Naming Miscarried Fetuses: A Politics of Memory and Recognition Among Javanese Muslim Women.

Authors

Askuri, Erwin Rasyid, Dewi Rokhanawati

Published in

Medical anthropology. Pages 1-16. Aug 01, 2026. Epub Aug 01, 2026.

Abstract

How do women make miscarriage memorable when pregnancy loss is common yet weakly recognized? Drawing on interpretative phenomenological analysis of 24 interviews with Javanese Muslim women, this article examines how fetal naming and non-naming shape grief, personhood, and moral responsibility. Naming sustained remembrance through prayer, family narratives, and ultrasound images, while some women refused it when biomedical language framed loss as absence or bodily cleansing. These practices were shaped by access to care, household relations, religion, and bureaucratic recognition. The article argues that naming constitutes a politics of memory across biomedicine, kinship, religion, and the state.

PMID:
42542557
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 02 Aug 2026.

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