CEEL Projects

Dissertation research: The Baby in the Body: Pregnancy Practices as Kin and Person Making in the Contemporary United States

-- Sallie Han, Predoctoral Fellow at the Center for the Ethnography of Everyday Life and Doctoral Candidate, Department of Anthropology, University of Michigan

Mom and child Anthropologists long have emphasized the significance of relatedness not only as "biological," but also "social." Indeed, as I hope to demonstrate in my dissertation project, kinship becomes constituted socially even within the ostensibly biological relationship between a pregnant woman and a fetus. Pregnancy practices common in the contemporary United States, such as eating/feeding, fitness/exercise, shopping, and what I call "belly talk" (speech and other communications directed toward the unborn child) might be regarded as extensions of care that enact and embody social kinship between expectant parent and expected child. Such practices also might be viewed as processes of kin and person making in that pregnant women themselves, based especially on their bodily experiences, will evaluate and re-negotiate the status of the fetus or unborn child as kin and person. baby announcement cake

"When I first got pregnant, it was, I think, a little pea, and then a bean, and then a peanut. [Because] my brother would ask me, Well, how big is it, so I would say, It's about the size of a pea, it's the size of a bean, the size of a peanut. Then from peanut to now, I kind of didn't think about it a lot when I was waiting for the amnio and all that. Now, I keep calling it Thumper because it feels just like there's a little, small creature, a little, small animal inside. I don't think of it as human.

"So, I don't think of myself as a mother yet. I think of myself as a pregnant woman, which is describing me. It's not describing my role that I'll have respect to another person. So, I don't know when I'll start to feel like a future mother, but not right at this moment."

-- Dana, a doctor, at 19 weeks

In my dissertation, I will examine pregnancy practices as kin and person making within the particular political economic, historical, and cultural context of the contemporary United States. Following the lead of feminist medical anthropologists such as Emily Martin, Robbie Davis-Floyd, Faye Ginsburg, and Rayna Rapp, a particular focus of my dissertation will be on the articulation of production or work values in and through reproduction and kinship practices among North American middle-class women.

"I've really felt this urge to get prepared. I have a work plan put together of everything we have to do - all of the books we're reading, different things we're going through in terms of getting life insurance and our wills done.

"We've been just preparing - thinking through the logistics of how things will work in terms of where the baby will sleep, preparing the physical layout, and also making arrangements for going back to work and what that will be like, which is a little bit hard to think through. I've been a pretty driven career person."

-- Kerry, a product manager, at 24 weeks

baby clothes A second (and related) focus will be on ideas and practices of the person and the sentimentalization of the fetus, which I suggest is an extension of the sentimentalization of children in the United States that sociologist Viviana Zelizer traces to changes in the social and economic status of working and middle-class women during the 19th century.

"[At the ultrasound appointment], it's on the TV monitor, so you can't see scale. Even though, it was maybe 1 inch or 4 inches long, it looked like a baby on the monitor, and that was the first moment for me where that really made it real.

"I feel like I've fallen in love with this little girl already."

-- Brian, Kerry's husband, at 24 weeks

Building upon the work of linguistic anthropologists Elinor Ochs and Bambi Schiefflin on language socialization among parents and children, a third focus will be on the particular significance of (and peculiar reliance upon) talk in the enactment and embodiment of social relations, including those of production and reproduction, in the contemporary United States.

"I'm trying to be kind of relaxed about, but you know, a lot of stuff was happening with the war in Iraq and I didn't want to watch gruesome TV. Or I didn't listen to the news like I normally do on the way to work - stuff like that, which is kind of silly because she can't even hear then.

"Now, she can hear. I sort of talk to her. I say, Hi, and stuff, but I don't really get into conversations. My husband says, Hi, and, oh, you know, Give us a kick. This morning I could feel her move, and she's been moving a lot, so I asked my husband to talk to her and then he did, so she'd kick. So, that's kind of fun."

-- Greta, a teacher, at 23 weeks

parents and babys Currently, I am completing ethnographic fieldwork that I began in September/October 2002 in and around Ann Arbor, Michigan. As of September/October 2003, I have recorded interviews of 1-2 hours to document the monthly progress of the pregnancies of 14 pregnant women who are or were expecting a first child, and 1 pregnant woman who was expecting a third child. This process of documenting a woman's pregnancy typically started at the beginning of the 2nd trimester between weeks 14 and 22, although in 2 cases, the process began between weeks 6 and 10. I also am recording post-pregnancy interviews with the women in order to document the stories of their births. Typically, I have recorded interviews during the first 6-12 weeks post-partum. To date, I have interviewed 11 women with their partners (all of them male spouses) at least once; 2 women were interviewed regularly with their partners. I also have interviewed 2 women's mothers-in-law who planned to be involved actively in the child's care.

In addition, I have conducted participant-observation and informal interviews with pregnant women/couples attending 4 different childbirth preparation courses, prenatal yoga and pregnancy massage classes, a hospital-sponsored "birth fair," and other community events and settings, such as waiting in line at a local ice cream shop. I also observed at more than 100 appointments with women receiving prenatal care from obstetricians, certified nurse-midwives, and direct-entry midwives who attend home births, more than 50 ultrasound appointments, and at genetic counseling sessions at a major university research hospital. I also participated in a training workshop for doulas, or labor assistants. I plan to complete research in December 2003/January 2004.

For more information about this project, please visit my Web site at http://pregnancyproject.tripod.com