I feel like some kind of namoona

Nandagiri, R. (2022), "‘I Feel Like Some Kind of Namoona’: Examining Sterilisation in Women's Abortion Trajectories in India", Boydell, V. and Dow, K. (Ed.) Technologies of Reproduction Across the Lifecourse (Emerald Studies in Reproduction, Culture and Society), Emerald Publishing Limited, Bingley, pp. 29-47. https://doi.org/10.1108/978-1-80071-733-620221005‍ ‍

Dr Katie Dow & Dr Vicky Boydell invited me to contribute a chapter to this edited collection on reproductive technologies - I absolutely jumped at the chance!

I wrote this chapter over the course of two weeks and it remains one of my favourite pieces of writing from my PhD data. It’s a completely new piece of writing, not drawn directly from the thesis. Even now, I remember the interview with Tasheen clearly—her expression as she described herself as a ‘namoona’. It’s seared in my memory.

What this chapter allowed me to do was to think more carefully about the ways in which reproductive experiences are linked, rather than taking place as discrete, isolated events. I became increasingly interested in what I describe (somewhat inelegantly!) as a reproductive and bodily life course: the idea that experiences like sterilisation and abortion accumulate, interact, and shape women’s trajectories over time.

Conceptually, I argue that sterilisation and abortion should not be understood as separate reproductive events or technologies, but as part of interconnected trajectories that have cumulative and embodied effects. These are not one-off decisions or interventions; they endure, they carry consequences, and they shape future possibilities for health, reproduction, and everyday life.

Bringing sterilisation and abortion together—two extremely common but often analytically separated experiences—demonstrates how reproductive governance operates across the life course. These technologies are not just enacted in the present; they continue to structure what becomes possible (or not) in the future. In that sense, the chapter pushes against thinking about reproduction in terms of individual methods or moments, and instead foregrounds trajectories, accumulation, and embodiment as key to reproductive lives.

I finished a draft of the paper in Dec 2019 for a workshop with the other chapter authors, submitted in Jan 2020, and then edited it based on reviewers’ feedback in December 2021. I presented this work at an online seminar at Manchester Metropolitan University in 2021. The wonderful Dr Ben Kasstan-Dabush (who also has a chapter in this book) read and commented on this chapter, holding space for my reflections and ramblings. The book was published in September 2022.

I think of this as the first of many ‘trajectories’ (someday forthcoming) papers.