The Moral Valence of Intentionality and the Modern Reproductive Subject

• Published in: Medical anthropology Vol. 39; no. 6; pp. 506 - 520
• Main Author: Chalmiers, Morgen A.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States Routledge 17.08.2020; Taylor & Francis Ltd
• Subjects: Adolescent; Adult; agency; Anthropology, Medical; Child; Colonialism; Contraceptives; Female; Humans; Imperialism; Intention; intentionality; Internationality; Meaning; Mexico; Mexico - ethnology; Morality; Morals; Neoliberalism; Obligations; Pregnancy; Pregnancy in Adolescence - ethnology; Pregnancy in Adolescence - psychology; reproduction; Sexuality; Sexuality - ethnology; Teenage pregnancy; Valuation; Young Adult; Mexico; Mexico; neoliberalism; intentionality; agency; pregnancy; reproduction
• ISSN: 0145-9740; 1545-5882; 1545-5882
• DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2020.1711755

Critical appraisals of adolescent pregnancy invoke the neoliberal valuation of rational action as moral obligation. Adolescents are portrayed as autonomous modern subjects and expected to demonstrate the virtue of responsibility through the use of biomedical contraceptives. Drawing on sixteen months of ethnographic fieldwork focusing on adolescent pregnancy in a small, semirural community outside of Tijuana, Baja California Norte, Mexico, I elucidate the moral landscape within which assertions of intentionality might acquire meaning in the context of adolescent pregnancy. I argue that the stakes involved in normative evaluations of female sexuality and reproduction at my fieldsite are shaped by past and contemporary experiences of EuroAmerican imperialism and are superimposed upon moral scaffolds laid by EuroAmerican colonialism.