Anarchist Midwifery: An Interview
Monday, August 2, 2010 at 8:01PM
By Emjaybee
Recently, ANaturalAdvocate sent me a scan of an article from a very interesting magazine; SQUAT: An Anarchist Birth Journal, (Link is PDF). ANaturalAdvocate asked me specifically to interview Daniel Wilson regarding his article titled “Childbirth and Social War” (page 22 of link, or here).
I have been struggling with a way to present this interview to an audience that, like me, is probably not well-versed in anarchist philosophy. In other words, I wanted to say something intelligent about a topic which is completely new to me.
And I decided that it would be dishonest to pretend I am knowledgeable on this topic. Like most Americans, my concept of anarchy is vague-to-nonexistent; it’s like thinking I’m prepared to write a treatise on minor 15th-century poets.
However, I have had the privilege of meeting some people online who have taught me a little and have read some interesting pieces on squatter’s rights movements, guerrilla gardening, DIY culture, and yes, homeschooling and homebirth, that seem to overlap with some areas of anarchist thought.
Daniel himself was kind enough to provide links within his answers, which I’ve included here.
As for the rest, I’ll let Daniel’s responses to my questions speak for themselves. I’ll send him the link when this is posted, and maybe he’ll come over and answer any of your questions directly.
You mention commodification of midwifery as a new development, but haven’t midwives always accepted some form or payment—if not money, then food, livestock, etc.? Per A Midwife’s Tale: The Life of Martha Ballard, Based on Her Diary, 1785-1812, Martha, at least, kept extensive records of payment for her services.
Throughout the history of civilization, most midwives have accepted goods or services in exchange for their knowledge and skills, but this is not what I mean when I use the term “commodification”. I am using a Marxist definition of the word to explain the relationship midwifery plays in a modern capitalist market, labeled by some as Green Capitalism. More specifically I am exploring the concept of cultural commodification, wherein counter-cultural expression or past historical culture is emptied of any real meaning before being sold to the dominant culture. Midwifery has become a symbolic act of consumption for most people. It is marketed to feel-good eco-yuppies as a piece of the primitive.
An example: My neighborhood was once full of quirky charm. There were guerrilla food gardens in abandoned lots, cheap ten speed bikes in the front of punk houses, metal sculptures placed on the corners at night by art students who were probably high, posters promoting music shows and insurrection wheat pasted on every open surface, regular house shows (concerts), an extensive network of communal houses, lots of graffiti and a general air of life. Petite bourgeois nuclear families, tired of living in housing developments, sick of their sterile cul-de-sac and feeling guilty about shopping at Costco, see our dull, but vibrant in comparison, community and decide to move in. Not knowing any other way to relate to the world, they buy their way in, our culture becomes a commodity. They want to feel some kind of life, so they shop for it at the local food co-op, buy it in the form of a $1500 bike, and purchase hiking shorts and hemp sandals to go with their new feeling of freedom. Who they are is not the relationships they have with the other people they live next to but rather their consumer choices. My neighborhood was destroyed by gentrification, when the yuppies moved in, the rents went up, the police moved in and what little life we tried to make here moved out. Now, people who would call the cops on me for walking around at night, are asking me if we had a homebirth and who our midwife was, not because they care that our child had a smooth entrance into the world but because midwifery fits right in with their eco-yuppie persona.
In what way do you see midwives being supported if not by payment? Do you see a barter economy as permissable/desirable, or do you have another model in mind?
Modern life requires us to be paid. For the most part, none of us are legally allowed to live on the planet without paying money to someone else. Therefore we must sell our labor to someone else in exchange for a wage so we may have the ability to eat, drink and live in shelter. This didn’t always use to be the case.
Modern anthropologists tell us tribal life has free access to the means of survival, that these humans work together in cohesive gather-hunter bands and generally only “working” an average of four hours a day. One of the reason humans evolved to live that way, I believe, is because a basic tenant of tribal life is mutual aid and cooperation. When someone grows old or is wounded they have the rest of the tribe to look after and help them, something they were expected to do for others before them. Things in forager societies are freely given with the knowledge that what one gave will be reciprocated sooner or later. Bartering and trading is something tribesmen do with enemies and strangers, because they need immediate reciprocation for their transaction. In tribal society there are usually women who help other women give birth, these midwives only respond to so many births a year so midwifery is not their sole role in society and are materially and emotionally supported in the same way as everyone else, there is no need to barter. So the history of civilization shows most midwives accepting goods for services (food, livestock, etc), but the longer “history” of tribes shows us different.
As for a working model that can work for us here and now , I’m not sure, but I think that the Invisible Committee says it best when they talk the mass proliferation of communes:
“The commune needs money, but not because we need to earn a living. All communes have their black markets. There are plenty of hustles. Aside from welfare, there are various benefits, disability money, accumulated student aid, subsidies drawn off fictitious childbirths, all kinds of trafficking, and so many other means that arise with every mutation of control…The important thing is to cultivate and spread this necessary disposition towards fraud, and to share its innovations. For communes, the question of work is only posed in relation to other already existing incomes.
The exigency of the commune is to free up the most time for the most people. And we’re not just talking about the number of hours free of any wage-labor exploitation. Liberated time doesn’t mean a vacation. Vacant time, dead time, the time of emptiness and the fear of emptiness – this is the time of work. There will be no more time to fill, but a liberation of energy that no “time” contains; lines that take shape, that accentuate each other, that we can follow at our leisure, to their ends, until we see them cross with others.
A commune tends by its nature towards self-sufficiency and considers money, internally, as something foolish and ultimately out of place. The power of money is to connect those who are unconnected, to link strangers as strangers and thus, by making everything equivalent, to put everything into circulation.”
How do you think a midwife should learn her skills, and how will potential patients know if she is capable, outside of the established medical accreditation/certification framework? In other words, how will it be clear that she now has enough skill to assist in childbirth without some kind of certification/testing process?
The same way midwives helped laboring women before certification/testing processes.
Does your disappointment with the current state of midwifery (in the process of being absorbed/accepted eventually into the rest of medicine) have to do with a fear that it will suffer in quality, or a fear that it will become less and less available to the poor? Do you think the possible institution of socialized medicine would alleviate that, or do you have a different model in mind?
I’m “the poor” and we had our homebirth paid for by the state. To be honest I don’t worry so much about midwifery becoming less available to the poor. What I really worry about how we are going to put an end to this miserable way of life that keeps us poor. Seriously, having children in a safe, comfortable, healthy and natural environment is great, but it isn’t all there is. All of us inhabit a massive environmental catastrophe, a shallow and meaningless social desert, a world of box stores and seven-elevens, a massive surveillance apparatus, chemical factories, mines, plantations and sweatshops, and a giant military that rains fire from the sky onto real people. I think that if I were to worry about midwifery suffering in quality because it’s being absorbed into medicine I would feel like an asshole.
I wrote the article “Childbirth and Social War” for Squat because the history of midwifery is interesting to me and I wanted to show the intersections between midwifery and the need to destroy capitalism and the state. I think that strong, empowered mothers avoiding unnecessary interventions and birthing babies into a positive and life-affirming space, then raising them in a stable environment, whilst consistently meeting their needs and really loving them can only go so far in making this world a better place.
Reader Comments (18)
Ahhh, I love this about your blog, Jill - always something new.
Emjaybee and Daniel, thank you for the very interesting interview. If I weren't on paid time for The Man right now I'd follow some of the links - will do so later.
This reminds me of the concept of "mythological midwifery" from Rixa Freeze's dissertation about unassisted childbirth. She writes about how many proponents of UC have an idealized concept of what midwifery was like in an ambiguous past time. She analyzes this discourse not in terms of historical accuracy but in terms of how it reflects the UCers' views of modern midwifery and their values regarding childbirth.
I would be inclined to see that at play here as well - Daniel basically says as much at the end, I guess. My reaction to the complaint that 'it's not like it used to be' is generally along the lines of 'you can't go home again' but I guess that's a fairer criticism of nostalgia than it is of anarchy.
**negativity warning**
(I think I also have a hard time with Daniel's assertion that his neighborhood pre-yuppies was really somehow outside of the system. Counter-culture is still culture. And the language used to describe the takeover just reeks of pissy othering to me.)
Just a quick side note of caution...some may find parts of Squat offensive/disturbing. It is not purely about birth. It's a shame as most of it looked really interesting/informative.
Yes, very interesting. Thanks, Emjaybee. Here I was thinking my homebirth was the result of soul-searching and intense research but really I was just trying to keep some hippie cred and obscure the fact that I own some furniture from IKEA. Please don't tell my friends the truth! I can't think of anyone who'd disagree w/ the final sentence. While some of us are passionate about birth issues and maternity care, we know it is just one piece in a big nutty system. I don't feel compelled to learn more about anarchist philosophy from this interview. But, again, glad I read it.
PS-- JMT, agree w/ your final thought. Gentrification and housing access are huge issues beyond the fact that yuppies make your neighborhood dorky and expensive.
Regarding asking about home birth and assessing that their reason is “not because they care that our child had a smooth entrance into the world but because midwifery fits right in with their eco-yuppie persona,” I suspect this is assumption made based on contempt for those who the author feels invaded his space and appropriated his culture. I wonder what that neighbor would cite as her reasons for considering giving birth at home.
I wonder this because, while I’m all for examining cultural scripts, I’ve grown tired of supposing what women’s motives are for making the decisions they did with regards to the bodies, births, breasts and babies. I’ve read “Ugh, can you BELIEVE she (got an epidural, scheduled a cesarean, gave birth at home, formula fed, etc.)?” one too many times and I’ve grown a bit cynical. This may or may not apply.
The article in Squat is very interesting. There was a sweeping statement that I’m not sure is accurate across the board: “Certified Midwives have fairly large incomes, prenatal yoga birthing classes cost a fortune and birthing tubs for homebirths are not communized but are instead rented out for hundreds of dollars.” I believe this depends on where you are in the country. Plus, if you look at the idea of not paying midwives through a different lens you could arrive at the conclusion that jobs traditionally held by females have been relegated to second class status and paid very poorly due to lack of respect.
Like Emjaybee, I’m not well versed in anarchist rhetoric. Along the lines of what JMT said, I see some idealization of the good old days when life was pure and people weren’t greedy. Regardless, the history of state regulation of childbirth as well as the history of the social/cultural/economic reasons for the institutionalization of birth in this century in the U.S. are fascinating.
Reading his words reminds me of the goth/anarchist subculture here in Charlottesville. Generally it seems to me that the followers of this movement like to sit around on the open-air mall with strange clothes on (this is coming from the person who LOVES to wear costumes) and complain about how oppressed they are by the "system". Of course we all want a better future, but I can't believe that sitting on my butt complaining about it is going to do anyone a bit of good.
Of course the world we live in today is ruled by commerce and big business, but that's really not going to change unless the whole system of things were to change (I personally believe, based on the Bible, that this will happen after Armageddon when human governments are destroyed). Instead of standing on a street corner with a sign, however, I choose to do something more productive with my time in the meantime, and if I buy some furniture from Ikea for my rented house in a yuppie neighborhood, at least I got it cheap :)
I don't know what to say about the midwives part of his story- I chose not to read the article as I'm sure the rest of the magazine would anger me and I would prefer to be able to sleep tonight. the truth is that people need to eat, and that is true of midwives also.
@ JMT:
you had mentioned, "Just a quick side note of caution...some may find parts of Squat offensive/disturbing. It is not purely about birth. It's a shame as most of it looked really interesting/informative."
i've read squat and was just wondering if you could be more specific about what you are referencing here...as far as i can remember, it was in fact a "birth journal" and everything in it was related to birth. what did you feel like could be potentially offensive or disturbing to some people?
i'm just really curious to know.
thanx...
sorry, i guess that was actually supposed to be a question for kim.
Radmid, thank you! I went and skimmed through the whole journal to find what was disturbing and I couldn't find it, then I forgot to come back and ask.
a common mistake is for people to mistake anti civilization arguments for primitivist arguments. so, i identify as an anarchist, so i can probably read through his ideas with less cognitive dissonance than the majority of people.
anti civ argues that this current civilization, from the passed 5 thousand years, this industrial civilization, goes against basic human values of living. that it is, to put it simply, a death machine. that requires war, alienation, occupation, colonization, and turning living beings into products.
this is a dift argument than primitivist arguments that say that we as a people should return to some idealistic edenic past. while many primitivist are also anti civ, not all anti civ are primitivists. does that make sense?
what anti civ does is look at the history of human beings, and asks questions about what are the most fair ways to live on this planet. this does not mean a 'returning' to some romanticized past, but a reclamation of human values.
part of the problem i see, is that arguments against anti civ, refuse to accept the difference in views between reformism and revolution. what i mean is: that to argue that women should be paid for their services, in this current economic structure, is a reformist argument. creating changes, while allowing for the capitalistic edifice to remain standing. a revolutionary argument is that the capitalistic edifice itself must be transformed into something else.
daniel wilson is not making a reformist argument, as most anarchists dont, so to respond with reformism kind of misses the point.
dont get me wrong i have critiques of this interview and his article in squat, i find him dismissive, stumbling inside his own social privilege, and at times silly. but i just wanted to put out there some anarchism 101, so that folks can get a feel from where he is coming.
mai'a, thanks for your comment, that is a helpful set of distinctions.
I feel like most of the comments on this website miss the point of what I'm trying to say. I think that's because I'm coming in from left field for a lot of you. So let me try and explain better with a quote:
"The technologies of the market that underlie the practice of going to the gym can be described as the technology of desire, and the technology of identity through consumption. The technology of desire, is a mechanism that induces in us desires that we work to satisfy. Marketers create wants and artificial needs in us through advertising goods, experiences and lifestyles that are tempting to us. These advertisements seek to convey the sense of individual satisfaction brought about by the purchase or use of this product. We come to desire these things and thus act in a manner that allows us to achieve these things, whether by working harder and earning more money or by employing technologies of the self to shape our lifestyle to the manner we desire . The borrowing of technologies of the self by technologies of the market extends even further in this case. Marketers use the knowledge created by psyche- discourses, especially psychological characteristics as the basis of their market segmentation. This allows them to appeal more effectively to each individual. Thus we are governed into purchasing commodities through our desire.
The technology of identity through consumption utilises the power of goods to shape identities. Each commodity is imbued with a particular meaning, which is reflected upon those who purchase it, illuminating the kind of person they are, or want to be. Consumption is portrayed as placing an individual within a certain form of life. The technology of identity through consumption can be seen in the choices that face the gym attendee. To go to an expensive gym because it demonstrates wealth/success or to go to a moderately priced gym so as to appear economical. The range of gym wear is extensive. Brand name to portray the abilities portrayed in its advertising, expensive to portray commitment, or cheap to portray you unconcern of other people’s opinions. All of these choices of consumption are used to communicate our identity to others, and thus we are governed by marketers into choosing those products that identify with our identity.
These technologies of the market and of the self are the particular mechanisms whereby individuals are induced into becoming free, enterprising individuals who govern themselves and thus need only limited direct governance by the state. The implementation of these technologies is greatly assisted by experts from the social sciences. These experts operate a regime of the self, where success in life depends on our continual exercise of freedom, and where our life is understood, not in terms of fate or social status, but in terms of our success or failure in acquiring the skills and making the choices to actualise ourself]. If we engage in the practice of going to them gym, we are undertaking an exercise if self-government. We do so by drawing upon certain forms of knowledge and expertise provided by gym instructors, health professionals, of the purveyors of the latest fitness fad. Depending on why we go to the gym, we may calculate number of calories burned, heart-rate, or muscle size. In all cases, we attend the gym for a specific set of reasons underpinned by the various technologies of the self and the market. The part of ourselves we seek to work upon, the means by which we do so, and who we hope to become, all vary according to the nature of the technology of power by which we are motivated. All of these various reasons and technologies are underpinned by the mentality of government that seeks to transform us into a free, enterprising, autonomous individual: Neo-liberalism."
Mai'a seems to label me a "primitivist" and makes a great point that not all anti-civilization anarchists are primitivists. While I personally agree with the logic of anarchist primitivism, I would say that I am more inspired by a situationist or anti-state communist analysis of modern conditions of production and consumption and an insurrectionist analysis of what can be done to destroy the economy and live our lives as free people. I don't think we can "go back" either, I just think that if for millions of years we evolved in a state of mutual aid and cooperation in gather-hunter bands then other life-ways based on those principals are not only possible but necessary for the survival of life on Earth.
As for allegations of being a goth and hanging out at the mall, I don't know how to answer that. I work at Old Navy so I can support my baby and partner, I dress pretty run of the mill, I like swimming and hiking and I listen to post-rock and power-pop. I think that hardly makes me a goth. It is my belief that using your critical thinking skills to understand world socio-economic systems while thinking we'd all do a whole lot better off if we didn't wield power over each other and poison our drinking water, doesn't make you a goth. Also, I don't really have time to sit around on my butt, I have a child to care for.
I want to state again that my neighborhood wasn't some beacon of paradise before yuppies moved in, I tried to make that clear. It was still an alienated, atomized counter-culture, but it was something. I talk about midwifery and homebirths the way I do because I am in a perfect place to see it for what it's become, A COMMODITY.
Feel free to email me any questions or hate mail @ socialrupture@gmail.com
daniel, quickly, i must have written that sloppily. i was saying that opposite. that i did not read you as being a primitivist, but as anti civ, more in the vein of jensen and zerzan.
being an outlaw midwife and an anarchist, i would be very interested in your ideas around the commodification of midwifery...(you can check the website and see that we make similar claims about capitalism and midwifery)...
as for my critiques of your pieces, i think there are crucial aspects midwifery history by not addressing race, gender, and other intersections with class struggle. and so for me the piece reads as a bit myopic and incomplete. the way that a lot of anarchist theory does because it is written from the perspective eurocentrism. (i am not making any claims toward your ethnicity, i am saying that your piece reifies eurocentrism as a lens through which to tell alternative histories.)
well put, mai'a. i think that much of the history that is referenced (though not cited) in the childbirth and social war article came from a reading of the caliban and the witch, by silvia federici, which is, in fact, an account of the transition to capitalism in europe. hence an easy set-up for eurocentrism. for a quick submission to a new radical birth journal, i think daniel did a pretty darn good job of getting something down on paper. but in the effort to actually paint an accurate portrayal of the history and resistance of midwifery, do you know, just off the top of your head, of other works that speak to non-white communities? i ask simply because i don't but would like to. i know that it wouldn't be impossible to extrapolate information about race/gender/etc. by comparing histories with focuses such as these alongside the more eurocentric histories of similar time periods, but it would be great to know if someone out there has already worked on a more comprehensive piece.
here is the ictc reading list, which has some great autobiography/memoir, as well as texts on the history and culture of african and african american societies. http://www.ictcmidwives.org/ReadingList.pdf
andrea smith wrote a great book on native women and sexual violence and reproductive health and justice. i cant remember the name of it right now, but a quick google search should find it.
right now i am researching the rising cesarean rates in third world countries and the processes of colonization.
In Oregon licensing of midwives is voluntary. The anarchist had his baby's birth paid for BECAUSE their midwife was licensed by the state. Ironic.
The Farm midwives, lead by Ina May, used to criticize other midwives for asking for some compensation for doing births. They were in a commune whose efforts provided housing food, clothing, supplies and equipment. They charge now as they were subsidizing able bodied families who did no work for the community.
Interesting.
awesome! thanks for the reading list. looks like the andrea smith book is called Conquest: Sexual Violence and American Indian Genocide.
I'm a midwife and found the comment in the interview regarding the yuppie's reason for choosing homebirth very shallow and judgemental. Women all become a primal force in pregnancy,labor and birth, completely erasing silly labels like that. Sounds like a typical superiority complex, assuming, for ones' own ego-boost enjoyment, the inferiority of the person you refer to. While I understand gentrification woes, if you didn't want the neighborhood to be gentrified, you shouldn't have moved your poor white (I'm assuming) butt in there- you probably displaced a community of color. And no, midwives do not make lots of money. I am both a Licensed Midwife in NM and a Certified Professional Midwife thru NARM. I am well below the poverty level even with a second job at a food co-op currently. Even If I were to take on more births, having a busy (depersonalized) practice, I would still be below the poverty level. The majority of my births are through state medicaid, and they pay us a pittance, and actually pay nurse--midwives more for the same exact job. Why shouldn't I get paid? Your assertion that traditionally, midwives didn't get paid, was probably a symptom of women's low spot on the totem pole in many tribal cultures. And while a neighborhood granny midwife sounds sweet, very few women want someone at their birth who hasn't been formally trained in life-saving measures. THose that trust birth enough may go unassisted, or, to my delight, have me sleep in another room while they give birth, "just in case". Although I understand the desire for Anarchy, when I have to deal with regulations that are silly...or choose to ignore them... the movement for certification was borne mostly out of a desire to improve mainstream access to home birth, instead of coveting it as our own personal punkrock badge. It seems possible that the interviewee(s) want homebirth to continue to be something they can shock people about, and not share the life-changing beauty of it with those without street cred. They seem to want it to only be for the cool kids. puh-lease.