The Masters Tools…? Technological Ambivalence and Distinction in Disaster Recovery and Community-Based Birth Care

• In Event: Science, Knowledge & Technology Section Roundtables
  In Refereed Roundtable (60 minute): Table 11: The Social Transformation of Knowledge in the Digital Age

Abstract

Community birth workers such as midwives and doulas are widely considered to be optimal disaster responders due to their models of care which have been characterized as low-tech, hands-on, and humanistic. However, during disasters such as Hurricanes Irma and Maria in 2017 and the January 2020 earthquakes, the birth workers of Puerto Rico, and the communities that they serve, found themselves having to rely on tools such as social media for communication and care coordination. This reliance on technological supports was only furthered during the Covid-19 pandemic, when globally all practitioners and patients were forced to use telehealth and limit in-person interactions. In this project I engage the concept of technological ambivalence to explore how community birth workers in Puerto Rico reconcile their birth philosophies with the use of technology and social media and what their feelings towards these tools might be (“positive,” “negative,” “contradictory”). Further, I consider the larger implications of technology and social media’s roles in reproductive health care and advocacy, with potentials for both liberation and oppression simultaneously. Such implications will be necessary to grapple with in times of heightened surveillance, corporeal control, rapid technological advancement, ecological instability, and constant crisis.

Author

• Emaline Marie Reyes, University of Delaware