Live Virtual Workshop- Anthropology of Birth with Robbie Davis-Floyd, PhD
June 9 @ 2:00 PM - 4:00 PM
Live Virtual Workshop- Anthropology of Birth with Robbie Davis-Floyd, PhD
Class Two – The Technocratic, Humanistic and Holistic Paradigms of Healthcare
This is week 2 of a 6 week series, participants can join at any time, recordings of previous weeks sessions are available in the course page.
Thursday, June 9, 2:00-4:00pm EDT
In this class you’ll review three major global paradigms of birth and healthcare, the technocratic, the humanistic and the holistic models. You will learn:
- The definition of the body in each paradigm and how that influences perspectives on health and illness
- The power of each paradigm to influence beliefs and practices, and to evaluate your own choices in terms of your place on the spectrum as a practitioner
- An anthropological analysis of standard obstetric procedures as rituals that enact the core values of the technocracy and give both practitioners and childbearers a sense of safety
Robbie Davis-Floyd PhD, Adjunct Professor, Dept. of Anthropology, Rice University, and Fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology, is a well-known medical anthropologist, international speaker and researcher in transformational models in childbirth, midwifery, obstetrics, and reproduction. She is author of over 80 journal articles and 24 encyclopedia articles, and of Birth as an American Rite of Passage (2003) and Ways of Knowing about Birth (2018); co-author of From Doctor to Healer: The Transformative Journey and The Power of Ritual (2016); and lead or co-editor of 15 volumes, the latest of which are Birth in Eight Cultures (2019); Birthing Models on the Human Rights Frontier: Speaking Truth to Power (2021); Sustainable Birth in Disruptive Times (2021); and the solo-edited Birthing Techno-Sapiens: Human-Technology Co-Evolution and the Future of Reproduction (2021). In process is a 3-volume anthology on The Anthropology of Obstetrics and Obstetricians: The Practice, Maintenance, and Reproduction of a Biomedical Profession, co-edited with perinatologist Ashish Premukar, and a co-edited Special Issue of Frontiers in Sociology on “The Global Impact of COVID-19 on Maternity Care Practices.”