Technological experiences and end-users’ identification work – investigating expectant mothers’ prenatal ultrasound experiences and their reconfigurations

Abstract

ABSTRACT Investigating expectant mothers’ pregnancy in Taiwan, this paper examines prenatal ultrasound as an ongoing invention of its users in general and pregnant women in particular. Instead of being passive consumers, pregnant women actively invent and reconfigure prenatal ultrasound using flexible interpretation and strategic reinscription. There is an inevitably ambivalent technological experience of prenatal ultrasound across cultures. Whereas pregnant women are pleased and reassured to see their babies ‘on the screen,’ my analysis shows that, prenatal ultrasound as a passive diagnostic tool that cannot offer active treatment, and the fact that prenatal ultrasound helps to make up morality surrounding pregnancy, constitutes the main source of mothers-to-be’s negative technological experiences of prenatal ultrasound. Whereas prenatal ultrasound has been regarded as an indispensable and authoritative method of keeping users informed, adopting a hybrid approach, pregnant women still actively refer to local knowledge to understand their pregnancy.