Making Knowledge Accessible and Palatable: Midwifes Offering Parental Advice to Parents-To-Be

• In Event: Beyond Boundary Objects and Immutable Mobiles - New Ways of Thinking about the Movement of Knowledge II: Mediators of Knowledge

Abstract

How does scientific knowledge become practice? Moving and translating knowledge from one context to another has been of interest in Science and Technology Studies for quite some time. This research project studies a context where professional and organizational guidelines in large extent affect what kind of knowledge is considered valid and appropriate but also peoples’ feelings and requests. By looking at a seemingly voluntary activity such as parental education, this research project shed light on new and other aspects that affect the movement of knowledge.

This paper is based on an ongoing research project that studies how midwives as mediators of knowledge make evidence-based knowledge and guidelines accessible and palatable to parents-to-be during parental education. The project is situated in Sweden where midwives oversee pregnancy check-ups, organize parental education, and support women during childbirth. In these situations, midwives are the experts who mediate, package and translate medical knowledge to laypersons, the parents-to-be, who bring their own understandings and feelings to the encounter. Through qualitative interviews with midwives, the project explores how midwives reason about how to talk about knowledge with the parents-to-be about such a personal and intimate practice as childcare.

Author

• Jenny Gleisner, Department of Thematic Studies - Technology and Social Change, Linköping University