Reproductive materialism and justice for women with abortion care needs in Uganda

摘要

While reproductive health justice is often assumed to be inherent inreproductive health interventions, the nature of injustices, and thereasons for and mechanisms of concealment, are often unclear. In thisarticle, we draw on an ethnography of priority setting and healthcarepractice in eastern Uganda to illuminate these injustices and themechanisms of concealement. We focus on discursive practices as themechanisms through which power is activated and navigated, such thathealth practitioners are able to evade state surveillance and retribution.While language discourses conceal and normalise reproductive healthinjustices, discursive practices of care and priority setting enablereproductive controls to be navigated in ways that amplify theseinjustices and create new ones. In interventions, precarious conditionsthat impact women’s reproductive health and living circumstances areoften overlooked or concealed. We illustrate the convergence ofbiopower and necropolitical strategies to illuminate these conditions.Using the concept of reproductive materialism, we show howneoliberalism cultivates particular conditions of everyday life, in whichpopulations are positioned as instruments for pecuniary motives, andnormative controls are used to further financial gain.