WAYS OF KNOWING: OPEN AND CLOSED SYSTEMS
WAYS OF KNOWING: OPEN AND CLOSED SYSTEMS Robbie Davis-Floyd This article was published in Midwifery Today 69 (Spring): 9-13, 2004. Copyright is held both by Midwifery Today and by Robbie Davis-Floyd. Both give permission for the replication of this article for educational purposes. This special issue of Midwifery Today focuses on midwifery knowledge. The following articles in it will address the specifics of this body of knowledge. But first, it is important to take...
Read MoreHome Birth Emergencies in the U.S. and Mexico:
Home Birth Emergencies in theU.S.andMexico: The Trouble with Transport Robbie Davis-Floyd Ph.D. This article appears in a special issue of Social Science and Medicine, called Reproduction Gone Awry, edited by Marcia Inhorn and Gwynne Jenkins, Vol. 56, No. 9, 2003, pp. 1913-1931. Abstract: Proponents of the global Safe Motherhood Initiative stress that primary keys to safe home birth include transport to the hospital in cases of need and effective care on arrival. In this...
Read MoreHome Birth Emergencies in the United States: The Trouble with Transport
Home Birth Emergencies in the United States: The Trouble with Transport Robbie E. Davis-Floyd This article appears as Chapter 22 in Unhealthy Health Policy: A Critical Anthropological Examination, eds. Arachu Castro and Merrill Singer.AltamiraPress, pp. 329-350, 2004. As proponents of the global Safe Motherhood Initiative have long stressed, in both the developing world where home birth is often a necessity, and the developed world where it is a choice, primary keys to...
Read MoreMidwifery
Midwifery Robbie Davis-Floyd and Gwynne L. Jenkins This article appears in the Sage Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Sage Publications, 2005. Attendance at birth has been suggested to be essential in facilitating mother-child survival as the physiology of birth changed during human evolutionary history. “Midwife,” an Anglo-Saxon term meaning “with woman,” aptly describes the role that women have long assumed as birth attendants. The anthropology of midwifery is the...
Read MoreTYPES OF MIDWIFERY TRAINING: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL OVERVIEW
TYPES OF MIDWIFERY TRAINING: AN ANTHROPOLOGICAL OVERVIEW by Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD This article appears in Pathways to Becoming a Midwife: Getting an Education, eds. Joel Southern, Jennifer Rosenberg, and Jan Tritten. Eugene, Oregon: Midwifery Today, 1998, pp. 119-193. Copyright is held both by Robbie E. Davis-Floyd and Midwifery Today, 1998. Either copyright holder may give full permission for this article to be reprinted or reproduced. Robbie E. Davis-Floyd hereby gives...
Read MoreWAYS OF KNOWING: OPEN AND CLOSED SYSTEMS
WAYS OF KNOWING: OPEN AND CLOSED SYSTEMS Robbie Davis-Floyd This article appears in Midwifery Today 69 (Spring): 9-13. Copyright is held both by Midwifery Today and by Robbie Davis-Floyd. Both give permission for the replication of t this article for educational purposes. This special issue of Midwifery Today focuses on midwifery knowledge. The following articles in it will address the specifics of this body of knowledge. But first, it is important to take a broader...
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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).