Paper short abstract:

The paper explores the significance of online forums in supporting the reproductive health of African-descended women in Northern Europe. Through digital and autoethnography, the study investigates how women utilize online resources for support and information.

Paper long abstract:

The paper explores the significance of online forums in supporting the reproductive health of African-descended women in Northern Europe. While structural racism and migratory status can limit their access to public health and shape their encounters with medical professionals and institutions, infertility forums function as a space where women hoping to conceive can acquire and contribute to knowledge and encourage each other. Through digital and autoethnography, the study investigates how African-descended women in Northern European welfare states navigate the complexities of reproductive healthcare and utilize transnational, online resources and communities for support and information. The forums offer a perspective on medical pluralism in women’s lives: my ethnography shows how people navigate infertility in the margins of public healthcare systems by balancing home remedies, biomedicines, religious healing, and other complementary treatments and how these frames of knowledge are reproduced and indexed in online interactions. The analysis highlights the significance of digital networks in enabling access to culturally relevant and language-appropriate information and fostering a sense of community and solidarity, but also acknowledges the limitations and challenges of online support networks, including issues of trust, credibility, and privacy.