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Time Change: Reproduction, Mobility, and Temporality in the Early Mahjar
Abstract
In 1904, Katerina Ayoub Tayzar was deported from the United States for a “condition contracted prior to arrival.” After checking into the public hospital at eight months pregnant, the doctors had determined Katarina had been one month pregnant when she arrived in the country, thus carrying a “disease” that made her deportable under public charge laws. At her hearing, the judge recommended that a nurse accompany her to Ellis Island in case she went into labor enroute. As a woman from Syria, Tayzar’s understanding of labor, childbirth, and her body rubbed against law and the new field of obstetrics and gynecology in the United States. In 1903 the US government passed Public Charge laws stipulating anyone hospitalized in the country with a condition contracted prior to landing could be deported: pregnancy was one of these “conditions.” My project, “Time Change: Reproduction, Mobility, and Temporality in the early Mahjar” examines how Syrian women experienced changing notions of pregnancy as they traveled, and its intersection with migration law. My paper puts histories of gynecology and immigration into productive conversation, adding a new layer to both fields. The history of the development of gynecology in the Middle East is understudied topic, and I am interested in exploring how changes in the perceptions of pregnancy and the labor of childbirth translated for peoples from Syria as they traveled to other countries. Focusing on how pregnant women experience migration sheds new light on the uneven effects of medical borders. Focusing on Katarina Tayzar’s experience, my paper will expand our notion of when and where the border is located, and its intimate effects on migrants’ lives and sense of their body.
Discipline
History
Geographic Area
Syria
Sub Area
None