A Critical Phenomenological Approach to Filipino Women’s Embodied Encounters in Abortion Through Digital Spaces

Date of Award

8-2021

Document Type

Thesis

Degree Name

Master of Arts in Social Psychology

First Advisor

Nico A. Canoy, PhD

Abstract

The total criminalization and pervasive stigmatization of abortion in the Philippines constrain women’s reproductive agency, which is further delimited as regulatory biopolitical mechanisms intensify during the COVID-19 pandemic. Using a critical phenomenological approach, this study analyzes 14 abortion testimonies as shared in digital spaces during the pandemic, mapping Filipino women’s ethical negotiations and embodied encounters in abortion alongside a complex interplay between digital and physical spaces. Surfacing how digital spaces are simultaneously (a) an abortion marketplace and (b) a community of women brought together by abortion, this paper examines discursive-material relations, flows, and practices as ethically encountered by Filipino women and permeated by power. In looking at digital spaces as an abortion marketplace, I focus on: (a) clandestine flows of abortion information and resources, and (b) disruptive flows of bodies reconfiguring makeshift spaces of abortion. In exploring affinities in digital spaces as a community of women, I highlight: (a) women’s advice-giving practice as reclaiming subjugated knowledge in the digital spaces of abortion, and (b) women’s testimonial practice as claiming resistance amidst shared embodied pains and precarities in abortion. Empirical and theoretical insights towards women’s precarities and forms of embodied resistance during abortion and in relation to structural violence, as well as methodological insights on the ethics of conducting feminist research praxis online, emerge. The study also aims to make practical contributions towards advancing reproductive justice in the Philippines.

Link to Full Text

Share

COinS