How do health and social services think? Reproductive health services and migrant women: the lack of “cultural calibration”

Abstract

The results obtained through ethnographic research conducted in 2018, aimed at investigating the relationship between migrant women and socio-health services dedicated to reproductive health in Verona, will serve to deepen and focus on a series of elements (conventions, stereotypes, prejudices) that underlie what is labelled as the “culture” of services. Paraphrasing the work of Mary Douglas, we will ask ourselves: how do socio-health services think? The goal is to make visible the action of institutions and socio-health services in the processes of addressing the sexual and reproductive health needs of migrant women, the “gaps” and “frictions” that occur in the relationship between services and migrant users, and finally, the agency of institutional actors.