This article reiterates the importance of centring pregnant bodies in order to effectively and meaningfully address global human crises, notably climate change. It makes two interconnected points: One is the need for a transdisciplinary field of pregnancy studies which takes a critical feminist intersectional approach rooted in the concepts of reproductive justice and embodiment. The other is to suggest approaching embodied pregnancy as multiplicities, referring to the corporeal and temporal unboundedness and permeability of bodies in generative transactions with each other and their environments. The case is made with a discussion of the climate-related impacts on health and reproduction. As an exercise in thinking through multiplicities, this discussion is organised in terms of earthly elements (earth, air, fire, and water) as conceptualised in a number of non-Western and Western traditions. The article ends with a consideration of the movements to pursue an integrated embodied justice.
AndayaEliseMishtalJoanna (2017) The erosion of rights to abortion care in the United States: a call for a renewed anthropological engagement with the politics of abortion. Medical Anthropology Quarterly31: 40–59.
2.
BaradKaren (2007) Meeting the Universe Halfway: Quantum Physics and the Entanglement of Matter and Meaning. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
3.
BausermanMelissaThorstenVanessa R.NolenTracy L., et al (2020) Maternal mortality in six low and lower-middle income countries from 2010 to 2018: risk factors and trends. Reproductive Health17(Suppl. 3): 173.
4.
BoltonCharlotteBushAndrewHurstJohn R., et al (2015) Lung consequences in adults born prematurely. Thorax70: 574–580.
5.
BondsEric (2016) Upending climate violence research: fossil fuel corporations and the structural violence of climate change. Human Ecology Review22(2): 3–23.
6.
BrownerCarole H.SargentCarolyn F. (2021) Reproduction and the state. In: SallieHanCecilíaTomori (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and Reproduction. New York: Routledge, pp. 31–49.
7.
BrucknerTimModinBitteVågeröDenny (2014) Cold ambient temperature in utero and birth outcomes in Uppsala, Sweden, 1915–1929. Annals of Epidemiology24(2): 116–121.
8.
BullardRobert D. (1993) The threat of environmental racism. Natural Resources & Environment7(3): 23–26; 55–56.
9.
CairnsKate (2021) Caring about water in Camden, New Jersey: social reproduction against slow violence. Gender, Place & Culture2910: 1423–1445.
10.
ClarkeAdeleHarawayDonna (eds) (2018) Making Kin Not Population: Reconceiving Generations. Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm Press.
CrenshawKimberlé (1989) Demarginalizing the intersection of race and sex: a Black feminist critique of antidiscrimination doctrine, feminist theory and antiracist politics. University of Chicago Legal Forum1989(1): Article 8.
13.
CsordasThomas (1994) Embodiment and Experience: The Existential Ground of Culture and Self. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
14.
CushingLaraMorello-FroschRachelHubbardAlan (2022) Extreme heat and its association with social disparities in the risk of spontaneous preterm birth. Paediatric and Perinatal Epidemiology36(1): 13–22.
15.
DavisDana-Ain (2019) Reproductive Injustice: Racism, Pregnancy, and Premature Birth. New York: New York University Press.
16.
DeschênesOlivierGreenstoneMichaelGuryanJonathan (2009) Climate change and birth weight. American Economic Review99(2): 211–217.
17.
DhimalMeghnathChiricoFrancescoBistaBihungum, et al (2021) Impact of air pollution on global burden of disease in 2019. Processes9: 1719.
18.
DowKatharineLamoreauxJanelle (2020) Situated kinmaking and the population ‘problem’. Environmental Humanities12(2): 475–491.
19.
DucreKishi Animashaun (2018) The Black feminist spatial imagination and an intersectional environmental justice. Environmental Sociology4(1): 22–35.
FosterGeorge M. (1994) Hippocrates’ Latin American Legacy: Humoral Medicine in the New World. Reading: Taylor and Francis.
22.
FoxRichardKingBarbara J. (2002) Introduction: beyond culture worry. In: RichardFoxBarbara J.King (eds) Anthropology beyond Culture. London: Routledge, pp. 1–19.
23.
GaardGreta (2015) Ecofeminism and climate change. Women’s Studies International Forum49: 20–33.
24.
GarnettEmma (2020) Breathing spaces: modelling exposure in air pollution science. Body & Society26(2): 55–78.
25.
GinsburgFayeRappRayna (eds) (1995) Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
26.
GiudiceLinda C. (2020) A clarion warning about pregnancy outcomes and the climate crisis. JAMA Network Open3(6):e208811.
27.
GowlandRebecca (2020) Ruptured: reproductive loss, bodily boundaries, time and the life course in archaeology. In: RebeccaGowlandSiânHalcrow (eds) The Mother-infant Nexus in Anthropology: Small Beginnings, Significant Outcomes. Berlin: Springer, pp. 257–274.
28.
GravleeClarence C. (2009) How race becomes biology: embodiment of social inequality. American Journal of Physical Anthropology139: 47–57.
29.
GreenwoodBrad N.HardemanRachel R.HuangLaura, et al (2020) Physician–patient racial concordance and disparities in birthing mortality for newborns. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences117(35): 21194–21200.
30.
GrossmanDanielSluskyDavid J.G. (2017) The effect of an increase in lead in the water system on fertility and birth outcomes: the case of Flint, Michigan. Economics Faculty Working Papers Series 20. Available at: https://researchrepository.wvu.edu/econ_working-papers/20
31.
GrossmanDanielSluskyDavid J.G. (2019) The impact of the Flint water crisis on fertility. Demography56: 2005–2031.
32.
HaigDavid (2019) Cooperation and conflict in human pregnancy. Current Biology29(11):R455–R458.
33.
HanSallieTomoriCecília (2021) Introduction. In: SallieHanCecíliaTomori (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and Reproduction. New York: Routledge, pp. 1–16.
34.
IngoldTim (2002) The Perception of the Environment: Essays on Livelihood, Dwelling, and Skill. New York: Routledge.
35.
InhornMarcia (1994) Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility, and Egyptian Medical Traditions. Philadelphia, PA: Penn Press.
JonesRichardMillerHollySykesNaomi (2016) Is it time for an elemental and humoral (re)turn in archaeology?Archaeological Dialogues23(2): 175–192.
40.
KhanAneire EhmarIresonAndrewKovatsSari, et al (2011) Drinking water salinity and maternal health in coastal Bangladesh: implications of climate change. Environmental Health Perspectives119: 1328–1332.
41.
KlepacPetraLocatelliIgorKorošecSara, et al (2018) Ambient air pollution and pregnancy outcomes: a comprehensive review and identification of environmental public health challenges. Environmental Research167(2018): 144–159.
42.
KozlovMax (2021) How record wildfires are harming human health. Nature599: 550–552.
43.
KriegerNancy (2005) Embodiment: a conceptual glossary for epidemiology. Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health59(5): 350–355.
44.
KuzawaChristopher W.SweetElizabeth (2009) Epigenetics and the embodiment of race: developmental origins of US racial disparities in cardiovascular health. American Journal of Human Biology21(1): 2–15.
45.
LandeckerHannah (2011) Food as exposure: nutritional epigenetics and the new metabolism. Biosocieties6(2): 167–194.
46.
LappéMartineHeinRobbin Jeffries (2022) Temporal politics of placenta epigenetics: bodies, environments and time. Body & Society29: 49–76.
47.
LappéMartineHeinRobbin JeffriesLandeckerHannah (2019) Environmental politics of reproduction. Annual Review of Anthropology48: 133–150.
48.
LiChangchangBloomMichael S.LinShao, et al (2021) Temperature variation and preterm birth among live singleton deliveries in Shenzhen, China: a time-to-event analysis. Environmental Research195(2021): 110834.
49.
LiebermanLeslie Sue (2008) Diabesity and Darwinian medicine: the evolution of an epidemic. In: Wenda, R.TrevathanE.O.SmithJames J.McKenna (eds) Evolutionary Medicine and Health: New Perspectives. New York: Oxford University Press.
50.
LockMargaret (2015) Comprehending the body in the era of the epigenome. Current Anthropology56(2): 151–177.
51.
LockMargaret (2017) Recovering the body. Annual Review of Anthropology46(1): 1–14.
MartinAryn (2010) Microchimerism in the mother(land): blurring the borders of body and nation. Body & Society16(3): 23–50.
57.
MearnsRobinNortonAndrew (2010) Social Dimensions of Climate Change: Equity and Vulnerability in a Warming World. New Frontiers of Social Policy. Washington, DC: World Bank. Available at: https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/2689
58.
MolAnnemarie (2002) The Body Multiple: Ontology in Medical Practice. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.
59.
MorganLynn M.RobertsElizabeth F, S. (2012) Reproductive governance in Latin America. Anthropology & Medicine19(2): 241–254.
60.
MullingsLeith (2021) The necropolitics of reproduction: racism, resistance, and the sojourner syndrome in the age of the movement for Black lives. In: SallieHanCecilíaTomori (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and Reproduction. New York: Routledge, pp. 106–122.
61.
MurphyMichelle (2018) The economization of life. In: AdeleClarkeDonnaHaraway (eds) Making Kin Not Population: Reconceiving Generations. Chicago, IL: Prickly Paradigm Press.
62.
NixonRob (2011) Slow Violence and the Environmentalism of the Poor. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
63.
OdellJenny (2019) How to Do Nothing: Resisting the Attention Economy. Brooklyn, NY: Melville House.
64.
OldsonDavid M.MetzGerlinde A. S. (2020) Climate change is a major stressor causing poor pregnancy outcomes and child development. F1000 Research9: 1222.
65.
PellowDavid N. (2016) Toward a critical environmental justice studies: Black Lives Matter as an environmental justice challenge. Du Bois Review13(2): 221–236.
RitzBeateWilhelmMichelleHoggattKatherine J., et al (2007) Ambient air pollution and preterm birth in the environment and pregnancy outcomes study at the University of California, Los Angeles. American Journal of Epidemiology166(9): 1045–1052.
68.
RivaraAnna C.MillerElizabeth M. (2017) Pregnancy and immune stimulation: re-imagining the fetus as parasite to understand age-related immune system changes in US women. American Journal of Human Biology29(6): 23041.
69.
RossLoretta (2017) Reproductive justice as intersectional feminist activism. Souls19(3): 286–314.
70.
RossLorettaSolingerRickie (eds) (2017) Reproductive Justice: An Introduction. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
71.
RutherfordJulienne (2018) The borderless fetus: temporal complexity of the lived fetal experience. In: SallieHanTracy K.BetsingerAmy B.Scott (eds) The Anthropology of the Fetus: Biology, Culture, and Society. New York: Berghahn Books.
72.
Rylko-BauerBarbaraFarmerPaul (2016) Structural violence, poverty, and social suffering. In: LindaBurton (ed.) The Oxford Handbook of the Social Science of Poverty. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
73.
Safi-StiblerSofianeGaboryAnne (2020) Epigenetics and the developmental origins of health and disease: parental environment signalling to the epigenome, critical time windows and sculpting the adult phenotype. Seminars in Cell and Developmental Biology97: 172–180.
74.
SasserJade S. (2024) At the intersection of climate justice and reproductive justice. Wires Climate Change15(1): e860.
75.
Scheper-HughesNancyLockMargaret M. (1987) The mindful body: a prolegomenon to future work in medical anthropology. Medical Anthropology Quarterly1(1): 6–41.
ShawJuliaSykesNaomi (2018) New directions in the archaeology of medicine: deep-time approaches to human-animal environmental care. World Archaeology50(3): 365–383.
78.
SingerMerrillRylko-BauerBarbara (2021) The syndemics and structural violence of the COVID pandemic: anthropological insights on a crisis. Open Anthropological Research1(1): 7–32.
SoronDennis (2007) Cruel weather: Natural disasters and structural violence. Transformations: Journal of Media and Culture14: 1–10.
82.
SunShengzhiWeinbergerKate R.SpanglerKeith R., et al (2019) Ambient temperature and preterm birth: a retrospective study of 32 million US singleton births. Environment International126(2019): 7–13.
83.
ThayerZanetaGildnerTheresa (2021) Developmental origins of health and disease: evidence, proposed mechanisms, and ideas for future applications.In: SallieHanCecilíaTomori (eds) The Routledge Handbook of Anthropology and Reproduction. New York: Routledge.
WahlbergAyo (2018) Good Quality: The Routinization of Sperm Banking in China. Berkeley, CA: University of California Press.
89.
WatertonClaireYusoffKathryn (2017) Indeterminate bodies: introduction. Body & Society23(3): 3–22.
90.
WilcoxAllen J. (2001) On the importance – and the unimportance – of birthweight. International Journal of Epidemiology30: 1233–1241.
91.
YoshizawaRebecca Scott (2016) Fetal–maternal intra-action: politics of new placental biologies. Body & Society22(4): 79–105.
92.
YoungIris Marion (2005[1984]) Pregnant embodiment: subjectivity and alienation. In: Iris MarionYoung (ed.) Female Body Experience: Throwing Like a Girl and Other Essays. New York: Oxford University Press, pp. 45–62.
93.
ZhangWangjianSperoTanya L.NolteChristopher G., et al (2019) Projected changes in maternal heat exposure during early pregnancy and the associated congenital heart defect burden in the United States. Journal of the American Heart Association8: e010995.
