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

• Autore: Van Hollen Cecilia Coale
• Pubblicazione: Berkeley : , : University of California Press, , 2003; ©2003
• Descrizione fisica: 1 online resource (xv, 295 pages) : map
• Disciplina: 618.2/00954
• Soggetto topico: Childbirth - India, South
• Soggetto non controllato: biomedical; birth rate; birth stories; childbirth; class system; classism; colonialism; contemporary; ethnographers; ethnography; feminism; feminist; gender studies; gender; global; globalization; home birth; hospital birth; india; international; lower class; maternity; medical technology; midwifery; midwives; modern world; national; parenting; postcolonial; pregnancy; south india; tamil nadu; technology
• Nota di bibliografia: Includes bibliographical references (p. 265-279) and index.
• Nota di contenuto: 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.
• Sommario/riassunto: 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?
• Titolo autorizzato: Birth on the threshold
• ISBN: 1-282-76240-0; 1-59734-499-0; 9786612762406; 0-520-93539-X
• Formato: Materiale a stampa
• Livello bibliografico: Monografia
• Lingua di pubblicazione: Inglese
• Record Nr.: 9910777396703321
• Lo trovi qui: Univ. Federico II