Zuzana Pešťanská is a PhD. student at the Department of ethnology and museology, Faculty of Arts, Comenius University in Bratislava, Slovakia.

She is working on the representations of reproductive health and danger in pregnancy, at childbirth and breastfeeding from the perspective of pregnant women and mothers under the supervision of Professor Dr. Tatiana Bužeková since September 2013. In her work she intends to apply a cross-disciplinary approach: she will combine the certain theories of symbolic anthropology, cultural psychology and evolutionary psychology. In particular, she will use Mary Douglas’s theory, the Moral Foundation Theory, and the hypersensitive agency detection device hypothesis. Her main argument is that the analysis of conceptualisation of danger related to female reproductive health is useful for better understanding the biases and preferences of the health care system. The central idea addressed here is the relationship between conceptualization of danger and bodily symbolism. Her main methods include ethnographical field research and narrative analysis.

She has been awarded the Fund of Young Researchers of Comenius University (2015 and 2016) to carry out her doctoral research. 

She holds a master’s degree in Social anthropology (2010-12) from Comenius University in Bratislava, Institute of Cultural Studies, Slovakia and a bachelor’s degree in Political Sciences from Matej Bel University, Faculty of Political Sciences and International Relations, Banská Bystrica, Slovakia (2007-2010).

During her studies she has cooperated with the Slovak-Czech women fund from 2012 when she actively participated in the preparation of campaign activities within 16 Days of Activism Against Violence Against Women.

Publications

Pešťanská, Z. (2014): Židovstvo v asimilovanej nukleárnej rodine tretej poholokaustovej generácie. (English: Contemporary Jewish Family of the Third Post-holocaust Generation in Urban Area) In: Slovenský národopis 1/62/2014, 30 - 44.

Pešťanská, Z. (2016): Tabuľkové tehotenstvo a riziko: Naratíva žien o tehotenstve (English: „Pregnancy exam schedule“ and risk: Narratives of women about pregnancy) In: Gender/rovne příležitosti/výzkum, roč.17 č.1/2016.

Pešťanská, Z. (2016): Moral foundations and symbolic pollution: Gynaecological nurses’

Department website link - https://fphil.uniba.sk/en/katedry-a-odborne-pracoviska/katedra-etnologie-a-muzeologie/