Through the Womb of a Woman: Race and the Reproductive Landscape in a Time of Uncertainty

Provisionally titled Through the Womb of a Woman: Race and the Reproductive Landscape in a Time of Uncertainty, speaks to experiences of birth, medicine, and family-making at the intersections of race, nation, and gender in London. Through analyses of reproductive landscapes I trace uncertainty, unknowability, and scepticism phenomenologically, in the everyday, and epistemologically, in how we come to 'know' and what knowledge 'counts'. Through medicalisation, care, kinship, and racialisation, I draw unexpected relevance in bodies of literature concerning 'the politics of recognition', 'public secrets', and shared stories in the production of 'the real'. Through analysis of the obfuscations in the relationship between 'race' and 'risk', I follow shifting dynamics in considering 'Other' cultures through NHS policies of 'cultural competence', 'personalisation', and 'compassion'. I argue giving birth in hospitals for black women produced a mode of reflection characterised by indeterminacy and scepticism. Racialised reproductive experiences connect with broader understandings of racial injustice, hurt, and inequality, particularly when women cannot be sure if what happened to them happened 'because' they are black.