Accoucher de manière “alternative” en France et en Italie
Pregnancy and birth as they take place in the medical spaces of Western Europe have been the object of analyses and resolutely critical experimentations since the “68 era”. The article engages a dialogue between two empirical studies examining childbirth ter- med “alternative” that were introduced i...
| Main Authors: | , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
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Université Catholique de Louvain
2017-11-01
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| Series: | Recherches Sociologiques et Anthropologiques |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | https://journals.openedition.org/rsa/1961 |
| Summary: | Pregnancy and birth as they take place in the medical spaces of Western Europe have been the object of analyses and resolutely critical experimentations since the “68 era”. The article engages a dialogue between two empirical studies examining childbirth ter- med “alternative” that were introduced in France and Italy during the 1970’s : one focuses on “natural childbirth” under the auspices of a pioneer Italian maternity clinic ; the other on home births by militant advocates of free and cost-free abortion in France. Placing these intra and extra-institutional attempts at a non-professional assumption of childbirth into perspective is a way of reopening a problematical questioning of the re- lationship between feminism and maternity. If we take the time to analyse their politi- cal meaning – namely the beliefs attached to practices located on the margins of femi- nist concerns –, their protest value vis-à-vis medical facilities, with that introducing an unprecedented redistribution of procreative work, those marginal scenarios clarify and challenge the ordinary culture of reproduction as measured by medical and patriarchal power. |
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| ISSN: | 1782-1592 2033-7485 |