Geographies of Maternal Obesity, Eugenics, and the Clinical Space

Abstract

In this chapter, the authors draw on the results of qualitative research conducted with 24 women at two sites in Canada to explore the effects of maternal obesity discourse on women considered "overweight" and "obese." In particular, the authors concentrate, here, on the affective and spatial effects of maternal obesity discourse by analyzing the ways in which it is mobilized in and through the bodies of fat women in the clinical space. Through an analysis of semi-structured interviews, the authors show how health practitioners, mainly physicians and nurses, deployed affects of risk that defined, contained, and restrained their patients' bodies, the result of which was at the extreme to prevent fat women from conceiving children. As such, we add to critical literature on maternal obesity by demonstrating how affects produced and circulated in the clinical space actively materialize bodies or, conversely, foreclose that materialization. We end by arguing that further research and writing is necessary to explore fat women's experiences of reproductive care, in particular to establish whether or not the kind of practices performed in the clinical spaces outlined here can be considered eugenic.