Representations and uses of emergency contraception in West Africa. A social anthropological reading of a northern medicinal product

► Provides a socio-anthropological analysis of representations and uses of emergency contraception in Burkina-Faso, Ghana and Senegal. ► Emergency contraception (EC) as a northern pharmaceutical product generates the same fears as hormonal contraception, especially the risk of sterility. ► EC has a place as an ordinary post-coital contraception used in a repeated manner in addition to its role as a method to be used in emergency cases. ► The weakening of control by men of the sexuality and fertility of women may be an obstacle to EC's diffusion.