México's hostile and convoluted abortion landscape has created a climate of fear, stigma, and uncertainty as to the legality and availability of abortion. In this restrictive climate, numerous collectives of acompañantes have emerged to support people seeking self-managed medical abortions. Broadly defined, acompañantes are activists who offer informational, emotional, and practical support through the abortion process. Through virtual interviews with eight acompañantes in México, I elaborate on how acompañantes conceptualize their role in the abortion process. This thesis meditates on the figure of the acompañante and how they provide support that positions abortion as an act of care and love as they navigate contexts of medical pluralism and fractured legal landscapes. In Chapter 1, I analyze the ways in which the relationship between acompañantes and acompañadas is horizontal, non-hierarchical, and based in radical intimacy, care, and friendship. I examine how acompañantes interact with medical pluralism and propose revised conceptions of safety outside of biomedical spaces. In Chapter 2, I explore the ways in which digital technologies have shaped, altered, and enhanced acompañamiento. These technologies allow acompañantes to carve out and claim a liminal, digital space that transcends geographical borders to enable power, visibility, and truth for people seeking abortion. In Chapter 3, I examine how stigmas rooted in gendered and cultural norms of motherhood, and religious norms of virginity and morality are entangled with embodied, physiological experiences of abortion. I use the idea of a collective body (cuerpo colectivo) and propose that through a relational embodiment process, the acompañante mediates, shields, and dismantles stigma that can be felt corporeally in abortion. I conclude by reflecting on the power of autonomous care and communities of care in sociopolitical contexts that seek to control and limit reproductive autonomy.
"},{"label":"Degree","value":["Bachelor of Arts with Departmental Honors"]},{"label":"Administrative Note","value":"Drupal Node ID: 33864