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The Making of Vulnerability. An ethnographic study exploring vulnerability in specialized outpatient care for pregnant persons with diabetes in Denmark

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  • Schlütter, Mette Mørup
  • Maindal, Helle Terkildsen
  • Henriksen, Tine Brink
  • Burau, Viola

Abstract

This article examines how vulnerability is enacted in specialized outpatient care for pregnant persons with diabetes in Denmark. The analysis draws on ten months of ethnographic fieldwork, including observations of 79 consultations with 33 pregnant persons and around 20 health professionals. Rather than treating vulnerability as a stable trait or individual circumstance, we approach it as something done through administrative classifications, psychiatric histories, insulin thresholds, anticipatory reasoning, and cross-sectoral coordination. We trace how institutional formats shape which concerns become legible, actionable, or stalled, with uneven consequences for care, including intensified surveillance, delayed transfer, early induction, and fragmented follow-up. By shifting attention from who is vulnerable to how vulnerability is made actionable, the study contributes to debates in medical anthropology and critical public health on inequity, arguing that equity depends on sustaining adaptable, revisable institutional practices rather than fixed solutions.

Suggested Citation

  • Schlütter, Mette Mørup & Maindal, Helle Terkildsen & Henriksen, Tine Brink & Burau, Viola, 2026. "The Making of Vulnerability. An ethnographic study exploring vulnerability in specialized outpatient care for pregnant persons with diabetes in Denmark," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 400(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:400:y:2026:i:c:s0277953626003916
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2026.119315
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