Paper short abstract:

The paper examines the ways in which professionals in the social and health care sector in Portugal mobilize the concept of reproductive risk from a socio-economic rather than biological perspective, to encourage young Cape Verdean students to use contraceptives and in some cases to have abortions.

Paper long abstract:

The paper examines the ways in which professionals in the social and health care sector in Portugal mobilize the concept of reproductive risk from a socio-economic rather than biological perspective, to encourage young Cape Verdean students to use contraceptives and in some cases to have abortions. The paper questions the implications of professionals talking in the name of the state without suspending their personal values, focusing in particular on the role played by power and gender relations. The social and moral authority that professionals enjoy as a result of the expertise knowledge that they possess allows them to exercise unquestioned power in the health services they provide. The paper also argues that despite the widespread adoption of the concept of "gender" which draws attention to the characteristics and behaviours that different cultures and societies attribute to the sexes, its meaning in practice is often conflated with biological make-up and this is evident in the tendency of reproductive health services to adopt a narrow focus on "women". In the fuzzy field of practice (Bourdieu 1977) the concept of gender has failed to shift responsibilities from the body to the social. The patient is reduced to a fertile, pregnant body to be mastered by an individual "rational mind", failing to take into account that "being" is inseparable from "being with" (Sahlins 2011) and that responsibility is consequently plural.