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Pregnancy starts with a literacy event

Pregnancy and antenatal care as textually mediated experiences

Lancaster University, UK, u.papen{at}lancaster.ac.uk

As a literacy researcher my academic attention is usually focused on how other people use reading and writing in their everyday lives. In this article, for the first time I turn my researcher's gaze onto myself. I present a portion of my autoethnography which aimed to document my becoming a mother as a `textually mediated' experience. I discuss three aspects of this experience: 1) the role of the `Green Notes', a personal maternity record, as an example of how the literacy practices of pregnancy and antenatal care are shaped by institutional norms and procedures; 2) the significance of my own reading and writing activities in the process of `making sense'; and 3) the role of reading and writing in what I have called `difficult moments'. The article concludes with a reflection on the potential of autoethnography for social sciences generally and literacy studies more particularly.

Key Words: autoethnography • pregnancy • literacy practices • antenatal care • Pregnancy Notes

Ethnography, Vol. 9, No. 3, 377-402 (2008)
DOI: 10.1177/1466138108094976


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