This new collection turns a critical anthropological eye on the nature of health policy internationally. The authors reveal that in light of prevailing social inequalities, health policies may intend to protect public health, but in fact they often represent significant structural threats to the health and well being of the poor, ethnic minorities, women, and other subordinate groups. The volume focuses on the 'anthropology of policy,' which is concerned with the process of decision-making...

This classic book, first published in 1992 and again in 2003, has inspired three generations of childbearing people, birth activists and researchers, and birth practitioners—midwives, doulas, nurses, and obstetricians—to take a fresh look at the "standard procedures" that are routinely used to "manage" American childbirth. It was the first book to identify these non-evidence-based obstetric interventions as rituals that enact and transmit the core values of the American technocracy, thereb...

Designed for both academic and lay audiences, this book identifies the characteristics of ritual and, via multiple examples, details how ritual works on the human body and brain to produce its often profound effects. These include enhancing courage, effecting healing, and generating group cohesion by enacting cultural—or individual—beliefs and values. It also shows what happens when ritual fails.

This groundbreaking book takes us around the world in search of birth models that work in order to improve the standard of care for mothers and families everywhere. The contributors describe examples of maternity services from both developing countries and wealthy industrialized societies that apply the latest scientific evidence to support and facilitate normal physiological birth; deal appropriately with complications; and generate excellent birth outcomes—including psychological satisfa...

Volume 2 in this landmark 3-volume series The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession looks at cognition, risk, and responsibility in obstetrics.This volume contains social science analyses of Swiss, Chilean, Mexican, US, Greek, and Irish obstetrics and obstetricians, particularly around their reasons for the overuse of cesareans; a chapter on "4 Stages of Cognition" and a conditi...

Every human being is born and has gone through a process of birth. Yet the topic of birth remains deeply underrepresented in the humanities, overshadowed by a scholarly focus on death. This book explores how imagery is used ritualistically in religious, secular, and nonreligious ways during birth, through analysis of a wide variety of art, iconography, poetry, and material culture. Objects central to the book’s study include religious figurines, paintings about birth, and other items repre...

This book addresses the politics of global health and social justice issues around birth, focusing on dynamic communities that have chosen to speak truth to power by reforming dysfunctional health care systems or creating new ones outside the box.The chapters present models of childbirth at extreme ends of a spectrum—from the conflict zones and disaster areas of Afghanistan, Israel, Palestine, and Indonesia, to high-risk tertiary care settings in China, Canada, Australia, and Turke...

For the first time ever in a social science work, obstetricians tell their own stories of training, practice, fear, and transformation in this the first of the 3-volume series The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession.These stories range from those of abortion providers to those of maternal-fetal medicine specialists. Several chapters tell the stories of obstetricians who have made paradigm shifts from t...

The final volume in this landmark 3-volume series The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession looks at the challenges, and even violence, that obstetricians face across the world.Part I of this volume addresses obstetric violence and systemic racial, ethnic, gendered, and socio-structural disparities in obstetricians’ practices in the Dominican Republic, Mexico, Peru, and the US. ...

Exploring Reproduction: Anthropological Perspectives introduces students to the dynamic field of the anthropology of reproduction, examining how human reproduction is shaped by cultural, historical, and political forces.This textbook engages with key issues such as fertility, infertility, assisted reproductive technologies, childbirth, contraception, reproductive governance, genetics, and justice. Drawing on foundational anthropological concepts—like personhood, stratified...

Traditional Midwives: Cross-Cultural Perspectives is a pioneering work that delves deeply into the worlds of traditional midwives, shedding light on their practices, roles, and the immense cultural value they hold within their respective communities wherever they are still allowed to practice. This book not only champions the significance of traditional midwifery but also critiques the (often misguided) global and national initiatives that seek to move all childbirths into biomedi...

This 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 rep...