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- Convenor:
-
Akiko Kunihiro
(Waseda University)
- Chair:
-
Lynn Barnett
- Discussant:
-
Wakana Shiino
(Tokyo University of Foreign Studies(TUFS))
- Location:
- 102a
- Start time:
- 15 May, 2014 at
Time zone: Asia/Tokyo
- Session slots:
- 2
Short Abstract:
In this panel, the focus will be on encounters during pregnancy and after birth with various kinds of marginal people in order to discover their ideas and practices about childbirth.
Long Abstract:
Ambivalent attitudes towards pregnant women and newborn babies have been observed differently in different cultures. While people might long for and congratulate a baby's birth, they may also consider it as a ritually polluting matter and segregate women and babies for a certain period. Such an attitude may be getting less according to the medicalization of childbirth, yet it may still be regarded with ambivalence even in modern contexts. Rather than focusing on the event of childbirth in this panel, the focus will be on encounters during pregnancy and after birth with various kinds of marginal people in order to discover their ideas and practices about childbirth. Childbirth is the time when parents welcome a baby, an unknown human being. Moreover, there are encounters with several others: practitioners such as local health care providers, midwives, door - to - door entertainers (e.g. hijras in India), land sales persons and so on, who might not be so welcoming. We invite cross - cultural ethnographic papers on any kinds of encounters at the time of childbirth.
Accepted papers:
Session 1Paper short abstract:
Birth is a dangerous time and one when our aging and mortality are contrasted with new life. There are many defences against realising the inevitability of death: beliefs in re-incarnation, protective sorcery, witches, ghosts and magic. Thus there is ambivalence about babies, ethnographic examples.
Paper long abstract:
Ambivalence about infants is often hidden by idealisation. Many negative attitudes expressed by outsiders towards infants can be traced to what Freud recognised as our defensiveness about realising the inevitability of our own death. Birth and death are closely related and many cultures have ways of avoiding this reality by having beliefs in re-incarnation, protective sorcery, ghosts, spirits witches and taboos of various kinds. Envy of womans' creativity in being able to give birth can be disguised by negative attitudes as is demonstrated by some of the blood letting rituals men are involved in in Papua/New Guinea. Because of the inherent dangers of giving birth, and the belief that mothers are polluting, some African cultures have special birthing huts outside the normal community boundaries, names are not given to new infants for some time and women may be prevented from re-joining their community for a period. Other ethnographic examples will be discussed.
Paper short abstract:
Through an analysis of South African women’s narratives of pregnancy and birthing, this paper explores the changing female body, the birthing journey. Pregnancy is used as a locus to further understand the changing dimensions of identity, belonging and personhood.
Paper long abstract:
Within the annals of contemporary ethnographic research on the body, the subject of pregnancy and birthing is barely visible, however, the various narratives of women traversing - some for the first time - into physical, emotional and transcendental spaces is abundant. This paper aims to explore such journeys as South African women transform their bodies into vessels through which life emerges. Central to this aim is to contribute to an anthropological platform that seeks to better understand gender dynamics, culture, society, belonging and personhood. Central to the argument made is an understanding that the body interpenetrates and interacts with the environment in ways that create multiple meanings. Bodies are understood as producers and products of space, time and materiality, weaving and assembling daily practices that create and perpetuate meaning. I will draw on Thomas Csordas' (1990) idea of embodiment that was largely influenced by the works of Maurice Merleau-Ponty and Pierre Bourdieu and signalled a move away from understanding the body as a subject on which things happen, to a focus on the essentiality of "being in the world" I also draw on Cecilia McCallum's ethnography of Cashinahua (Huni Kuin) people from Brazil and the Peruvian Amazonia where the body is seen to be grown through material, linguistic and spiritual processes. In this understanding, life gives service to "a body that knows". It is from this angle that an exploration of pregnancy and birthing will be made.
Paper short abstract:
In Luo Kenya, the midwife assists women during pregnancy, delivery and care of newborns. She also deals with healing misfortunes from the violation of Luo's rules on sexuality. I will deal with how Luo people treat pregnant women and newborns, and give an account of a midwife's role and the changes overtime.
Paper long abstract:
In Kenya Luo rural society, like anywhere in Africa, some women used to give birth along the road and most pregnant women today continue to work until their delivery. In In the present day Luo land, women eat molded clay with the claim that, it is good for pregnancy. This molded clay is sold in the local markets and by the roadside.
The midwife called Nyamurerwa gives specific advices to pregnant women. She also has a significant role in the village, because of her knowledge of various herbs to heal ailments. She starts her care with checking the state of the baby in the womb of a pregnant woman, then to deliver assistance and child mother care after that.
It is interesting that Nyamurerwa has the role of the medicine man. There are a variety of prohibitions related to sexuality in Kenya Luo. The violation of sexuality like having sex outside marriage brings misfortune to the community like ailments and even death. Such misfortunes often affect infants who are the weakest in the family. It is Nyamurerwa's role to settle such misfortunes. In this paper, I will show ethnographic data about the birth, infant, about sexuality in Kenya Luo. And then I want to discuss the change in recent years on the role of the midwife.
Paper short abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to examine the meaning of ritual pollution at the time of childbirth through describing ambivalent attitudes towards newborn babies and hijras.
Paper long abstract:
The purpose of this paper is to examine the meaning of ritual pollution at the time of childbirth through describing ambivalent attitudes towards newborn babies and hijras. Hijras are those who have been represented as the 'third gender' of non-Western society in the field of gender studies; however, no such consistent social niche exists in India. Hijras are often neglected or regarded as deviants according to societal norms. They renounced traditional familial and societal bonds. Not only that, but most hijras, who were born physiologically male, present as female through various methods, including transvestism and castration. Their altered appearance does not grant them the same status as biological women; instead, they straddle gender boundaries, they are neither men nor women. Although they are marginal people, hijras are traditionally invited to assist in important transitional life events such as childbirth. This liminal phase of childbirth is believed to ritually pollute and endanger women and children and families, and hijras are to dispel pollution and bestow blessings. In this paper, I will describe chaotic liminal scenarios where strangers collide, and ambivalent attitudes towards newborn babies and hijras.
Paper short abstract:
This paper will highlight the cultural beliefs and practices during menstruation, sexual behaviour, conception, pregnancy and childbirth.
Paper long abstract:
This is an ethnographic study of a community called Andro in Manipur, a state in the north eastern region of India. Women in Andro have their own ethno anatomy and ethno physiology and it succinctly differ from the bio medically derived anatomical models both spatially and functionally. Women describe their body parts as they feel and experience them. Moreover they also visualize some of the body parts while dissecting household animals for food while talking with peers and older female relatives. It also highlights the cultural beliefs and practices during menstruation, sexual behaviour, conception, pregnancy and childbirth. The exploration of Andro women's cultural construction of body and knowledge about women's beliefs about a variety of physiological processes: menstruation, conception, sexual behaviour and childbirth, and practices associated with these beliefs can provide insight into potential determinants of gynaecological morbidity and can be an asset in improving health care and responsive to the felt needs of the service user.
Paper short abstract:
By tracing social network changes occurring as women enter motherhood, the conditions of social capital afforded women with and without children are examined. A woman’s social networks provide her with those resources that are renegotiated and those maintained as she gives birth to her first child.
Paper long abstract:
An examination of government and scholarly explanations for the low birthrate in contemporary Japan suggests that Japanese society has and is undergoing major shifts in economic and social practice. Attendant to these changes have been different life course opportunities for people of all genders, and changes to the life course for many women have been highlighted in the Japanese public policy measures offered specifically to mothers. However, despite nearly 15 years of targeted financial, attitudinal and temporal support for women with children, the hoped for increase in birthrate has not been realized. The choice to become a mother seems little affected by public policy or government rhetoric, instead, women make choices about motherhood using complex personal rubrics. This paper traces one aspect of a woman's first choice to have children, the changes she experiences in her social (family, friend, neighborhood, colleague) networks whentransitioning to motherhood.
Ethnographic interviews and network data collection carried out with mothers in Northern Japan has yielded specific patterns of social network change at the time of pregnancy and childbirth. These changes impact a woman's choice to carry a pregnancy to term, and her decision to have second and subsequent children. Using network size and its related resources as a measure of social capital accessible to an individual, this paper follows changes to a woman's network, resources available as she moves from woman, pregnant woman and mother and will suggest fluctuations in social capital play a role in decisions about pregnancy and childbirth.
Paper short abstract:
We compiled previously reported stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic data of child bones from 45 archaeological Holocene populations. Results of the meta-analysis suggest that the dietary items and its relative proportions of children after weaning were similar to those of adults in each population.
Paper long abstract:
Infant feeding practice is at the continuum of childbirth and represents a part of perspective on the child-rearing in human population. However, there are less information of child diet in ancient periods. Stable isotopes in body tissues provide a way to reconstruct past human diet because they are signatures of what people have eaten. In this study, we compiled previously reported stable carbon and nitrogen isotopic data of archaeological child bones from 45 populations all over the world, and analyzed them to investigate the general tendency of infant feeding practice in the Holocene. First, the ages at the start and end of weaning process were estimated in each archaeological population from the change in the nitrogen isotopic value, which is a proxy of breast milk intake. Then, the carbon isotopic values, which record the type of consumed dietary items, of children aged after the age at the end of weaning to 10 years were compared to those of adults in the population. As a result, there is little difference in carbon isotopic values between children after weaning and adults in most of the archaeological populations. Our results suggest that the dietary items and its relative proportions of children after weaning were similar to those of adults in most of pre-modern human populations in the Holocene. Furthermore, it appears that this general tendency did not differ with the type of subsistence practiced (i.e. hunting-gathering or not). The isotopic results are also compared to weaning food data from ethnographic meta-analysis.
Paper short abstract:
Orangutan is one of the extant species of hominidae with chimpanzee, gorilla and human. There is less report physical and psychological troubles related to pregnancy and childbirth in wild Orangutan while the troubles are very common in the captivity and human-reared individuals.
Paper long abstract:
Orangutan (Pongo sp.) is only one extant great apes living in Asia while the other great apes; Chimpanzee (Pan sp.) and Gorilla (Gorilla sp.) living in Africa. Orangutan is the only solitary species in extant diurnal primates and its reproductive speed is very slow; it births only one offspring every 6-9 years and age at first birth is average 15 years old in the wild. However, we found that human-reared (rehabilitant) orangutans, which lost their own mother by poaching and reared by human then released in the wild as conservation projects, born every 6 years and age at first birth was average 11.6 years old, shorter and younger than wild one. Additionally in the wild, mothers of orangutan are hardly dead or loss of health related to pregnancy and childbirth while rehabilitant mothers frequently were dead or loss of health during or after birth. In the captivity (zoos), similar high risk of health related to childbirth was reported with frequent child neglect. This paper reviews troubles related to pregnancy and childbirth in the captivity and human-reared orangutans compared with other great apes. Then I discuss what factors influence on pregnancy and childbirth in great apes; especially focus on growing environment of mother, rather than genetic or innate differences. This paper will contribute how growing environment of mother effects on pregnancy and childbirth over Hominidae, included human.