My research examined the links between the technologies of risk and the making of subjects, with Haitian migrant women providing an important case study in the biopolitics of risk and responsibility. The biopolitical legacy of HIV/AIDS has constructed Haitians in the United States as a biosocial collective, no longer simply defined by nation, race, or history, but one also shaped by the shared experience of stigma, political violence, diaspora, and notions of risk. To this end, my project examined these narratives as means to get analytical and theoretical leverage on the conceptual categories, such as “mother” or “fetus,” which remain self-evident within contemporary biopolitical discussions about reproduction in the United States. Using Haitian pregnant women’s narratives of their own local moral worlds, I presented a feminist analysis which illuminates both the collective and individual nature of pregnancy experiences.

This research contributes to discussions about biopolitical forms of governmentality, particularly within contemporary neoliberal policies on maternal and child health. I focused on the narratives of “subjectification,” the strategies through which individuals are compelled to modify their behavior, or work on themselves, as expected in prenatal care clinics. These strategies are informed by notions of ideal liberal subjects—who possess self-discipline, assume responsibility for refraining from actions that may harm themselves or others, and take responsibility for managing their own risk. Individuals, using “technologies of self,” conform or modify their lives or behavior in order to avoid perceived risks. In order to situate these practices in everyday lives, I illustrated the biopolitics of risk and responsibility within the local moral worlds of Haitian pregnant women living in South Florida. In this way, my project critically examined these intersections between local and global, and the making of maternal and fetal subjectivities in the contemporary United States.