Research and scholarship into ideologies of birth and knowledge systems surrounding birth identify and divide childbirth knowledge into two forms of knowledge that are widely considered to have conflicting value systems: medical knowledge of birth and 'embodied' knowledge of birth- a system of knowledge that comes from bodily experiences of birth. It is a focus on the literature surrounding these two distinct systems of knowledge of birth that forms the basis of this review.
The review identifies foundational research into birth systems from a cross-cultural perspective from studies in the anthropology of birth. Anthropologist Brigitte Jordan (1978) developed the notion of what she called "authoritative knowledge" in childbirth culture and provides an ethnographic account of how medical authority is socially constructed and maintained. Robbie Davis-Floyd's project 'Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge' has at its core, the relationship between culture and power within the context of birth. Her book, also from an anthropological perspective, gives the meaning of the term authoritative knowledge (taken from Jordan's work) as "the knowledge that counts, on the basis of which decisions are made and actions taken" .
As part of an enquiry into authoritative knowledge and birth, I develop an understanding around 'spectacle knowledge' within the culture of birth and examine the practice of dissection as an acceptable tool for developing obstetrical knowledge.
In order to develop a contemporary perspective on systems of birth knowledge, the review investigates the rhetoric of childbirth primarily through the work of Kim Hensley and her analysis of medical texts, popular advice books on pregnancy and birth and on-line birth plans and birth stories. The review explores the contradictory 'messages' that women receive about birth; how women's agency in childbirth is 'sanctioned' and how it is not; and the 'progressive narrative' that is often applied to histories of science and medicine.
As part of a survey of literature around the construction of medical knowledge of birth, I investigate literature that explores the survival of myth-like beliefs in our thinking about science (Fox-Keller, Ellis West, Hunter, Latour and Woolgar).
The second part of this review explores literature around embodied knowledge in Western childbirth culture. Central to the review are phenomenological approaches to the concept of embodiment and the body/mind as an alternative way of thinking and knowing about human beings outside the framework of dualism. The review gathers critical perspectives of embodiment from Foucault, Bourdieu and de Beavouir before identifying relevant literature around feminist phenomenological approaches to embodiment regarding pregnancy and birth and in particular the influential work of feminist political philosopher Iris Marion Young.
The review gives an overview of key feminist texts on the subject of embodiment (Csordias, Haraway, Bordo, de Bouvoir, Irigaray, Grosz, Shilling, Pitts-Taylor, Weiss, Haraway, , Davis, Butler, Martin) that point to the tensions between womens' lived bodily experiences and cultural meanings that may have been 'written on the body'.
In the field of literary studies in Europe and North America, scholarship that focuses its attention on childbirth is relatively sparse. As reproductive politics (particularly new reproductive technologies), motherhood, and the medicalization of childbirth have received much attention from feminist literary scholars- much less consideration has been given to the maternal body, and even less to the birthing body/mind.
The review then surveys contemporary literature around embodied knowledge in childbirth and texts that approach the body as a 'site of knowledge' (Ellis West, Fahy and Hastie, Stanton Savage). As part of this, I examine texts around intuition as authoritative knowledge and intuition as another, equally valid deeply embodied 'kind of knowing' in childbirth (Davis-Floyd, and Katz Rothman) and neurophysiological approaches to intuition (Laughlin). Important questions in this context are attached to ideas about non-rationality, language and childbirth. The review looks to the philosophy of Helene Cixous and her concept of L'ecriture feminine as part of this inquiry. I explore connections between 'nonrational' knowledge from the world of midwifery research and Cixous' 'new language' that represents and celebrates 'irrationality'; and reflect on the potential for language- the verbal, the written and the visual- when considering nonrationality and embodied ways of knowing about birth.