Doctoral Dissertation Research: Care, Body and Rights: Maternal Health and the Production of Emergency in the Contemporary U.S.

宾夕法尼亚大学博士生伊丽莎白哈洛威尔，在博士的监督下，将进行生殖医学和法律在美国的人种学研究。具体来说，这项研究将跟踪最近的医疗实践和政策的变化，指出怀孕和分娩作为医疗紧急情况的重新配置。该项目将在宾夕法尼亚州东南部的两个地点进行联合收割机实地调查--该地区孕产妇保健的可用性越来越有限--并对与生殖医学和联邦相关的科学、立法和历史文件进行文本分析健康法。它将在三个层面上跟踪这种重新配置：1）孕妇和新妈妈及其生殖保健提供者的个人经验; 2）生殖保健的机构重组和有关孕产妇健康的科学知识生产; 3）从20世纪80年代至今美国卫生政策的变化。这样做，这项研究将有助于更深入地了解怀孕和生育是如何形成的，并与制度化的生殖医学和法律的组织。 通常在美国的性别、健康和政策研究中，身体的构成、“良好的”医疗保健和“充分的”政治归属被认为是理所当然的。 这项研究将探讨这些类别，因为它分析了什么样的机构和形式的归属是想象的生殖医学和立法者在美国今天。因此，这项分析将有助于其他研究人员调查怀孕和分娩是如何形成的，经历和理解整个美国和其他国家。这项研究的结果也将引起政策制定者和医疗保健提供者以及参与医疗保健辩论的公众的兴趣。 该项目将考虑医疗和法律的关注某些类型的身体脆弱性（如怀孕相关的紧急情况）如何掩盖其他形式的集体脆弱性（如宾夕法尼亚州东南部和美国许多地区产前护理的可用性下降）。研究人员将向许多不同类型的受众广泛传播他们的研究结果，该项目将有助于培养一名社会科学家。

University of Pennsylvania doctoral student Elizabeth Hallowell, under the supervision of Dr. Fran Barg, will undertake an ethnographic study of reproductive medicine and law in the United States. Specifically, this study will trace recent shifts in healthcare practices and policies that point to a reconfiguration of pregnancy and childbirth as medical emergencies. This project will combine fieldwork at two sites in southeastern Pennsylvania -- a region where the availability of maternal healthcare is increasingly limited -- with textual analysis of scientific, legislative, and historical documents pertaining to reproductive medicine and federal health law. It will track this reconfiguration at three levels: 1) individual experiences of expectant and new mothers and their reproductive healthcare providers; 2) the institutional reorganization of reproductive healthcare and scientific knowledge production about maternal health; and 3) changes in U.S. health policy from the 1980s to the present. In so doing, this research will contribute to a deeper understanding of how pregnancy and birth are shaped by, and linked to, the organization of institutionalized reproductive medicine and law. Typically within the study of gender, health, and policy in the U.S., what constitutes a body, 'good' healthcare, and 'full' political belonging are taken for granted. This research will probe these categories as it analyzes what kinds of bodies and forms of belonging are imagined by reproductive medicine and lawmakers in the U.S. today. This analysis will therefore be useful to other researchers investigating how pregnancy and childbirth are shaped, experienced, and understood throughout the U.S. and in other countries. The findings from this study will also be of interest to policymakers and healthcare providers, as well as to members of the public who are engaged in debates about healthcare. The project will consider how medical and legal attention to certain kinds of bodily vulnerability (such as pregnancy-related emergencies) can obscure other forms of collective vulnerability (such as the decreasing availability of prenatal care in southeastern Pennsylvania and throughout many parts of the U.S.). The researchers will disseminate their findings widely to many different types of audiences, and the project will contribute to the training of a social scientist.