The missing link between sex and kinship: unintended pregnancy as a period of pressured social gestation

What processes are set in motion when someone discovers they are pregnant unintentionally, and what is the role of culture in these processes? This question is explored through narratives of women in the Philippines and Kenya on their first pregnancy carried to term. We show how an unintended pregnancy provides a window onto making kin and delineating the implied responsibilities towards the future child and its mother. As participants accounts demonstrate, in both Kenya and the Philippines an unintended pregnancy can be conceptualised as a period of pressured and risky social gestation. Pressured, because although the process of social gestation may continue after birth, the fact of a due date means arrangements around birth, living spaces and care must be concretised in time. And risky, because the claim to kinship and thus support might be denied. Diversity of patterns in social gestation between the two contexts, and within the Kenyan context, suggests that they are shaped by specific 'cultures of relatedness. Future research should incorporate perspectives from others involved in the social gestation process, such as the parents of the intimate partners, to explore how cultures of relatedness shape the making of kin and gendered inequalities following an unintended pregnancy.