Disciplining Reproductive Body Projects: Maternal Bodies in Community

• In Event: 3448 - Open Topic on Sociology of Body and Embodiment

Abstract

This chapter introduces the concept of reproductive body projects: the collection of body-care practices that mothers deliberately choose and enact during and after pregnancy, aimed at cultivating babies’ development by working on the maternal body. Drawing on in-depth interviews I conducted with 70 mothers from diverse class backgrounds during 2010-11 in California and Florida, I examine how both the contents of these reproductive body projects and the social relationships through which women seek support for these projects are shaped by class. Middle-class women sought out highly personalized body-care practices and expertise by cultivating horizontal social relationships (particularly with peers selected for their shared health priorities). In contrast, poor and working-class women tended to receive body-care advice primarily through vertical, unidirectional relationships with medical professionals and their own mothers, often eschewing peers or valuing peers only for generalized emotional support. The case of mixed-class women—those who were high education/low income or low education/high income—illuminates how class comes to matter in the adoption of reproductive body projects: highly educated (but low resourced) mothers tended to resemble middle-class mothers, albeit on a budget, whereas higher income (but lower education) women had the means but not the knowledge to pursue middle-class health practices. All told, these findings suggest that reproductive body projects enable women with middle-class cultural capital to demonstrate their expertise and moral commitment to health, thereby using the care of their bodies to assert high social status.

Author

• Katherine Mason, Wheaton College