Pregnancy is both a deeply personal and a socially regulated phenomenon. It offers a unique perspective for examining themes such as kinship, gender, medicalization, biopower, and reproductive politics across different sociocultural and historical contexts. At the same time, the experience of pregnancy confronts ethnographers conducting fieldwork with critical methodological and epistemological questions. How does pregnancy influence research relationships, access to certain spaces, or the interpretation of data? How do pregnant ethnographers navigate fieldwork in environments where reproductive norms and expectations differ from their own?
In this talk, I will engage with feminist theory regarding pregnancy and birth, reflexive ethnography, and embodied research methodologies. I aim to analyze how pregnancy serves both as a subject of study and as a lived experience that shapes knowledge production. By considering pregnancy as a site of negotiation—balancing researcher identities, cultural norms, and structural forces—I will reflect on broader discussions regarding positionality, vulnerability, discrimination, and the politics of representation in ethnographic practice. Additionally, I will discuss how rigid cultural norms and definitions of pregnancy, birth, and postpartum experiences significantly impact the possibilities for ethnographic fieldwork, including funding opportunities at the institutional level.