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Article: Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives
- Article from:
- The Australian Journal of Anthropology
- Article date:
- January 1, 1998
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright Anthropology Society of New South Wales 1998. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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Robbie E. Davis-Floyd and Carolyn F. Sargent (eds). Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. Berkeley, Los Angeles and London: University of California Press, 1997. xii, 522pp., graphs, tables, bibliog., index. US$50 (Hc.), ISBN 0-520-20625-8; US$19.95 (Pb.), ISBN 0-520-20785-8.
When Brigitte Jordan began investigating midwifery and obstetrics in Yucatan more than twenty years ago (Birth in Four Cultures, 1978) there were few anthropologists who had even considered these topics in any systematic way. As Jordan says, `It wasn't that people argued about its legitimacy; it simply wasn't there' (p.55). Birth remained on the margins of anthropological theory and ...