Preventing anxiety: a qualitative study of fish consumption and pregnancy

Abstract

Starting from theories of anxiety as social practice, this article explores the contested landscape of health, risks associated with fish consumption and pregnancy in Sweden, and the way risk communicators and pregnant women navigate this landscape. This article argues that the risk analysis by the Swedish National Food Administration is a good example of the practices of definition and annihilation of subjects and objects of anxiety. It shows that the creation of anxious subjects is counteracted by two means in the brochures and on the website of the National Food Administration (NFA): by placing information about pregnancy and fish within a risk discourse, and by liberal governance. This article concludes that, although pregnant women manage and control anxiety during pregnancy by several practices, this strategy by the NFA does not make them feel safe and secure, which is the basic duty of the NFA, but rather bolsters their feeling that you cannot ever feel safe, you always have to anticipate that something bad might happen.