Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge

Cross-Cultural Perspectives

Robbie E. Davis-Floyd, Carolyn Fishel Sargent

• Publisher: University of California Press
• Year: 2023
• ISBN:
  9780520918733
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Social Sciences
• Subtopic: Anthropology
• Index: Social Sciences

This benchmark collection of cross-cultural essays on reproduction and childbirth extends and enriches the work of Brigitte Jordan, who helped generate and define the field of the anthropology of birth. The authors' focus on authoritative knowledge—the knowledge that counts, on the basis of which decisions are made and actions taken—highlights the vast differences between birthing systems that give authority of knowing to women and their communities and those that invest it in experts and machines. Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge offers first-hand ethnographic research conducted by anthropologists in sixteen different societies and cultures and includes the interdisciplinary perspectives of a social psychologist, a sociologist, an epidemiologist, a staff member of the World Health Organization, and a community midwife. Exciting directions for further research as well as pressing needs for policy guidance emerge from these illuminating explorations of authoritative knowledge about birth. This book is certain to follow Jordan's Birth in Four Cultures as the definitive volume in a rapidly expanding field.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• CONTENTS
• FOREWORD
• Introduction The Anthropology of Birth
• ONE Authoritative Knowledge and Its Construction
• TWO An Evolutionary Perspective on Authoritative Knowledge about Birth
• THREE Fetal Ultrasound Imaging and the Production of Authoritative Knowledge in Greece
• FOUR The Production of Authoritative Knowledge in American Prenatal Care
• FIVE What Do Women Want? Issues of Choice, Control, and Class in American Pregnancy and Childbirth
• SIX Authoritative Knowledge and Birth Territories in Contemporary Japan
• SEVEN Ways of Knowing about Birth in Three Cultures
• EIGHT Authoritative Touch in Childbirth A Cross-Cultural Approach
• NINE Authority in Translation Finding, Knowing, Naming, and Training “Traditional Birth Attendants” in Nepal
• TEN Changing Childbirth in Eastern Europe Which Systems of Authoritative Knowledge Should Prevail?
• ELEVEN Resistance to Technology-Enhanced Childbirth in Tuscany The Political Economy of Italian Birth
• TWELVE Intuition as Authoritative Knowledge in Midwifery and Home Birth
• THIRTEEN Randomized Controlled Trials as Authoritative Knowledge Keeping an Ally from Becoming a Threat to North American Midwifery Practice
• FOURTEEN Confessions of a Dissident
• FIFTEEN “Women come here on their own when they need to” Prenatal Care, Authoritative Knowledge, and Maternal Health in Oaxaca
• SIXTEEN Maternal Health, War, and Religious Tradition Authoritative Knowledge in Pujehun District, Sierra Leone
• SEVENTEEN Heeding Warnings from the Canary, the Whale, and the Inuit A Framework for Analyzing Competing Types of Knowledge about Childbirth
• EIGHTEEN An Ideal of Unassisted Birth Hunting, Healing, and Transformation among the Kalahari Ju/’hoansi
• NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS
• INDEX