Reproducing Race

“Powerful. . . . Bridges builds a thoughtful and important argument. . . . An enormously challenging and valuable book.”

— Anthropological Quarterly

“The richness of this book’s ethnographic accounts is truly extraordinary, as is a detailed discussion of federal and state programs that provide funding for low-income pregnant women.”

— Choice

“This history and sociology of highly stratified pregnancy management is not new. But what makes Bridges’ re-telling in light of her own analysis so important and powerful is her utterly convincing argument that structural racism and its reproduction happens “behind the backs” of even the most committed of doctors, midwives, and administrative staff personnel. Her work should be read by everyone involved in delivering healthcare to those without class privilege.”

— Anthropological Quarterly

“A beautifully written and well researched ethnographic study of the delivery of prenatal and birth health care at one of our nation’s most preeminent public hospitals. . . . An important theoretical and empirical investigation into the processes of producing and maintaining inequality. . . . The book is a major contribution to the scholarship on race and science, racism and health, health disparities and health equity, biomedicalization, and the diffuse-yet-directed operation of power. Most of all, Bridges makes an important contribution to the historical record on the inequalities produced along class and race lines by the U.S. medical system.”

— American Journal Of Sociology