Stigma Rituals as Pathways to Activism: Stigma Convergence in a Post Abortion Recovery Group

ABSTRACT

In this article we examine stigma construction in “post abortion recovery groups.” We extend Goffman’s stigma framework by considering how stigma may operate on a continuum through increasingly public stigma rituals as group participants move through four stages: internalization; ingroup membership avowal; reconciliation with outgroup members; and finally, restitution via public activism. We also develop the concept of stigma convergence, noting that therapeutic disclosures in group settings may operate to homogenize participants’ understandings of their stigma. Data come from primary texts from post abortion group materials and an ethnographic study of a post abortion recovery group in Mississippi, one of the most religious and anti-abortion states in the United States.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Jonelle Husain

JONELLE HUSAIN, Ph.D., is a full-time Lecturer in the Department of Sociology at Appalachian State University where she teaches courses in the Sociological Perspective, Contemporary Social Problems, and Constructing Bodies and Sexualities. Her current research focuses on contemporary strategies used by anti-abortion movements to further restrict women’s access to legal abortion at the state level and how these strategies affect women of differing social classes and races/ethnicities.

Kimberly Kelly

KIMBERLY KELLY, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of sociology and Director of gender studies at Mississippi State University. Her research examines how religiously based claims regarding “post-abortion syndrome” affect public policy at the state level and discourses on abortion more generally. Currently she is working on several manuscripts examining how evangelical “post abortion” claims are diffusing to encompass men as well as women and the racial dynamics of the crisis pregnancy center movement, respectively.