Abstract

Pregnancy forms a short period within maternity and its significance and social construction is influenced by discourses and technologies that map out the path towards motherhood. It is something that is seen as everyday and commonplace and, therefore, seemingly in no need of sociological analysis. The performativity of this discursive and socio-technical mechanism, however, will form the focal point of this study. The cases of six (6) pregnant women in Chile will be followed from an ethnographic point of view. These women receive care in various healthcare systems, and their experiences converge in various pregnancy-related scenarios.

Nairbis Sibrian is a doctoral candidate in Sociology at Alberto Hurtado University, Chile; holder of a master’s degree in Communication and Public Policy from the arts and social sciences university, Universidad ARCIS, Chile; holder of a bachelor’s degree in Social Communication from the University of Los Andes, Venezuela. She currently teaches and carries out research in areas including communication, discourse, gender, technologies of the self, sociology of the body, and sociology of care. Her publications and works focus on the understanding of historic and socio-material processes linked to gender, discourses, technologies and the body.