Article ID: CBB427082772

Cloaking the Pregnancy: Scientific Uncertainty and Gendered Burden among Middle-class Mothers in Urban China (January 2021)

unapi

In this article, I use radiation-shielding maternity clothes (cloak) as a window to explore motherhood and reproductive uncertainty in urban China. By engaging with literature on scientific uncertainty and intensive mothering, I argue that the scientific uncertainty over the possible negative impact of electromagnetic radiation (EMF) on pregnancy has led to a situation in which uncertainty is being socially reproduced by experts, markets, and policy makers through different media channels. Middle-class mothers do not fully believe that the cloak is scientifically trustworthy. But under the influence of social networks and the ambient awareness of the reproductive crisis related to environmental pollution and the pressures of modern life, middle-class mothers still choose to wear the clothes for a variable period of pregnancy for psychological feelings of safety. In the end, they choose to cloak their pregnancies (to perform responsible motherhood) but immediately claim their suspicions of the cloak (to perform their scientific knowledge).

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Citation URI
https://data.isiscb.org/isis/citation/CBB427082772/

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Authors & Contributors
Wendland, Claire
Natali Valdez
Comandini, Ana C. Gálvez
Jorge Castillo-Sepúlveda
Street, Alice
Vivienne Moore
Concepts
Technoscience; science and technology studies
Obstetrics and pregnancy
Mothers and children
Certainty; uncertainty
Medicine
Public health
Time Periods
21st century
20th century, late
20th century
Qing dynasty (China, 1644-1912)
18th century
Places
China
India
Papua New Guinea
Malawi
United States
Sweden
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