Birth on the threshold : childbirth and modernity in South India / Cecilia Van Hollen.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Van Hollen, Cecilia Coale.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Childbirth--India, South.

Childbirth.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (xv, 295 pages) : map

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley : University of California Press, c2003.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Even childbirth is affected by globalization-and in India, as elsewhere, the trend is away from home births, assisted by midwives, toward hospital births with increasing reliance on new technologies. And yet, as this work of critical feminist ethnography clearly demonstrates, the global spread of biomedical models of childbirth has not brought forth one monolithic form of "modern birth." Focusing on the birth experiences of lower-class women in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Birth on the Threshold reveals the complex and unique ways in which modernity emerges in local contexts. Through vivid description and animated dialogue, this book conveys the birth stories of the women of Tamil Nadu in their own voices, emphasizing their critiques of and aspirations for modern births today. In light of these stories, author Cecilia Van Hollen explores larger questions about how the structures of colonialism and postcolonial international and national development have helped to shape the form and meaning of birth for Indian women today. Ultimately, her book poses the question: How is gender-especially maternity-reconfigured as birth is transformed?

Contents:

The professionalization of obstetrics in colonial India: The problems of childbirth in colonial discourse

Maternal and child health services in the postcolonial era

Bangles of neem, bangles of gold: pregnant women as auspicious burdens

Invoking vali: painful technologies of birth

Moving targets: the routinization of IUD insertions in public maternity wards

Baby friendly hospitals and bad mothers: maneuvering development during the postpartum period

Conclusion: reproductive rights, choices, and resistance.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-279) and index.

Description based upon print version of record.

ISBN:

9786612762406

9781282762404

1282762400

9781597344999

1597344990

9780520935396

052093539X

OCLC:

475933433