Politics of obstetric violence: Towards embracing indigenous birthing practices

The ongoing project highlights the following: 

1. The current dominant discourse has silenced the violence that has become normalized in birthing facilities. Shifting away and ‘demonising’ indigenous birthing practices has meant loss of understanding and acknowledging birthing practices as holistic experiences that goes beyond the act of giving birth. 

2. This project challenges traditional power relations related to whose knowledges are valued. The women’s knowledges are critical and should be valued as resources for research-creation providing an opportunity to bring in personal stories and sharing them visually and in community dialogues with healthcare professionals.  

3. The project re-centers indigenous birthing practices and seeks ways to create an opportunity for various forms of healthcare to be acknowledged. This has the potential to respond to the myriad challenges faced by many public health systems. Community and indigenous midwives have for a long time been relegated to the periphery because of colonialism leading to the disregard of much of the ancient wisdoms. 

The intended outcome is a book that will function as a contribution towards the rethinking and reimagination of birthing practices. It is my hope that the work will foster policy change, rethinking the blind medicalisation of women's bodies, and creating a bridge where the Euro-Western forms of birthing practices can exist alongside the indigenous forms of birthing. this will go a long way towards attending to challenges within public healthcare facilities, particularly in the Global South.