"With This You Can Meet Your Baby": Fetal Personhood and Audible Heartbeats in Oaxacan Public Health. (1st June 2016)
- Record Type:
- Journal Article
- Title:
- "With This You Can Meet Your Baby": Fetal Personhood and Audible Heartbeats in Oaxacan Public Health. (1st June 2016)
- Main Title:
- "With This You Can Meet Your Baby": Fetal Personhood and Audible Heartbeats in Oaxacan Public Health
- Authors:
- Howes‐Mischel, Rebecca
- Abstract:
- Abstract : This article examines how amplified fetal heartbeats may be used to make claims about fetuses' social presence. These claims are supported by the Mexican Public Health system's selection of the maternal–child relationship as a key site of clinical intervention, intertwining medical and moral discourses. Drawing on the robust literature on cross‐cultural propositions of "fetal personhood, " this analysis uses ethnographic material from public health institutions in Oaxaca, Mexico, to explore how doctors use diagnostic technology to materialize fetuses for their patients. I argue that Spanish's epistemological distinction between saber (to have knowledge about) and conocer (to be acquainted with) is key to how diagnostic technologies may be deployed to make social claims. I use one doctor's attempts to use technology to shift her patient from saber to conocer as illustrative of underlying cultural logics about fetal embodiment and its proof. Focused on the under‐theorized socio–medical deployment of audio fetal heartbeat technology, this article suggests that sound—in addition to sight—is a potent tool for constructing fetal personhood.
- Is Part Of:
- Medical anthropology quarterly. Volume 30:Number 2(2016:Jun.)
- Journal:
- Medical anthropology quarterly
- Issue:
- Volume 30:Number 2(2016:Jun.)
- Issue Display:
- Volume 30, Issue 2 (2016)
- Year:
- 2016
- Volume:
- 30
- Issue:
- 2
- Issue Sort Value:
- 2016-0030-0002-0000
- Page Start:
- 186
- Page End:
- 202
- Publication Date:
- 2016-06-01
- Subjects:
- fetal personhood -- heartbeat -- Latin America -- affective relations -- public health
Medical anthropology -- Periodicals
Anthropology -- Periodicals
Antropología médica -- Publicaciones periódicas
Anthropologie médicale -- Périodiques
Médecine sociale -- Périodiques
Ethnomédecine -- Périodiques
Medische antropologie
Anthropologie médicale
Computer network resources
Périodique électronique (Descripteur de forme)
Ressource Internet (Descripteur de forme)
306.461 - Journal URLs:
- http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/journal/10.1111/(ISSN)1548-1387 ↗
http://www.anthrosource.net/Issues.aspx?issn=0745-5194 ↗
http://www.jstor.org/journals/07455194.html ↗
http://www.ucpress.edu/journals/3a ↗
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/ ↗ - DOI:
- 10.1111/maq.12181 ↗
- Languages:
- English
- ISSNs:
- 0745-5194
- Deposit Type:
- Legaldeposit
- View Content:
- Available online (eLD content is only available in our Reading Rooms) ↗
- Physical Locations:
- British Library DSC - 5526.231000
British Library DSC - BLDSS-3PM
British Library STI - ELD Digital store - Ingest File:
- 2335.xml