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Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization

Online ISBN:
9780520949447
Print ISBN:
9780520268944
Publisher:
University of California Press
Book

Reproducing Race: An Ethnography of Pregnancy as a Site of Racialization

Published online:
22 March 2012
Published in print:
18 March 2011
Online ISBN:
9780520949447
Print ISBN:
9780520268944
Publisher:
University of California Press

Abstract

This book, an ethnography of pregnancy and birth at a large New York City public hospital, explores the role of race in the medical setting. The book investigates how race—commonly seen as biological in the medical world—is socially constructed among women dependent on the public healthcare system for prenatal care and childbirth. It argues that race carries powerful material consequences for these women even when it is not explicitly named, showing how they are marginalized by the practices and assumptions of the clinic staff. Deftly weaving ethnographic evidence into broader discussions of Medicaid and racial disparities in infant and maternal mortality, the book shines new light on the politics of healthcare for the poor, demonstrating how the “medicalization” of social problems reproduces racial stereotypes and governs the bodies of poor women of color.

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