Reproductive Boundaries

"Beautifully written and provocative, Reproductive Boundaries offers a powerful new understanding of reproductive governance. It presents the first authoritative social critique of psychosocial prenatal care, showing how its promise of holistic support can also deepen surveillance over women’s lives. Through rich ethnographic detail, Ballif illuminates a striking paradox of care, challenging the boundaries of empathy, authority, and control in reproductive health." - Lucy van de Wiel, author of Freezing Fertility: Oocyte Cryopreservation and the Gender Politics of Aging "This book brings careful attention to the frequently overlooked topic of talk in reproduction. The focus is on how pregnant people’s experiences are shaped by talk about pregnancy—not only as it is, but also expectations about what it ought to be, at least according to the professionals charged with offering psychosocial pregnancy care and support. The practices and ideas presented here are both congruent with what has been observed and documented elsewhere and distinctive to the contemporary Swiss context, making this book another important contribution to the anthropology of pregnancy." - Sallie Han, coauthor of Anthropology of Reproduction: The Basics