Contraceptive conversations : power, discourse and the social construction of contraceptive use during nurse consultations with women in family planning clinics.

This thesis aims to make a significant contribution towards ' a sociology of
contraception'. It takes as its starting point the lack of a contraceptive 'strand within
the sociological literature on the body generally, and on women's reproductive sexual
health specifically. It takes as its focus the under-researched area of nurse/woman
contraceptive consultations in family planning clinics, and explores how contraceptive
use is discussed. This is undertaken by utilising Foucault's work on discourse and
power, and the body theory work of Turner and Frank.
Using a 'constructivist' grounded theory approach, incorporating a Foucauldian
perspective, 49 consultations between nurses and women were audio taped in two
large family planning clinics in the North of England. Interviews with 15 family
planning nurses were also conducted.
Three categories were identified from the consultation data: 'Body education', 'Body
surveillance' and 'Regimen'. Further analysis resulted in the development of two
overlapping core categories: Surveillance and Compliance, within which the three
initial categories were placed. In the context of these categories, nurses employ
discursive techniques to develop the women into effective users of contraception. It is
suggested that these discursive techniques construct the 'Reproductively vulnerable
body' and utilise this concept to encourage women to become involved in selfsurveillance
and self-care practices and to adhere to a contraceptive regimen •
further constructing the: 'Active yet compliant patient'. The manner in which the
Foucauldian notion of 'Productive power' is utilised within this process is discussed
extensively.
The thesis concludes by proposing that the contraceptive consultations result in the
construction of a 'contraceptive-using body', one that has developed a 'contraceptive
habitus' congruent with Foucault's 'techniques of the self'. Furthermore, this process
also enables the evaluation of Frank's somewhat neglected 'body types in action' and
'body typology' work.