ABSTRACT
Reproductive losses often raise ontological, etiological, and moral questions that do not have clear-cut answers. As a result, the meanings of such losses may be multiple and vary across time and place. In this chapter, I review the most important insights from anthropological scholarship on reproductive loss and provide a conceptual framework that allows making sense of the ways people navigate the indeterminacies around reproductive loss. I argue that reproductive losses can bring about a process of reorientation that is contingent on the possibilities and constraints posed by the social and material configurations at play; as the context changes, people may pragmatically adapt their accounts, actions, and aspirations around loss. I illustrate the dynamics of this “reproductive navigation” by drawing on my own field data from Cameroon. The story of one woman who experienced several miscarriages shows how her reproductive maneuvers transformed as her immediate surroundings, social networks, and bodily resources changed. This process of reorientation was enhanced, rather than inhibited, by the ambiguity surrounding the events. I conclude that the conceptual lens of “reproductive navigation”—allowing to reveal particularities and patterns of maneuvering in any local context—can advance the anthropology of reproduction as well as anthropology more generally.
