Autoren:	Völkle, Laura Wettmann, Nico
Titel:	The process of pregnancy : paradoxical temporalities of prenatal entities
Online-Publikationsdatum:	28-Jun-2022
Erscheinungsdatum:	2021
Sprache des Dokuments:	Englisch
Zusammenfassung/Abstract:	In this article, we reflect on the particular temporal structure of pregnancies and prenatal entities with the aim to contribute to the field of the sociology of pregnancy. Medical models and technology shape today’s notion of pregnancy as a linear, nine-month developmental process that leads to the birth of a child. Through ultrasound technology and prenatal examinations, prenatal entities have thus historically gained a present ‘being’ as a developing, unborn child. While these ideas undoubtedly greatly influence the participants’ interpretations, a culturalistic perspective on time alone does not do justice to the phenomenon’s lived tensions and the temporal complexity of the phenomenon. From a Schutzian perspective of time, we have worked out how practices of pregnancy and the production of meaning are shaped by an interwoven back and forth between orientations to the past, present and future. Drawing on relevant works from the sociology of pregnancy, we work out five modes of temporal references that mold the phenomenon of pregnancy: joint imagination of the couple, in which the (un)born is anticipated as fantasies of the future (1), passivities of pregnancy, in which the desired future is experienced as unable to influence (2), the presentification of the unborn in and through visual and bodily-somatic contact moments (3), its futurization through the cultivation of a ‘not-yet’ (4) and prenatal losses, as a critical rupture with the anticipated and desired future (5). Our analysis underlines the potential of a time sociological perspective on pregnancy and the constitution of relationships and persons.
DDC-Sachgruppe:	300 Sozialwissenschaften 300 Social sciences
Veröffentlichende Institution:	Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz
Organisationseinheit:	FB 02 Sozialwiss., Medien u. Sport
Veröffentlichungsort:	Mainz
ROR:	https://ror.org/023b0x485
DOI:	http://doi.org/10.25358/openscience-7235
Version:	Published version
Publikationstyp:	Zeitschriftenaufsatz
Nutzungsrechte:	CC BY
Informationen zu den Nutzungsrechten:	https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/
Zeitschrift:	Human studies 44
Seitenzahl oder Artikelnummer:	595 614
Verlag:	Springer Science + Business Media B.V.
Verlagsort:	Dordrecht u.a.
Erscheinungsdatum:	2021
ISSN:	1572-851X
DOI der Originalveröffentlichung:	10.1007/s10746-021-09588-1
Enthalten in den Sammlungen:	JGU-Publikationen