Obedient mothers, healthy children: communication on the risks of reproduction in state-socialist Czechoslovakia
The result's identifiers
Result code in IS VaVaI
<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F68378025%3A_____%2F23%3A00571987" target="_blank" >RIV/68378025:_____/23:00571987 - isvavai.cz</a>
Result on the web
<a href="https://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2023/03/05/medhum-2022-012498" target="_blank" >https://mh.bmj.com/content/early/2023/03/05/medhum-2022-012498</a>
DOI - Digital Object Identifier
<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1136/medhum-2022-012498" target="_blank" >10.1136/medhum-2022-012498</a>
Alternative languages
Result language
angličtina
Original language name
Obedient mothers, healthy children: communication on the risks of reproduction in state-socialist Czechoslovakia
Original language description
The article analyses medical communication in popular media relating to the risks in reproduction in the state-socialist Czechoslovakia between 1948 and 1989 and shows how it used emotions as an instrument to control women’s reproductive behaviour. In particular, we use an approach inspired by Donati’s (1992) political discourse analysis and by Snow and Bedford’s (1988) framing analysis to explore communication on the risk of infertility in the abortion debate, the risk of fetal abnormalities in the prenatal screening debate, and the risk of emotional deprivation and morbidity in infants in the debate on mothering practices. The analysis contributes to the knowledge on how the construction of risk in reproduction, including childcare, serves to create a moral order of motherhood by defining what constitutes ‘irresponsible’ reproductive behaviours and their associated risks, and in doing so may lead to the further marginalisation of already marginalised people. We explain how expert discourse on reproduction and care aimed at the general public worked by constructing risks, a fear of these risks, and women’s responsibility for avoiding them in order to regulate women’s behaviour through self-discipline, which worked alongside other disciplinary techniques. These techniques were applied unequally and mainly to marginalised groups of women, such as women of Roma ethnicity and single mothers.
Czech name
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Czech description
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Classification
Type
J<sub>imp</sub> - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database
CEP classification
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OECD FORD branch
50401 - Sociology
Result continuities
Project
<a href="/en/project/LX22NPO5101" target="_blank" >LX22NPO5101: The National Institute for Research on the Socioeconomic Impact of Diseases and Systemic Risks</a><br>
Continuities
I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace
Others
Publication year
2023
Confidentiality
S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů
Data specific for result type
Name of the periodical
Medical Humanities
ISSN
1468-215X
e-ISSN
1473-4265
Volume of the periodical
49
Issue of the periodical within the volume
2
Country of publishing house
GB - UNITED KINGDOM
Number of pages
11
Pages from-to
225-235
UT code for WoS article
000937996100001
EID of the result in the Scopus database
2-s2.0-85152686425