Emergencies that count : pregnancy and economies of care in the U.S. / Elizabeth Ann Hallowell.

Format:

Book

Manuscript

Thesis/Dissertation

Author/Creator:

Hallowell, Elizabeth Ann, author.

Contributor:

Petryna, Adriana, 1966- degree supervisor.

Barg, Fran, degree committee member.

Thomas, Deborah, degree committee member.

University of Pennsylvania. Department of Anthropology, degree granting institution.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Penn dissertations--Anthropology.

Anthropology--Penn dissertations.

Local Subjects:

Penn dissertations--Anthropology.

Anthropology--Penn dissertations.

Physical Description:

x, 243 leaves ; 29 cm

Production:

[Philadelphia, Pennsylvania] : University of Pennsylvania, 2015.

Summary:

There is no broad right to health in the United States today, only a narrowly-formulated right to emergency care. Curiously, the legislative language that created this right defines active labor--as in having a baby--as an Emergency Medical Condition, thus guaranteeing access to medical services for pregnant women regardless of their ability to pay for care in the United States' unique healthcare economy. But just what is an emergency in pregnancy-related care in the contemporary U.S.? Whose emergencies count, and for what? Why are claims of emergency central to pregnancy-related care, and vice versa? How do these claims vary across time and context? This dissertation draws from ethnographic fieldwork in southeastern Pennsylvania--now in recovery from a "childbirth crisis"--archival research, and document analysis to answer these questions. It illuminates an "economy of contingencies" in U.S. healthcare today, in which pregnant women's lived experiences of precarity and personal notions of value during pregnancy are at odds with state-market constructions of the pregnant body alternately as a site of vulnerability and as a source of economic and biological loss. As pregnant women and their healthcare providers work to "keep the cares together" amid economic uncertainties generated by funding cuts, hospital closures, and federal health reform, this dissertation illustrates how emergencies that count shape the forms of care available to pregnant women in the contemporary U.S.

Notes:

Ph. D. University of Pennsylvania 2015.

Department: Anthropology.

Supervisor: Adriana Petryna.

Includes bibliographical references.

OCLC:

950747201