Introducing Humanizing Birth
Critical Midwifery Studies
Introduction on Humanizing Birth with Rodante van der Waal, Inge van Nistelrooij, Amrita Banerjee, Elizabeth Newnham, Fatimah Mohamied and Heba Farajallah.
Visual Notes
Humanizing Birth from a Care Ethics Perspective
by Inge van Nistelrooij
This Summer School as well as the initiative to launch ‘Critical Midwifery Studies’ results, among other things, from research performed by Rodante van der Waal, that is embedded in the Care Ethics research group of the University of Humanistic Studies. What does a Care Ethics perspective on ‘humanizing birth’ entail? In this lecture I draw upon a few ‘classics’ from care ethics, first, to describe ‘care’ as a moral perspective, and subsequently to look at the central role of practices for ethics. For practices on the one hand are a vital source for moral understandings. This means that we know about what ‘the good thing to do’ is, not by detaching ourselves from practices, but rather by drawing upon them. In practices we learn about ourselves, our relationships, and how to act in a morally good way. On the other hand, however, practices also establish patterns and involve pitfalls for doing harm. Patterns of naturalization, privatization, and normalization construct an ‘epistemic firewall’ that silences certain voices, ignores certain perspectives and discards certain views. Midwives and laboring persons find themselves on the same side of the epistemic firewall. The only way out, is the creation of critical reflexive practices in a distinctive discipline, ‘critical midwifery studies’, that includes and stimulates awareness of these patterns.
Dig deeper
Visual Notes
Reciprocity within Vulnerability: Third Party Reproduction and Caring for Birth-givers
by Amrita Banerjee
Amrita Banerjee is an Associate Professor of Philosophy at the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences, Indian Institute of Technology Bombay. She received her Ph.D. in Philosophy and the Graduate Certificate in Women’s and Gender Studies from the University of Oregon, USA. Banerjee held the position of Assistant Professor of Philosophy at Allegheny College, Pennsylvania, USA prior to joining IIT Bombay. She specializes in Moral and Socio-Political Philosophy, which she approaches from the perspectives of Feminist Philosophy, Classical Pragmatism, and Twentieth century Continental philosophy.
