Rachelle Chadwick: Bodies that Birth: Vitalizing Birth Politics

Pickles, Camilla

doi:10.1007/s10691-021-09477-z

Cited by 9 publications

(28 citation statements)

References 3 publications

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“…It calls obstetric violence out as a dehumanizing treatment, citing the abuse of medication, converting natural processes into pathological ones, and the resulting loss of autonomy and freedom in women's decision-making power. Michelle Sadler et al (2016) expanded this definition by adding women's marginalization in the larger political economy, as did Rachelle Chadwick (2018) by referring to the fact that the issue is shaped by racialized, medicalized, and classed norms. It has been theorized as structural violence (Solnes Miltenburg et al 2018), normalized violence (Chadwick 2018), birth abuse (Hill 2019), and symbolic violence (Morgan and Thapar-Björkert 2006)-all ways to explain the structural dimension of obstetric violence connected to hierarchy, power, status, andcontrol.…”

Section: Gently Whispering Obstetric Violence In Your Ear: a Short Ge...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Michelle Sadler et al (2016) expanded this definition by adding women's marginalization in the larger political economy, as did Rachelle Chadwick (2018) by referring to the fact that the issue is shaped by racialized, medicalized, and classed norms. It has been theorized as structural violence (Solnes Miltenburg et al 2018), normalized violence (Chadwick 2018), birth abuse (Hill 2019), and symbolic violence (Morgan and Thapar-Björkert 2006)-all ways to explain the structural dimension of obstetric violence connected to hierarchy, power, status, andcontrol. Sara Cohen Shabot (2016, 2020) defined it as gender-based violence that functions to reproduce feminized gender identities through shame, gaslighting, and epistemic injustice.…”

Section: Gently Whispering Obstetric Violence In Your Ear: a Short Ge...mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For example, in the UK, where Black women are more likely to breastfeed compared to white women (McAndew et al 2010), many on-the-ground narratives from Black women express concern about receiving less infant feeding support because Black women are deemed to be "natural" at breastfeeding. Similarly, in South Africa, Black women often give birth alone, neglected by healthcare workers due to a presumed 'natural ability' to birth (Chadwick 2018).…”

Section: Obstetric Racismmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Obstetric violence consists of, but is not limited to, physical, verbal, sexual, structural, and epistemological forms of violence, such as nonconsensual procedures, neglect, gaslighting, surrogate decision‐making, shaming, and discrimination (Bohren et al. 2015; Chadwick 2018; Cohen Shabot 2020; Mayra, Matthews & Sandall 2021; Villarmea 2015). It ranges from failing to get informed consent or refusal for obstetric interventions such as vaginal examinations and episiotomies, episiotomy repairs (often without anesthesia), and cesarean sections, to slapping, pinching, hitting, fundal pressure, and shroud waving.…”

Section: Obstetric Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

“…The term obstetric violence was first used in the Lancet in 1827 (Blundell 1827), though it was only picked up again in the early 2000s, despite ongoing critiques of sadism and cruelty in maternity wards during the twentieth century. Obstetric violence as a concept has been most influential in propelling change in Latin America, where the term originated (Chadwick 2018; Quattrocchi 2019). It has gained a place in the law of Venezuela, Argentina (2009), Bolivia (2013), Panama (2013), and Mexico (2014; Castro and Frias 2020).…”

Section: Gently Whispering Obstetric Violence In Your Ear: a Short Ge...mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Obstetric Violence: An Intersectional Refraction through Abolition Feminism

Waal

Mayra²,

Horn

et al. 2022

Feminist Anthropology

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Obstetric violence, a term coined by activists in Latin America to describe violence during pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum, is a controversial feminist term in global health policymaking as well as in obstetric and midwifery practice and research. We reflect on the term both theoretically and autoethnographically to demonstrate its feminist value in addressing the problem of violence as embedded within the obstetric institution. We argue that obstetric violence as an activist and critical feminist concept can only be effective for change when it is clearly understood as institutionalized intersectional violence. Therefore, we propose an abolitionist framework for further study. Through this lens, we refract the concept of obstetric violence as institutionalized, intersectional, and racializing violence by (1) making an abolitionist historiography of the obstetric institution, and (2) centering anti‐Black obstetric racism as the anchor point of obstetric violence, where the afterlife of slavery, racial capitalism, the impact of systemic racism, and the consequences of patriarchal biopolitics come together. Abolition provides a unique approach to study obstetric violence since it not only refuses and dismantles violent institutions, but specifically focuses on building futures out of existing alternative practices toward a life‐affirming world of care. We locate the abolitionist futures of maternity care in Black, Indigenous, and independent doula and midwifery practices.

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Section: Gently Whispering Obstetric Violence In Your Ear: a Short Ge...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gently Whispering Obstetric Violence In Your Ear: a Short Ge...mentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Obstetric Racismmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Obstetric Violencementioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Gently Whispering Obstetric Violence In Your Ear: a Short Ge...mentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Obstetric Violence: An Intersectional Refraction through Abolition Feminism

Waal

Mayra²,

Horn

et al. 2022

Feminist Anthropology

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Developments in qualitative inquiry.

Riley¹,

LaMarre²

2023

APA Handbook of Research Methods in Psychology: Research Designs: Quantitative, Qualitative, Neuropsychological, and Biological

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At an airport cafe, two young, White men wait for their food. The server arrives carrying a salad plate in one hand and a meat pie in the other. The meat pie eater waves his fork in the direction of the salad, and sneers "Got the healthy option?" Sarah, overhearing their conversation thinks, "Well, that man' s never ordering a salad again." In that moment, there is a lot for a psychologist to study, including what they said next, how they interpreted the conversation, or the wider discourses underpinning this "food talk." Deciding what to study and how to study it means thinking deeply about research, and, in this chapter, we provide some foundations for this thinking, starting with the big question: What can we know, and how can we know it?

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Breaking the frame: Obstetric violence and epistemic rupture

Chadwick¹

2021

Agenda

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The concept of 'obstetric violence' has emerged as an important legal and activist tool in the global quest for humane, equitable, and respectful maternal and intrapartum care. Over the last decade or so, the term has been elaborated as a legal concept in several countries of the Global South and has travelled across transnational boundaries, with scholars from diverse regions adopting the framework. In this paper, I argue that the term obstetric violence is not just a mode of description or a legal concept, but that it constitutes an epistemic intervention. By naming normalised modes of harm and violation as violence, this conceptual vocabulary challenges normative conceptions of pregnancy and birth. By rejecting the normalisation of reproductive oppression, the language of obstetric violence also constitutes a refusal of epistemic frames that silence, diminish, erase, and devalue alternative and embodied forms of reproductive knowledge and agency. I also argue that we need to consider and conceptualise obstetric violence not just as gender violence but as a specific form of violence against reproductive subjects. This means grappling with what makes this form of violence distinctive. It also means considering a broader entanglement of forces that work to coerce/constrain reproductive subjects beyond the scope of gender or the boundaries of 'women'. Finally, I explore how Afro-feminist, decolonial, and queer challenges advance the focus on obstetric violence as violence against reproductive subjects, offering new directions that reiterate the epistemic rupturing potential of this conceptual apparatus.

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Rachelle Chadwick: Bodies that Birth: Vitalizing Birth Politics

Cited by 9 publications

References 3 publications

Obstetric Violence: An Intersectional Refraction through Abolition Feminism

Obstetric Violence: An Intersectional Refraction through Abolition Feminism

Developments in qualitative inquiry.

Breaking the frame: Obstetric violence and epistemic rupture

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