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Between bodies, cultural scripts and power: The reproduction of birthing subjectivities in home-birth narratives

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Abstract

This paper provides an alternative mapping of (home) birthing body-subjects. It argues that an individualist (and phallocentric) model of the subject permeates cross-disciplinary childbirth research, resulting in a limited and ‘disciplined’ representation of birthing subjectivity. Using the theory of the ‘subject-in-process’ outlined by Julia Kristeva, together with poetic methodological devices drawn from the voice-centred relational method of Carol Gilligan and colleagues, this paper attempts to represent birthing subjectivity in alternative ways. It shows how (home) birthing subjectivities emerged as contradictory movements as they performatively ‘told’ childbirth, positioned paradoxically in relation to three key narratives, namely: clockwork birth, lived birth and undecidable birth. The paper argues that a Kristevan theory of the subject allows a rethinking of the birthing body-subject, showing how these subjectivities are produced (in talk) as unstable, ambiguous movements, constantly interrupted and disrupted by the play of ideological voices, cultural scripts, bodily energies and socio-linguistic constraints.

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Notes

  1. It is important to note the controversial aspects of Kristeva's theorization of maternity, particularly for feminist scholars, many of whom regard her work on maternity as anti-feminist (for example, Zerilli, 1992). Part of the difficulty is that ‘the maternal’ operates on many different levels in Kristeva's work and there is no one-to-one or simplistic association between women, mothers and the Kristevan ‘maternal function’. In my work, I have distinguished between ‘the maternal’ in Kristevan thought, which stands in for an imaginary, heterogeneous semiotic space (or chora) that potentially exceeds and disrupts the logic of the symbolic, and maternity, which I interpret as a process that is far more closely tied to the bodily (and signifying) process of becoming a mother.

  2. It is worth pointing out that women's stories about home-birth were, in almost every case, incredibly positive and joyous. For the most part, these stories were ‘happy narratives’ – saturated with a sense of satisfaction, success and self-affirmation. There were few complications and all of the women gave birth successfully at home. See Pollock (1999) for a consideration of the dangers of ‘happy childbirth narratives’ in terms of their potential silencing of traumatic, disappointing or painful birth stories.

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  1. Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, Private Bag X 17, 7535, Bellville, South Africa

    Rachelle Joy Chadwick

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Chadwick, R. Between bodies, cultural scripts and power: The reproduction of birthing subjectivities in home-birth narratives. Subjectivity 27, 109–133 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1057/sub.2009.1

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