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Patching up False Dichotomies in the Birth Subculture

New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry

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Field Value
 
Title Patching up False Dichotomies in the Birth Subculture
 
Creator Tougas, Jessie K.
 
Subject birth stories
homebirth
natural birth
epistemology
reason
intuition
science
 
Description Some birth scholars (Melissa Cheney, Robbie Davis-Floyd, and Elizabeth Davis) have argued that there are two models of birth that value different kinds of knowledge. They assert that the “technocratic” model has been adopted by “mainstream” culture, which values reason and scientific knowledge. Meanwhile, the “countercultural” birth subculture, which has adopted a “holistic” model, values intuition and “body knowledge” instead. However, my research does not support this argument. Rather, the 119 birth stories I analyzed suggest that, even if the birth subculture rhetoric supports those scholars’ dichotomies, their birth experiences do not. Neither group appears to uniformly hold their respective values, thus weakening the original dichotomy between the “mainstream” group and the “countercultural” group. Moreover, I demonstrate how the dichotomy between reason and scientific knowledge on the one hand, and intuition and “body knowledge” on the other, is also inaccurate. Feminist epistemology also warns that this dichotomization undercuts a diversity of thinking styles by limiting them to just two.
 
Publisher New Proposals Publishing Society
 
Date 2016-04-18
 
Type info:eu-repo/semantics/article
info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersion
 
Format application/pdf
 
Identifier http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/newproposals/article/view/186446
 
Source New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry; Vol. 8 No. 2 (2016); 7-21
1715-6718
 
Language eng
 
Relation http://ojs.library.ubc.ca/index.php/newproposals/article/view/186446/186022
 
Rights Copyright (c) 2016 New Proposals: Journal of Marxism and Interdisciplinary Inquiry