The iatrogenesis of obstetric racism in Brazil: beyond the body, beyond the clinic.

In Brazil, Black women are disproportionately denied access to timely care and are made vulnerable to death by avoidable obstetric causes. However, they have not been at the center of recent initiatives to improve maternal health. This paper contends that the effectiveness of Brazilian maternal and infant health policy is limited by failures to robustly address racial health inequities. Multi-sited ethnographic research on the implementation of the Rede Cegonha program in Bahia, Brazil between 2012 and 2017 reveals how anti-Blackness structures iatrogenic harms for Black women as well as their kin in maternal healthcare. Building on the work of Black Brazilian feminists, the paper shows how Afro-Brazilian women experience anti-Black racism in obstetric care, which the paper argues can be better understood through Dána-Ain Davis' concept of obstetric racism. The paper suggests that such forms of violence reveal the necropolitical facets of reproductive governance and that the framing of obstetric violence broadens the scales and temporalities of iatrogenesis.

Interventive Care: Uncertainty, Distributed Agency, and Cesarean Section in a Zika Virus Epidemic.

Beginning in 2015, Brazil witnessed the births of thousands of children with neurological abnormalities linked to the Zika virus. Drawing on ethnographic fieldwork conducted between 2016 and 2018 with parents of children with congenital Zika syndrome in Salvador da Bahia, this article attends to how one of Brazil's most overused obstetric technologies-cesarean section-was mobilized to mitigate the uncertainties of Zika's reproductive consequences. I argue that during the epidemic, C-section constituted a form of what I call interventive care, in which others interceded on behalf of pregnant women to secure surgical delivery. In dialogue with scholarship problematizing autonomy in reproductive decision making, I show how my Bahian interlocutors understood such intercessions, and the C-sections themselves, as forms of appropriate, concerned care. I suggest, furthermore, that interventive care highlights the ways in which reproductive decisions are distributed among people rather than autonomous, particularly in contexts of heightened uncertainty.

Cuidado nos tempos de Zika: notas da pós-epidemia em Salvador (Bahia), Brasil / El cuidado en tiempos del Zika: notas de la post-epidemia en Salvador (Bahia), Brasil / Care in the time of Zika: notes on the 'afterlife' of the epidemic in Salvador (Bahia), Brazil

Este artigo traz uma reflexão sobre a pós-epidemia do vírus Zika por meio das narrativas de mães de crianças nascidas com más-formações neurológicas associadas ao vírus na Bahia. A partir de 11 entrevistas semiestruturadas com mães e pais cujos filhos fazem atendimento em um centro de referência estadual em reabilitação e em diálogo com teorizações contemporâneas de tempo e deficiência na antropologia cultural, propõe-se uma abordagem à temporalidade do Zika vírus e aos seus efeitos. São destacadas três falas, demostrando como a condição imprevisível dos filhos, junto com as precariedades que já vivenciam, fazem com que o futuro seja algo quase impossível de imaginar. Destaca-se que, diante de tamanha incerteza, as mães criam formas alternativas de pensar sobre, interagir com e valorizar a criança nos seus próprios termos. Sugere-se que a esperança pode incluir, paradoxalmente, "não esperar nada".(AU)

Este artículo presenta una reflexión sobre la post-epidemia del virus del Zika por medio de las narraciones de madres de niños nacidos con malformaciones neurológicas asociadas al virus en Bahia. A partir de once entrevistas semi-estructuradas con madres y padres cuyos hijos reciben atención en un centro de referencia del estado en rehabilitación y en diálogo con teorizaciones contemporáneas de tiempo y deficiencia en la antropología cultural, se propone un abordaje a la temporalidad del Zika y a sus efectos. Se destacan tres diálogos, demostrando cómo la condición imprevisible de los hijos, juntamente con las precariedades que ya viven, hacen que el futuro sea algo casi imposible de imaginar. Se subraya que, ante tanta incertidumbre, las madres crean formas alternativas de pensar sobre el niño e a interactuar con él en sus propios términos. Se sugiere que la esperanza puede incluir paradójicamente el "no esperar nada".(AU)

This article presents a reflection on the "afterlife" of the Zika virus epidemic, drawing on the narratives of mothers of children born with neurological malformations associated with the virus in Bahia. Based on eleven semi-structured interviews with mothers and fathers whose children are attended in a state rehabilitation center, and in dialogue with contemporary theorizations of time and disability in cultural anthropology, it proposes an approach to the temporality of Zika and its effects. Three narratives are highlighted, showing how their children's unpredictable condition, together with the precarities they already experience, make the future almost impossible to imagine. In the face of so much uncertainty, mothers create alternative forms of thinking about, interacting with, and appreciating the child in her or his own terms. This article suggests that hope may include, paradoxically, "expecting nothing".(AU)