List of Illustrations
Acknowledgments

Introduction: The Darker and the Lighter Sides of Biomedical Maternity Care: Moving from Obstetric Violence, Disrespect, and Abuse to the Humanization and De-Colonization of Birth
Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar

Part I: Obstetric Violence and Systematic Racial, Ethnic, Gendered, and Socio-Structural Disparities in Obstetricians’ Practices

Chapter 1. Obstetricians and the Delivery of Obstetric Violence: An Ethnographic Account from the Dominican Republic
Annie Preaux and Arachu Castro

Chapter 2. “Bad Pelvises”: Mexican Obstetricians and the Re-Affirmation of Race in Labor and Delivery
Sarah A. Williams

Chapter 3. “Selfish Mothers,” “Misinformed” Childbearers, and “Control Freaks”: Gendered Tropes in US Obstetricians’ Justifications for Delegitimizing Patient Autonomy in Childbirth
Lauren Diamond-Brown

Chapter 4. Implicit Racial Bias in Obstetrics: How US Obstetricians View and Treat Pregnant Women of Color
Genevieve Ritchie-Ewing

Chapter 5. Censusing the Quechua: Peruvian Obstetras in Light of Historic Sterilizations, Contemporary Accusations, and Biopolitical Statecraft Obligations
Rebecca Irons
This chapter is available open access under a CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license thanks to the support of the Wellcome Trust.

Part II: Decolonizing and Humanizing Obstetric Training and Practice? Obstetricians, Midwives, and their Battles against “The System”

Chapter 6. Decolonizing Medical Education in the UK
Amali U. Lokugamage, Tharanika Ahillan, and S.D.C Pathberiya

Chapter 7. Teaching Humanistic and Holistic Obstetrics: Triumphs and Failures
Beverley Chalmers

Chapter 8. The Inconsistent Path of Russian Obstetricians to the Humanization of Birth in Post-Soviet Maternity Care
Anna Ozhiganova and Anna Temkina

Chapter 9. The Paradigm Shifts of Humanistic and Holistic Obstetricians: The “Good Guys and Girls” of Brazil
Robbie Davis-Floyd and Eugenia Georges

Chapter 10. Interprofessional Education for Medical and Midwifery Students in Aotearoa/New Zealand
Rea Daellenbach, Lorna Davies, Maggie Meeks, Melanie Welfare, and Judy Ormandy

Chapter 11. The Changing Face of Obstetric Practice in the US as the Percent of Women in the Specialty Has Grown
Deborah McNabb

Part III: The Ethnographic Challenges of Gaining Access to Obstetricians for Surveys, Interviews, and Observations

Chapter 12. The Ethnographic Challenges of Gaining Access to Obstetricians for Surveys, Interviews, and Observations
Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar

Conclusions: Concepts, Conceptual Frameworks, and Lessons Learned
Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar

Series Conclusions: Creating the Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians and Suggesting Directions for Future Research
Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar

Index

Obstetric Violence and Systemic Disparities

Can Obstetrics Be Humanized and Decolonized?

Edited by Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar

376 pages, 10 illus., bibliog., index

ISBN 978-1-80073-834-8 Hb Published (June 2023)

eISBN 978-1-80073-835-5 eBook

Details

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. Part II addresses decolonizing and humanizing obstetric training and practice in the UK, Russia, Brazil, New Zealand, and the US. Part 3 presents the ethnographic challenges that the chapter authors in Volumes II and III of this series faced in finding, surveying, interviewing, and observing obstetricians in various countries.

This book is a must-read for students, social scientists, and all maternity care practitioners who seek to understand the diverse challenges that obstetricians must overcome.

An excerpt:
In our Series Overview in Volume 1, we asked the question, “Can a book create a field?” and answered that question with a resounding “Yes!” … For us, the official creation of the field of the Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians has taken not one, but the 3 volumes that constitute this Book Series.

Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD, Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Rice University, Houston, Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology, and Senior Advisor to the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction, is a well-known medical/reproductive anthropologist and international speaker and researcher in transformational models in childbirth, midwifery, obstetrics, and reproduction.

Ashish Premkumar MD is an Assistant Professor of Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University, as well as a maternal-fetal medicine subspecialist practicing at the John H. Stroger, Jr. Hospital of Cook County, Illinois. He is also a doctoral candidate in the Department of Anthropology at The Graduate School at Northwestern University.

Series: Volume 3, The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession

Subject: Medical Anthropology Gender Studies and Sexuality

Area:

LC: RG525

BISAC: SOC002010 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Anthropology/Cultural & Social; MED033000 MEDICAL/Gynecology & Obstetrics; SOC032000 SOCIAL SCIENCE/Gender Studies

berghahn New York · Oxford

Contents

Obstetric Violence and Systemic Disparities

Can Obstetrics Be Humanized and Decolonized?

Edited by Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar

Series: Volume 3, The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession

Subject: Medical Anthropology Gender Studies and Sexuality

Area:

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Contents

Obstetric Violence and Systemic Disparities

Can Obstetrics Be Humanized and Decolonized?

Edited by Robbie Davis-Floyd and Ashish Premkumar

Series: Volume 3, The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession

Subject: Medical Anthropology Gender Studies and Sexuality

Area: