Paper short abstract

Drawing on ethnographic research in the field of maternity care for refugee women in Lower Saxony, Germany, I will show how these women's diverse reproductive hopes challenged local infrastructures, raised moral debates and shed light on the highly stratified access to reproductive health care.

Paper long abstract

During the past years, significant numbers of refugees have come to Germany - among them a large number of women of child-bearing age. In my paper, I will draw on ethnographic research I carried out in the field of maternity care for refugee women and give insights into negotiations about the desire to have children within this context.

First, I will introduce a group of young women who tried to get pregnant because they (mistakenly) thought their legal status and chances to settle might become safer with a child born on German soil. Second, I will talk about several women who by the time of my research already did have a safe legal status, but who were not able to conceive. Now, knowing they'd be able to stay, they wanted to begin or resume an ART treatment.

As I will show, both of these groups with diverse reproductive ambitions had to face similar major challenges within the confining German medico-legal nexus of maternity care for refugee women. But the challenge was mutual, as these women also significantly disconcerted the local structures of reception: their struggles raised moral debates in municipal reception politics and shed light on the highly stratified access to the sector of reproductive health/maternity care, depending on status and race.

My paper thus will contribute to the debate around reproductive aspirations from the context of migration- and border-studies and will show how the legitimacy of pursuing the desire for children is mediated and negotiated in this specific context.