Exploring the Socio-Cultural Diversity in the Experiences of Widowhood: - PowerPoint Presentation

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Exploring the Socio-Cultural Diversity in the Experiences of Widowhood:American and Ghanaian Akan Widows

NACSW 2017 CONVENTION

November 2-4, 2017

Charlotte, North CarolinaSlide2

NACSW WORKSHOP

Exploring the Socio-Cultural Diversity in the Experiences of Widowhood: American and Ghanaian Akan Widows.

Presenters:

Rose Korang-Okrah, Ph.D.; Amanda Keys, Ph.D., LCSW;Tiffany Havlin, Ph.D., LCSW; Regina Russell, LCSW.At:Crowne Plaza, Charlotte, NC.

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Overview of the Presentation

The concept of widowhood, the tragic, traumatic and permanent loss of a spouse, is as old as human existence and experience. Widowhood is commonly viewed as a life transition, a major change in life, a dreaded phase of life for most women. Conjugal bereavement is one of the most emotionally, physically and mentally wrenching experiences that confront most widows.

Following the deaths of their husbands, many Akan women in Ghana lose their possessions and are evicted from their matrimonial homes along with their children even though official statutory laws banning such practices have been in place for more than three decades.

This type of treatment or experience was totally different for the American women who lost their husbands through death.

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Brief Summary of Ghanaian Akan Widows’ Experiences of Widowhood

Ghana, although a democratic country, operates a Pluralistic governance whereby, the customary laws rule side-by-side with the statutory laws.

The Akans adhere to matrilineal inheritance customary laws. The wife and children of the men do not fall in the inheritance line – Children inherit from their mother’s lineage.

The customary law is applied when the man dies intestate –meaning, the person dies without making a will.

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Literature Review & Conceptual Frameworks

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The New Study - Springfield

Purpose of study

The purpose of this new study was to consider culturally widespread and diverse experiences of widowhood. The study focused on the widows’ responses to and experiences of existential issues in connection with bereavement, grieving, economic, sociocultural, emotional, physical and spiritual challenges. We explored the type of resources and support each widowed woman draws on for survival and the meaning they make out of those experiences. We approached this research using concepts from developmental-cultural psychology, especially, “Universalism Without the Uniformity.” Certain experiences (such as the loss of a spouse) are common across cultural groups (universalism), but how widowhood challenges are understood, responded to, and the impacts on well beings are likely to vary from culture to culture (without uniformity).6Slide7

Methods

Setting:

This study took place in Springfield, Missouri. This place was chosen for a number of reasons, including the amount of time we had for the study and the convenience of getting some help for recruiting the interviewees. We had just about two months to complete the study and the report.

Participants: Applying convenient sampling, the contact person referred six widowed women Through snowballing, one of the participants connected us to three other widowed women in Springfield, for a total of nine, all in Springfield, MO. All nine had been widowed within the last ten years and had not remarried.

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Methods -Participants

All nine widows are Caucasians, six have some different degrees in university education and three have High School Diploma.

All over 50 years, ranging from 60 to 85years (M=73.2, SD=8.2) and had been married for 27 to 57 years (M=42, SD=13.0)

.

The women had been widowed from 5 months to 6 years (

M=

2.9 years

, SD=

2.1)

and were living alone, some with their dogs.

With exception of two of them who had some problems with their step children about the husband’s property, all remaining seven have complete access and rights to the property they and their husbands built together.

Eight of them talked about their middle class statuses and one talked about her upper class status and her business

All nine women are Christians and have had active involvement and participation in their church’s programs.

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Procedure - Interview

Phenomenological research design, focused on the identification and description of the widows’ subjective experiences of widowhood.

Face-to-face, in-depth, audio recorded interviews with each participant lasted 50-60 mins. Interviews were conducted in participant’s home or convenient location of their choice.Interview guide consisted of open-ended semi-structured questions The interview procedure focused on and explored the lived experiences (both in married lives and widowhood), perspectives and the meanings participants attribute to their experiences of widowhood and its challenges.After establishing rapport, each participant was given a copy of the informed consent to read and after signing, opting to participate, our conversational interview started.

Conversational interviewing is designed to assure that the respondent understands the questions as intended.

That helped to capture the rich descriptions of participants’ experiences, daily activities, the physical, emotional, social and health challenges confronting each of them.

All interviews were audiotaped and placed into specific, security-protected files created for t this purpose on a private computer.

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Data Analysis & Interpretation

Data from the study was inductively transcribed verbatim, taking careful note of the nonverbal and para-linguistic communications

The inductive approach is focused on identifying patterns in the data by means of thematic codes. Emic codes focusing on the meanings ascribed by the participants to their experiences were developed through repeated readings of the interview transcripts. Peer debriefing and member checks were utilized throughout the data analysis to make sure the descriptive codes characterize the meanings that participants intended to convey through their responses as well as to enhance the trustworthiness of the study.

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UNIVERSAL

GRIEF RESPONSES

SHOCK/NUMBNESS

EMOTIONAL RELEASEMAKING SENSE / QUESTIONING

DETACHING

DEPRESSED/DIFFICULTY MAKING DECISIONS

ANGER

EXCEPTANCE AND REORGANIZATION OF LIFE

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Dual Process

Grief ResponseSlide13

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Secondary Losses

…

are unique to each cultureFINANCIALRELATIONSHIPS CHANGEHEALTHCRISIS OF FAITHSlide14

The Results

Four main themes:

Reflections on married life experiences

Daily-lived experiences and challenges Property rights Resources for resiliency14Slide15

Results: Reflections on Married Life Experiences

Participants shared great memories about:

The quality of time they had with their

spouses The roles and responsibilities they shared The intimate relationship they had15Slide16

Results: Reflections on Married Life Experiences

Rosina (American), said:

“We were equal partners. It wasn’t his or hers or yours or mine. It was united. And we were united when it came to disciplining the children. We were united, we agreed on everything when it came to the children. This was my second marriage. My children were younger, his were older but the children got along very well. Also as a matter of fact, to this day his son and my son consider themselves brothers. And his son considers me step-mom and we are in contact all the time. So we had a wonderful relationship. In the first part of our marriage I didn’t work, so I did almost everything. But when I did start working then he would help out when I needed help with doing different things. Summer time was his time to cook on the grill, winter time was my time to cook in the house. My daughter was eight and my son was five and his son was thirteen and then he had a daughter who was an adult and so she was not very much a part of it.”

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Results: Reflections on Married Life Experiences

Marian (Ghanaian) stated:

When we came together as a married couple, we worked hand in hand to support, assist and complement each other. We had three children but one died as an infant. We decided to put up a building so that we could move in and even rent out some of the rooms to people. I was a trader, whilst my husband worked at the Kwame Nkrumah University. We started to save money and after some time we were able to start the building project. Just as we completed the house and roofed it, my husband became sick. Over a period of two years he battled with the sickness. As is often said “when death is holding unto something, the living cannot free it.”, I worked and contributed money to help my husband. We had an arrangement with the way the money was spent. Our children were enrolled in an international school, so for a certain month the money was used to pay for their school expenses, while on another month it was used for the building project. We had to rotate the expenditure to cater for everything. As the wife, I was in charge of the house management and be sure my husband came home to meet food ready on the table.

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Results:The Daily-Lived Experiences and Challenges

When discussing their livelihood and the challenges confronting them after their husbands passed away, some of the women became emotional.

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Results:The Daily-Lived Experiences and Challenges

Brenda (American) said:

The most crucial thing for me and it’s not physical, it’s loneliness. Just missing him. I can handle the finances, I can handle this, I can get help. My pancreas I realize that if it got real bad it could kill me but who cares I am eighty years old. I think I am blessed except for being lonely. You know my dad died when I was twelve, my brother died when he was fifty-five, and then my son died at forty-eight and Richard of course it’s seventy-nine. All the men in my life that I had loved deeply are gone and that’s very difficult for me. But it’s God’s will and you have to accept it and make the best of it.

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Results:The Daily-Lived Experiences and Challenges

Beatrice (Ghanaian) said this:

“My greatest challenge now is my children’s education and my greatest worry is poverty. I have never worked anywhere apart from farm work. I never went to school and after marriage, my husband took me to

Sefwi to work on the cocoa farm. My husband’s family gave out his cocoa farm as collateral for loan for his funeral so I don’t get any money from there. Sometimes, I go to bed on empty stomach because the little I get, I give to the children first. Poverty is crippling everything that I am supposed to do, especially for my children’s education. All my six children are in school but I cannot pay for their school fees. The school authorities have allowed me to pay in installments, which I am even struggling to pay. Hmm, I know…God is in control.”20Slide21

Results:Property Rights

American women and Ghanaian women had different experiences when it came to property rights.

All American women who participated stated that they had rights to their properties after their spouse died. This was not true for Ghanaian women.21Slide22

Results: Property Rights

Stephanie (American) said:

“Well I was going to say the only thing we had was the house which was in both names so I simply inherited. The barber shop we had purchased after a year but when he gave up at the end, we sold off the barber shop and it really just went into paying bills. And there was nothing else, our car. That’s really all we have. Well I am a working middle class person. Growing up I was probably in the poor class. I just didn’t know it because we all were like that. I mean you just never thought about it, everybody else was kind of like you. No as far as from being married and all those years and stuff and even now I am a working middle class person, soon to be poor if they keep up with things in this government.”

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Results: Property Rights

Cynthia (Ghanaian) said:

“My husband was a cocoa farmer before we got married. Being the oldest child, his mother asked him to work on the farm so he would always have money to take care of himself. We were married for 22 years and all those years I was with him on the farm. We had a very good relationship with his mother and his siblings. When he died, we had six children and I was pregnant with the seventh child. After the 40

th-day anniversary my mother-in-law called me to a room and said to me; ‘the cocoa farm belongs to me, your husband was just the caretaker. I need to hire a new caretaker for the farm.’ She went ahead to hire a new caretaker for the farm and drove my six children and me out of that farm.”23Slide24

Results: Resources for Resiliency

Both Ghanaian and American women credited God as their resource for resiliency.

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Results: Resources for ResiliencyBenedicta (American) said:

“It’s my faith in God and my Catholic faith. I honestly will tell you that if it weren’t for God and for my Catholic faith, I will be at somewhere else. Religious affiliation means everything. It’s my life. You got to have faith. I think my mother, because she went to mass daily and that’s what she instilled in me. The faith that our dad had and to do for other people and you don’t have to receive back. I always want to put a smile on somebodies face, help them out. The greatest gift my parents ever gave me was the Catholic faith. I love it that much.”

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Results: Resources for Resiliency

Rosa (Ghanaian) said:

“It’s God. It’s just by His Grace. I wouldn’t have survived. Due to the treatment that was meted out to me after my husband’s death, I never thought I could survive in this life. I looked at my empty pockets and bank accounts; my children’s school fees, electricity bills, hospital bills and I really lost all hope. How was I going to survive with my children? Where were we going to get some roof over our heads, after we’ve been thrown out of my matrimonial home? God is

my everything because he is the one who has kept us till now. God is good and His grace is amazing. I always pray and thank him. Every morning I have morning devotion with my children. I am a member of a group in my church and they advise and console us every time to see to it that we are happy. They are a loving group. God is good all the time.”26Slide27

Implications for Social Work

Opportunity to work in diverse cultural

community

Challenge of widowhood Getting connected27Slide28

Opportunities for Research

Diversity

Larger Sample Cultures Beliefs28Slide29

Q????

THANK YOU!!

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