The Technocratic, Humanistic, and Holistic Paradigms of Childbirth
The Technocratic, Humanistic, and Holistic Paradigms of Childbirth by Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD This article appears in the International Journal of Gynecology and Obstetrics, Vol 75,Supplement No. 1, pp. S5-S23, November 2001. Abstract: This article describes three paradigms of health care that heavily influence contemporary childbirth, most particularly in the West, but increasingly around the world: the technocratic, humanistic, and holistic models of medicine. These models differ...
Read MoreBIRTH AND THE BIG BAD WOLF: AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE
BIRTH AND THE BIG BAD WOLF: AN EVOLUTIONARY PERSPECTIVE[i] Robbie Davis-Floyd and Melissa Cheyney This chapter appears in Childbirth across Cultures: Ideas and Practices of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and the Postpartum , edited by Helaine Selin and Pamela K. Stone, Springer 2009, pp. 1-22. Once upon a time, there were six little pigs who set out to seek their fortunes in the world (okay, we know that in the original story there were only three, but just bear with us here!). Far away from...
Read MoreThe Technocratic Body: American Childbirth as Cultural Expression
The Technocratic Body: American Childbirth as Cultural Expression This article appeared in Social Science and Medicine 38(8):1125-1140, 1994 Abstract The dominant mythology of a culture is often displayed in the rituals with which it surrounds birth. In contemporary Western society, that mythology–the mythology of the technocracy–is enacted through obstetrical procedures, the rituals of hospital birth. This article explores the links between our culture’s mythological...
Read MoreTHE TECHNOCRATIC MODEL OF BIRTH
THE TECHNOCRATIC MODEL OF BIRTH Robbie E. Davis-Floyd This chapter appeared in Feminist Theory in the Study of Folklore, eds. Susan Tower Hollis, Linda Pershing, and M. Jane Young, U. of Illinois Press, pp. 297-326, 1993. “But is the hospital necessary at all?” demanded a young woman of her obstetrician friend. “Why not bring the baby at home?” “What would you do if your automobile broke down on a country road?” the doctor countered with another...
Read MoreON BIRTH
ON BIRTH This article appears in the Sage Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Sage Publications, 2005. Until recently in human history, birth has been exclusively the work of the work of women as they labor and bear down with their uterine muscles to push their babies from the private inner world of their wombs into the larger world of society and culture. Yet today increasing numbers of women around the world have their babies pulled through the vaginal canal with forceps or vacuum extractors, or...
Read MoreObstetric Training as a Rite of Passage
Obstetric Training as a Rite of Passage This article appeared in Obstetrics in the United States: Woman, Physician, and Society, Robert Hahn, ed. Special Issue of the Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 1( 3): 288-318, 1987. Abstract In this article I interpret obstetric training as an initiatory rite of passage through which nascent obstetricians are socialized into the technological model of birth, the core value and belief system of American obstetrics. Interviews with obstetricians and...
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Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD, Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology and Senior Research Fellow, Dept. of Anthropology, University of Texas Austin, is a medical anthropologist specializing in the anthropology of reproduction. An international speaker and researcher, she is author of over 80 articles and of Birth as an American Rite of Passage (1992, 2004); coauthor of From Doctor to Healer: The Transformative Journey (1998); and coeditor of ten collections, including Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives (1997); Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots (1998); and Mainstreaming Midwives: The Politics of Change (2006). Her latest is Birth Models That Work (2009), an edited collection highlighting excellent models of birth care around the world. This collection will be followed by Volume II: Birth Models on the Global Edge, coedited with Betty-Anne Daviss (forthcoming 2012). Her research on global trends and transformations in childbirth, obstetrics, and midwifery is ongoing. Robbie currently also serves as Editor for the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (IMBCI) and Board Member of the International MotherBaby Childbirth Organization (IMBCO).