Therapeutic Navigations and Social Networking: Mozambican Women's Quests for Fertility

In Mozambique, involuntary childlessness triggers immediate treatment seeking, especially on the woman's side. Treatment processes involve the activation and/or creation of situational social networks that provide emotional, instrumental, and informational support. These are formed through careful processes of disclosure management, and are embedded in social relations and local moral configurations of family making, reproduction, and healing. In this article I explore social networks involving friends, family, religion, and emerging biosocial relations, some or all of which are involved in Mozambican women's and couples' therapeutic navigations in the quest for fertility.