Encountering Differences and Practicing Diversity: Professionals’ Perceptions and Attitudes in Care Relationships with Migrant Women within Reproductive Health Services

This chapter focuses on reproductive healthcare (HC) services at the encounter with cultural diversity. Particularly, under scrutiny are perceptions of professionals operating care relationships with migrants. Although shedding light on reproductive HC professionals operating in public facilities in a medium-sized province in central Italy, the chapter does not provide knowledge about performed care practices. Instead, it goes behind the medical institutional mandate and the mere procedures, asking what kind of perceptions, and personal experiences (and narratives of them) do HC professionals have concerning culturally diverse service users. By answering those questions, the study aims to reach a two-fold scope, one that narrows down on reproductive HC services and the other that expands the sight on broader societal dynamics. Focusing on perceptions of cultural diversity and attitudes towards it in a narrow and specific group provides indeed hints for reflective opportunities on widespread approaches to cultural diversity. Semi-structured interviews based on the vignette methodology were conducted with professionals working in maternity hospital units as well as in women’s counseling clinics. Perceptions, beliefs, and attitudes emerged in their plurality and heterogeneity, elements whose complexity and multifaceted nature will be presented in this chapter.