Birth as an American Rite of Passage

This book reexamines the "standard" procedures used to "manage" American childbirth, identifying non-evidence-based obstetric interventions as rituals enacting core values of the American technocracy. This new edition brings together new data with Davis-Floyd's insights into the ritualization and models of labor and birth.

Auteur

Robbie Davis-Floyd, PhD, is an Adjunct Professor in the Department of Anthropology at Rice University, Houston, Texas, USA, and a Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology. She is a well-known medical/interpretive/reproductive anthropologist, international speaker, and researcher in transformational models in childbirth, midwifery, obstetrics, and reproduction.

Texte du rabat

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, thereby answering the pressing question of why these interventions continue to be performed despite all evidence to the contrary. This third edition brings together Davis-Floyd's insights into the intense ritualization of labor and birth and the technocratic, humanistic, and holistic models of birth with new data collected in recent years.

Contenu

Author's Note about the Cover Images, Dedication, Figure, Tables, Acknowledgments, Preface to the Third Edition, Introduction: Birth as a Rite of Passage, 1. Ritual and Rite, 2. The Stages of Matrescence: The Pregnancy/Childbirth/Postpartum Rite of Passage, 3. The Industrial and Technocratic Models of Birth and Health Care, 4. The Humanistic Model of Birth and Health Care, 5. Birth Messages in the Hospital, 6. How the Messages Are Received: The Spectrum of Response, 7. Scars into Stars: The Reinterpretation of the Childbirth Experience, 8. The Holistic Model of Birth and Health Care, 9. Birth Messages at Home: Homebirth as Holistic Ideology in Action,10. Technocracy in Birth and Life: Some Ritual and Political Implications for the Future, 11. Holism in Birth and Life: Some Ritual and Political Implications for the Future, Conclusion: Birth as an American Rite of Passage, References, Index