Abstract:
This exploratory study investigates how governmentality enforced by societal attitudes influences
performativity of young people with visual impairment (PVI) to/not access sexual and reproductive health
services (SRH). To explore this phenomenon, existing data was utilised from a focus group around the
sexuality of young PVI with three experts in the field of visual impairment as a starting point. A thematic
analysis revealed various challenges that might be encountered by young PVI as they access SRH, e.g.
stigma. A Foucauldian discourse analysis builds on these challenges by suggesting that governmentality
construed by institutional, macro-level structures (e.g. social attitudes) should not be taken as the only
barriers to/not accessing SRH, but young PVI might also employ individual, micro-level decision-making
processes (e.g. socially-negotiated rationalities) to/not access SRH. The final theorisation here remains
unsettled; actual voices of young PVI need to be located in this ongoing conversation.
