Lived autogeographies of miscarriage: affects, digital platforms, and reproductive carescapes in China

Miscarriage, the loss of pregnancy less than 20 weeks of gestation, is often overlooked and invisible in geographical account of reproduction, particularly in the Chinese context. Addressing this invisibility, this paper bridges the geography of care with affects and digitality to propose the concept of ‘digital reproductive carescapes’. This framework interrogates how women actively mobilize digital technologies to navigate the affective ruptures within emplaced care and reconfigure the affective geographies of miscarriage. Employing the methodology of autogeography, I analyse three personal vignettes of miscarriage care in China across digital platforms of an online medical platform, social media, and a support group. The study reveals that digital platforms function as a vital ‘post-place’ care assemblage that mitigates the liminality and trauma of the emplaced care, transforming solitary grief into collective agency. By delineating the features of relationality and becoming, this research expands the geography of care to include failed reproduction and offers critical insights for reproductive governance in pronatalist China.