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DAVIS FLOYD, Robbie. Birth as an American Rite of Passage.
No full textDAVIS FLOYD, Robbie. Birth as an American Rite of Passage
Birthing Techno-Sapiens
No full textThis ground-breaking book challenges us to re-think ourselves as techno-sapiens—a new species we are creating as we continually co-evolve ourselves with our technologies. While some of its chapters are imaginary, they are all empirically grounded in ethnography and richly theorized from diverse disciplines. The authors go far beyond a techno-optimism vs. techno-pessimism stance, stretching our thinking about birthing techno-sapiens to consider not only how our cyborgian reproductive lives are constrained and/or enabled by technology but are also about emotions and spirit. The world of reproductive health care and particularly that of genetic engineering is developing exponentially, and current challenges are vastly different from those of a decade ago. The book is provocative, intended to generate debate, ideas, and future research and to influence ethical policy and practice in human techno-reproduction. It will be of interest across the social sciences and humanities, for reproductive scholars, bioethicists, techno-scientists, and those involved in the development and delivery of maternity services
Human Germline Genome Editing and Its Tech-Sumptions
No full textThis chapter explores whether understanding the human genome will create possibilities for “redesigning” humans, and, if so, how plausible these possibilities are. It discusses changes that could be made to the human genome via egg, sperm, or embryo cells. The chapter focuses on the prevention of disease and enhancing biological characteristics in humans. It unravels the assumptions surrounding the hGGE technology—its tech-sumptions, and examines the plausibility of them being realized in future reproductive practices. The chapter draws upon findings from a 3-phase design of primary research, conducted between March 2018 and October 2019. It details several prominent made about the applications of hGGE technologies in order to clarify their validity, using evidence from published literature
The Introduction of “Natural Cesarean” in Swiss Hospitals: A Conversation with One of its Pioneers
No full textSwitzerland ranks among the European countries with the highest cesarean rates (32.3% in 2017). Despite a growing international movement promoting “normal childbirth,” this issue remains relatively neglected in the Swiss medical literature. If some obstetricians recognise the adverse consequences of unnecessary CS, they face difficulties in inversing the current trend. Although some public hospitals are trying to modify standard practices that contribute to increasing C-section rates such as frequent induction and systematic active management of labour, in situ decisions frequently lead to cesarean instead of vaginal deliveries. However, most obstetricians conceive normal birth as vaginal, and the majority of parents want to limit medical interventions during childbirth. In this context, the recent introduction in some Swiss hospitals of “natural cesarean,” a technique mimicking vaginal delivery, appears as an attempt to reconcile the natural childbirth model with surgical birth. “Natural cesareans” are intended to favor parents’ participation in childbirth within the constraints of the hospital environment—for example by allowing them to see the baby’s extraction and for the mother to have her baby on her chest immediately after birth.
This chapter is based on an in-depth interview with one of the two obstetricians who recently introduced the “natural cesarean” technique in French-speaking Switzerland, which has become the default protocol in the maternity ward where he practices. The interview focuses on his professional trajectory, his conception of normal childbirth and surgical birth, as well as the reasons of his commitment to “natural cesarean”. It more broadly tackles the obstetrician’s opinions on the situation of obstetrics in Switzerland including medical training, protocols and obstetric cultures in public hospitals and private clinics, and couples’ attitudes toward childbirth
Negotiating the Pandemic
No full textThis book centers on negotiations around cultural, governmental, and individual constructions of COVID-19. It considers how the coronavirus pandemic has been negotiated in different cultures and countries, with the final part of the volume focusing on South Asia and Pakistan in particular. The chapters include auto-ethnographic accounts and ethnographic explorations that reflect upon experiences of living with the pandemic and its implications for all areas of life. The book explicates people’s dealings with COVID-19 at various levels, situates the spread of rumors, conspiracy theories, and new social rituals within micro- and/or macro-contexts, and describes the interplay between the virus and various institutionalized forms of inequalities and structural vulnerabilities. Bringing together a variety of perspectives, the volume relates to the past, describes the Covidian present, and offers futuristic implications. It enlists distinct imaginaries based on current understandings of an extraordinary challenge that holds significant importance for our human future
Negotiating Covid-19 in The Media : Autoethnographic Reflections on Sweden and International Reporting
No full textThis chapter discusses broadly the challenges and opportunities for anthropologically engaging with the news media during a pandemic. It explores the Swedish experience, describing how the country was portrayed as reckless and irresponsible and the ways in which Swedish culture was used and misused to explain its handling of the pandemic. Anthropologists rely on news sources, to “set the scene,” to corroborate facts, and to describe dominant discourses. The temporality of rapid, real-time ethnography allows for a depth that post-event research does not allow, but it misses the wider understanding-at-a-distance that future research on COVID-19 will have. The chapter discusses the author's own frustrations and experiences with the research relied on by the media, and concludes with reflections on how anthropologists and other researchers could and should engage with the media
The role of obstetrical rituals in the resolution of cultural anomaly
No full textTo a technological society like that of the United States, the natural process of childbirth presents special conceptual dilemmas, as it calls into perpetual question any boundaries American culture tries to delineate between itself and nature. The author builds on previous works in which she has argued that the American core value system centers around science and technology, the institutions through which these are disseminated into society, and the patriarchal system through which these institutions are managed. A constant reminder that babies come from women and nature, not from technology and culture, childbirth confronts American society with practical, procedural dilemmas: How to create a sense of cultural control over birth, a natural process resistant to such control? How to make birth, a powerfully female phenomenon, reinforce, instead of undermine, the patriarchal system upon which American society is still based? How to turn the natural and individual birth process into a cultural rite of passage which successfully inculcates the dominant core value system into the initiates? In the absence of universal baptism, how to enculturate a non-cultural baby? Some of the dilemmas discussed in this article are universal problems presented by the birth process to all human societies; others are specific to American culture. Each contains within it a fundamental paradox, an opposition which must be culturally reconciled lest the anomaly of its existence undermine the fragile technology-based conceptual system in terms of which American society organizes itself. After a brief discussion of the history of this technological paradigm, the author analyzes eight of the dilemmas presented by childbirth to American society, demonstrating how they have been neatly resolved by obstetrical rituals specifically designed to removed birth's conceptual threat to the technological model by making birth appear, through technological means, to confirm instead of challenge the basic tenets of that model. From this perspective, routinely used obstetrical procedures such as electronic fetal monitoring, episiotomies, the lithotomy position, and even the Cesarean section emerge as rational ritual responses to the conflicts between reality as American society has constructed it, and the physiological realities of birth.ritual childbirth obstetrics technology
The Dutch Obstetrical System: Vanguard of the Future in Maternity Care
Full text linkThe German poet Heinrich Heine is reported to have said, “When the world comes to an end, I shall go to Holland, for everything there happens
fi fty years later.” For some, this Dutch “quaintness” explains the unusual system of obstetric care found in the Netherlands, a system where nearly one-third of births occur at home and where midwives have a degree of
professional independence unrivaled by midwives in any other country.
Heine’s observation about the Netherlands suggests that the unique Dutch way of birth is a vestige from a bygone era—a credible conclusion if you believe that humans are helpless in the face of technology. But the stubborn persistence of midwifery and home birth in the Netherlands, in spite of the declaration of medical professionals elsewhere that midwife-attended birth at home is a dangerous anachronism, forces us to conclude that Dutch obstetrics can be the vanguard of the future
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