The 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 Rituals of American Hospital Birth
The Rituals of American Hospital Birth This article appears in Conformity and Conflict: Readings in Cultural Anthropology, 8th ed., David McCurdy, ed., HarperCollins, New York, 1994, pp. 323-340. Permission is hereby granted by the author and copyright holder, Robbie E. Davis-Floyd, to reproduce this article for educational purposes. Why is childbirth, which should be such a unique and individual experience for the woman, treated in such a highly standardized way in theUnited States? No...
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 MoreStorying Corporate Futures: The Shell Scenarios
Storying Corporate Futures: The Shell Scenarios An Interview with Betty Sue Flowers This chapter appeared in Corporate Futures, Volume V of the Late Editions Series, George Marcus ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998. Introduction This chapter contains two interviews that I conducted with Betty Sue Flowers about her writing and editing of Shell International’s 1992 and 1995 futures-planning scenarios. I first met Betty Sue at a men’s conference (a la Robert Bly and...
Read MoreBucky Balls, Fullerenes, and the Future:
Bucky Balls, Fullerenes, and the Future: An Oral History Interview with Professor Richard E. Smalley January 22, 2000 Nanotechnology is the art and science of building materials and devices at the ultimate level of finesse: atom by atom. Like a tiny poem with every word and space wisely placed, a thing built by nanotechnology has every atom in its place, and never two where one will do. . . .Today we begin a collaboration with NASA to develop a new kind of nanotechnology,...
Read MoreOn Reproduction
On Reproduction Robbie Davis-Floyd and Sarah Franklin This article appears in the Sage Encyclopedia of Anthropology, Sage Publications, 2005. “Reproduction” in anthropology refers to the processes by which new social members are produced—specifically, the physiological processes of conception, pregnancy, birth, and child-raising. In its larger sense, “reproduction” is used to encompass the processes by which societies are reproduced for the future. The...
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