Care, contagion and the good mother: narratives of motherhood, tuberculosis and healing

Abstract

South Africa is reported as one of the countries with a high burden of tuberculosis (TB). In response to the epidemic, the country’s national Department of Health attempted to improve access to health care and TB treatment with a variety of intervention, treatment and management programmes. Although these interventions are necessary for the macro project of lowering TB infections in South Africa, their focus tends to neglect the particular stories of how TB affects particular lives. In pursuit of such stories, this paper considers how two women, Andiswa and sis Thembi, in Khayelitsha, Western Cape, juggle motherhood and illness. Drawing on a body of literature that focuses on illness as a biographical disruption, good mothering and the impact of TB on poor families in South Africa, this paper explores how TB disrupts mothering. It looks at how these women manage their identities as mothers and their relationships when infected with the disrupting TB. I argue that despite the disruption, their lives show that TB produces moments of burdening and moments of unburdening.