NEW BLOG!!

Thank you for visiting this page. My new (and improved) blog BirthRitesAnthro can now be found at:  http://birthritesanthro.wordpress.com/ where I shall be writing about all things #birthrites, (M)otherhood, repro health issues and anthropology stuff in general. Do call by!

This site will stay live as an archive of my older material

Why I understand my Pregnancy and Birth Choices as Political Action

Whether by nature or by constructive design I am a feminist in every way that I understand feminism to mean. Whilst I happily debate with many and often myself about the historical inclusionary, exclusionary and culturally specific aspects of feminist thinking, I have always stood in agreement with one traditional argument – there is no separation between the personal and the political, my personal is public and everything about it is intensely political.

It all comes down to the intriguing concept of ‘choice’, I am never one to take semantics lightly particularly concerning this word and its array of meanings in the English language. The moment I make a choice I am practicing conscious action based upon my political beliefs and feelings as a woman, in whatever environment I am in at that time. I am fully aware that such choice making is a privilege given to me by my social position and geographical location in the world, dependent upon my access to varied knowledge sources, freedom to act and speak without physical or legal repression and the influence of the hundreds of women dead, alive and yet to be born whom I take inspiration from.

Knowledge (or stuff and info), lived experience and emotional memory drive the choices I make; I would admit the latter dominates whether consciously or not. It has taken until my third pregnancy to reflect upon the politics in my personal reproductive choices and behaviour and until now to construct the confidence needed to defend myself against a status quo of a medicalised appropriation of women's bodies.

At 36, female bodily experience and the immense surge of power I feel when with foetus has finally led me to be proud, confident and happy about the choices I am making for the life of my womb and its contents, due to physically separate at birth. My studies have led me recently into the realms of foetal subjectivities that are at once fascinating and mind blowing. I have become seduced by the writings of French philosopher Julia Kristeva who attempts to find ways of explaining what may or may not begin in the womb, from the moment of conception: or what she so eloquently names the semiotic chora – the poetry of the pre-lingual. I find it nourishing to think about how my actions now may impact on the formation of the new human currently growing from my body, I also love the ideas of social scientist Barbara Duden who writes in her book Disembodying Women of the foetus as an astronaut who travels the length of the female body, influencing every aspect of it and societies claims upon its vessel. It is this literature that reminds me every day that choice is political practice and should never be taken for granted.

I am proud to say that I have denied registering my pregnancy with my GP and state maternity care; I have researched and hired an independent midwife who pops by only upon my request and chats without laying a finger on my body and who trusts me to know my own body; I have chosen no external interventions such as ultrasound, urine and blood testing; I am returning to the place and people where I feel emotionally drawn to birth; and most importantly I am taking full responsibility for my pregnancy and birth decisions because I choose to do so including any consequences that come along with that responsibility.

I understand my decisions as no better or worse than any other pregnant woman, I am doing what I feel is the correct, political thing to do based upon who I am and how I understand it is to be a woman. Even in the most life affirming, sensitive, beautiful and painful moments of my life I cannot deny that politics creates the situation I and my children are in. 

No you can't choose your midwife but you can choose a caesarean!

If I were to explain that within six months you would no longer be able to choose a midwife who you and you family could build up a relationship with over 9 months, have a home birth without uniforms and bizzare multi-presence protocol and not be pressured into sonograms you don't need and a birth plan that has your wishes at the centre, you may wonder: "Did I ever have this choice in the first place?" ...

Yes, it is actually possible to birth outside of the NHS and no they didn't invent it! There has always been this choice in the UK, independent midwives (IMs) have worked before, during and after the NHS and state manipulation of midwifery and have provided individual woman centred care for ..well I could say centuries, but to be more exact since time began! Women have always had the option to opt-out of the system and hire (its not as expensive as you would think and therefore not just the reserve of the middle classes as is it is often viewed) a woman to support them during the pregnancy, birth and post natal period. IMs have lovingly dealt with all aspects of fear, trauma, post-natal depression etc. and do so by providing as much time as you need, not a 5 minute slot in an over-run surgery. 

Until now that is, independent midwifery (IM) in the UK has been serious threat for around 5 years or so. I won't go into the legislative attack on IMs in this post, much better detail can be found by clicking in this link and also a brief search on the net. But lets say in short that by 2013, unless they work for a supporting company who can provide funding for exorbitant insurance fees rising over the price that any individual could afford (around £80,000 and rising) then its bye bye birthing practice. Their only choice (ahem!) is to join the ranks of the uniformed NHS and do it their way. Nice strategy government body people to populate a dwindling NHS profession - force IMs into your service!! Without that IMs can work as doulas, a noble art and invaluable role to all women and families - but invaluable as support to woman and midwife. It's basically saying "look we know you're qualified, have many years of experience and are more caring than any nameless institutional drone will ever be BUT you just have to watch and you don't get to say when!" Strangely enough a bit like NHS midwives when an obstetrician enters the labour room!

Now before I get too carried away, I wanted to write this post not so much from my usual activist and anthropologist view (although they'll get in there somewhere!), but from a woman and mother's point of view. I write a lot about the problems in Chiapas and Mexico and feel strongly about the treatment of women there, however, I also take great pride in having lived there, married there and started my family there - with the subjective freedom to search out and identify the support and services that I needed. I gave birth to my second child in the UK and although there are just as many stories to the contrary as to support mine - I NEVER WOULD AGAIN if left to the mercy of a public system that has no respect for the divine wisdom and magic of original midwifery. No matter where I am in the world as a woman I know my own body and I know its limits. As a mother I trust in myself and my baby to find our way through together and to listen to what we are thinking/feeling/doing. Whether in a challenged, post-colonial economy or a fucked up British one I feel it should the right of any woman to seek her own education about reproduction, birth, abortion and make her own decisions about what happens with her own body. It should be the right of any woman to birth the next generation in a safe environment with those she loves and respects close by and no stranger touching her who doesn't even bother to ask her, her name. 

The current system in the UK is striving to offer women more choice (ahem!) birthing centres next to hospitals, elective caesarean, perhaps a home birth if you, your baby, your home meet the criteria. Whilst activists for reproductive rights are fighting for the right to choose (ahem!) interventions and surgery on the basis that no-one should suffer in modern day (without considering that if most pregnancies and births are taken out of a pathological model and medical birthing environment the 'suffering' would not so much be an issue).

So reading between the political spin and woeful lack of media coverage (as expected on women's health issues) you can shortly feel free to elect for surgical interventions that can lead to long term complications, problems with breast feeding, institutional challenges to follow-up vaginal birth, drugs in yours and your baby's system a big fat scar and an obstetrician who doesn't know your name but may charge you a small fortune when they eventually kill off maternity services from the NHS. BUT YOU CAN NOT FEEL FREE TO choose whom you wish to attend you based on whether you like their personality and approach to pregnancy, get to know your midwife and they you and your family over 9 months, decide where you really want to bring your baby into the world and receive support that enables you to feel empowered and in control of your reproductive destiny so that suffering is not a concept (managing pain yes, suffering no). On rare occasions you may fall into an NHS postcode that supports this type of midwifery practice in the system, but that's not a choice (ahem!) its the luck of the draw - lucky you!

Midwives are amazing and many in the system are just as amazing as those outside it, but here in my country of origin I don't get to decide any more which one I want to allow into the most personal, naked, precious moment of my life and I am no longer able to say please don't put your fingers inside my vagina stranger person as I do not wish to have an internal examination if you show me I can do it myself......quite frankly that sucks!

If I could draw my PhD....

If I was able to express in art what I'm trying to do by analysing what is inside and how women feel it would look like this:

Salvador Dali City of Drawers

If only I could embody Salvador Dali that is!

This last couple of weeks I've been trying to get to grips with pregnant embodiment via a multiple body analysis (using Lock and Scheper-Hughes' notion of Individual Body, Social Body and Body Politic). I'm finding that as with theories of embodiment themselves I am awash with mental imagery and physical feelings of what it is to embody a social (and cultural) idea of what reproducing is and what having an occupied womb feels like. What I'm finding most problematic is turning this into something tangible, that makes sense to those outside of my head who are given the task of deciphering what it is I'm trying to say. 

Studying the humanities (or social science - when it comes to anthropology no-one can decide!) has introduced, rejuvenated and reaffirmed a love for artistic expression. I'm finally able to connect how humans have coped with a lack of the right words to describe how they feel - what they have done with a burning desire to express how they experience the world. Making me at once liberated and dismayed that no matter how much I would like to dance my way through a viva voce I will never be allowed.

I have discovered one saving grace though, the work of Julia Kristeva  and her writings about poetic language and the semiotic chora (the pre-lingual subject in process). From what I can begin to understand is that she is willing to explore the pre-cultural human in the womb, ourselves before we become social selves. This entails trying to grasp what urges are and can be - if there is any chance that some part of us cannot be explained via the route of social construction. 

I spend so much of my time thinking about how our every thought and feeling is manipulated by our surroundings and experiences - a very European approach to a world we have perhaps lost touch with, a spirituality that has been analysed away. Kristeva has bought something back for me, in a way given me permission to think through my own birth experiences and those of others. To be able to dig deep into other cultures and narratives that celebrate a female, maternal, real, connection to the earth - a way of metaphorically kicking off my shoes and feeling the earth or sand in between my toes. I can close my eyes and see liquid, blood, organs, space and what I imagine to be the collective wombs of women around the world, I can imagine myself swimming through dark, sticky red liquids that relate to womanhood and reproduction.

If I only I could find the right words......

Birth Story

 BIRTH STORY: Ina May Gaskin and The Farm Midwives is racing toward the finish line with finishing costs mounting--seeking women and men who share our enthusiasm for what Ina May and the Farm Midwifery clinic have achieved in the last 40 years; since the 1970s these counterculture heroines have inspired hundreds of thousands of women to believe in their bodies’ natural ability to birth safely and beautifully. Today, with nearly one-third of all U.S. babies delivered via c-section, their knowledge and skills are more needed than ever.




This amazing film project has been put together by two women who describe themselves as "two filmmaking mothers who have been inspired by the important work of world-famous midwife Ina May Gaskin and her incredible colleagues. We've spent the last two and a half years juggling cameras, microphones, hard drives, preschool drop offs, nursing infants, pregnancy, editing schedules, babysitting schedules, American express bills, and vomiting four-year-olds"...


It seems to me that in 2012 we are really racing towards positive change and realisation of just how important respectful birth is and how we treat birth reflects how we are as a society as a whole ... 

Anthropology contributing to the World...

Here is a link to my latest post and part report on my sister blog from the RAI conference Anthropology in the World Conference in London: http://researchingsecurity.wordpress.com/our-publications/conference-papers/what-can-anthropologists-offer-to-security-studies/ 

I attended a great panel on anthropology's potential in the environment of security studies, this timed perfectly with the paper I've been writing (see previous June post) about the long term effect on conflict in Chiapas and reproductive health services. It also reaffirmed by belief in what ethnographic methods and anthropological theory can contribute to revealing the lived experience of people. Especially when all we get from projected media images are scenes of violence and fear to keep us away. It is often so easy to forget that individuals and families continue to live daily in these environments and continue to have the same food, shelter,water, employment, relationship issues that exist in places of relative peace. Collecting, representing and reflecting upon the stories of others reminds us to look beyond the situation to the people involved in it. 

Mayan Word.. available por fin!

The wisdom of women, respect for the earth and consequences of the damage already caused by man - the so-called Mayan prophecy is general common sense thinking if one loves the world we inhabit in any truthful meaningful way.

This documentary asks some good, poignant questions and also makes an interesting point - in all the books, films, products, commodification of the '2012 Mayan Prophecy' is anyone actually asking the Maya what it's all about? OR in typical ignorant fashion are other nations simply fetishizing yet another New WorLd STorY that is meant to teach us some sense and responsibility for our actions towards others and our environment? 

This documentary has made me reflect further in terms of the relationship between how we treat the earth and how we treat the beginning and creation of human life upon it.... currently not with the respect it deserves perhaps!

Embodying Other Bodies -

"...the body is simultaneously a physical and symbolic artifact,...both naturally and culturally produced, and...securely anchored in a particular historical moment...[Yet] we take scientific discourse about human biology to be not simply a narrative but a universal truth...we assume that it applies anywhere and anytime and transcends time   and place"

Fabien Gautier de Agoty

Margaret Lock 1995 Encounters with Ageing: mythologies of menopause in Japan and N. America


I have always relied on the above quote to challenge the notion of taking scientific knowledge from one specific, politically dominant culture and applying it as "fact" in a global context to every human being on the planet. It becomes particularly useful when trying to think of ways to structure arguments against the idea of health and social policy universalism, such as that touted by the World Health Organisation. Over the last few years I have devoted so much thinking  and writing time to this argument that I am comfortably in a place where I can believe scientific (or in fact any) knowledge is firmly rooted in the place, space and time where it was first thought up, and in that way generally also only applies to that very place, space and time.


Whilst I have found it so easy to throw this argument at anything that annoys me, makes me feel uncomfortable, or that has a relevance I wish to negate, I have committed the grave mistake of not applying it to my own arguments.


At the end of the day if I say it applies to everything, then it must include the knowledge I produce and the lens through which I choose to view the world. In other, more simple words - I can only ever understand the world around me through the way that I have been conditioned to do so by the place and time that I have existed and exist in. It is only now that I can comprehend how wrong I have been in the past to declare what I think is wrong. The world cannot be reduced into what is wrong and what is right, no matter how uncomfortable that can feel. 


I am finally beginning to come to terms with the objective in what is a deeply subjective research topic. Being objective has nothing to do with the denial of emotional intellect - it just means that it should never be taken for granted as the truth  of the situation. When carrying out research with human subjects, about an embodied and personal experience, as a researcher I cannot become detached from the process of which I am part of. I must examine my subjective involvement and the affect this will have on how the data is interpreted. In regards to my current method of collecting narratives in order to analyse unconscious thought and action, I am constantly reminded of a comment I heard this year in a seminar I attended. A thoughtful and and dare I say wise, anti-psychologist (Dr Ian Parker) brought forward the argument that the unconscious should not be thought of as something pre-existing inside someone's head, that can be extracted at any time by a psychoanalyst or budding researcher. Rather, the unconscious is something that is constructed between two people via the dialogue they have - a contribution is made by more than one person to create an unconsciousness specific to a certain time and place. The subjectivity of the researcher, who sets the storytelling in motion, has a major to part to play in the creation of the unconscious thread behind the story that gets told. In this way, the researcher becomes part of the narrative and becomes further invested in the interpretation of it. This helps greatly when dealing with the tricky question of what or whose truth the narrative contains, and even more importantly in terms of research data - what relation it has to (if any) to the world at large.


In trying to form an academic and moral argument that medical knowledge, situated in a specific culture and period, is inappropriately placed upon a another culture, time, place, environment etc. I have to come to terms with the fact that my own argument can only ever be a narrative, a possible version of a truth as well - and so equally as untrustworthy as the knowledge I am arguing against in the first place. What I observe is only ever true in the moment that it happens, after that it only becomes my narrative - a version of a possible truth, and therefore something that can be later questioned by someone else.

Edvard munch: Weeping Nude

As long as I remember that.... then everything should be just fine!