCP.

⁷ The link between knowledge and action is complex and uneven, particularly so when research is conducted via an institutional context. Leyshon (2002, p. 183) registered his dilemmas when he noted “Institutional contact can either facilitate or compromise research”. In our experience, working though The Valley Trust was largely helpful in carrying out the research and hence every effort has been made to relay key findings back through short reports. There is, however, no guarantee that ideas and suggestions made will necessarily translate into projects and/or pertinent policies (see also Van Blerk & Ansell, 2007).

⁸ More generally, Woolard & Klasen (2005) show how non-labour income is an important determinant of income mobility and helps households escape poverty traps. According to Klasen (email communication), at the time of their study child grants did not exist and hence were not included in the non-labour income category or in the quantitative tabulations. Given their findings, however, Klasen thinks that the FCG is likely to have very few negative incentive effects and therefore should have positive income effects.

⁹ Communities, however, are not without their tensions and hierarchies. Bourdieu (1977) notes some problematic aspects to communities and social networks (in a different context) and we too are acutely aware that the complex web of social relationships of ubuntu is also likely to be coloured by power dimensions determined by class, gender, age, and so forth.

¹⁰ This may seem rather surprising given the ANC's proclaimed commitment to gender equality. Yet, in the specific context of HIV/AIDS in South Africa, Akintola (2008) shows how the reduction of public spending on hospitals and the encroachment of market systems in seeking efficiency gains mean that informal systems of care, where women preponderate, take on the costs.

¹¹ As our conclusion points out, the FCG and the ways in which it is implemented cannot be separated from wider social, economic and political problems. We acknowledge that alcoholism and drug abuse exist in any event, but the FCG accentuates this, because these orphans can now afford the drugs and alcohol. The grant thus drives a further wedge between them and the carers.

¹² There is thus a need for a more thorough examination in this area.

¹³ Some care needs to be taken in interpreting the tiredness referred to by the respondents as necessarily related to chronological age. Sometimes, the comments on tiredness and age reflected the fatigue and weariness that tend to come with everyday poverty-related struggles, which make even a person in their mid-30s feel exhausted and already old.

¹⁴ See White (2002) for a discussion on the ways in which the child rights discourse was taken up dramatically by development agencies and NGOs in another context, Bangladesh, with little regard for the contextual realities (see also Haider, 2008).