ESHS/HSS Annual Meeting

Female Migrant Workers and the Contested Epistemologies of Childbirth in Western Germany (1950s-1970s)

• In Event: Fertility and the Sexed Body: Midwifery and Childbirth

English Abstract

Beginning in the 1950s, the fear of childbirth was increasingly perceived as a surmountable obstacle to a ‘good’ birth. In Western Germany this led to the establishment of antenatal classes, which promised a more satisfying experience and a healthier progress of labour. Their success was due to the fact that the principles and objectives of childbirth preparation were widely contested. Regarding the plethora of classes from the 1950s to the 1970s, I intend to analyse how female migrant workers, who had come to Western Germany since 1955, challenged the hierarchies and exclusions inherent in the new norms for childbirth preparation.
Antenatal classes will be viewed as cooperation without consensus, shaped by certain boundary objects (Susan Leigh Star). The demand was primarily driven by pregnant women, prompting the adaptation of psychological approaches by a variety of professionals linked to pregnancy care. With the emergence of the women’s health movement, the variety of classes grew even further. These conflicting epistemic authorities nonetheless agreed on the importance of birth preparation. As fear became increasingly pathologized as the psychogenetic cause for pain and complications during labour, the ‘rational’ approach aimed at exerting control over the body as control of the self. At the same time, it was deeply entangled in notions of femininity, nature, modernity, and national identity. Avoiding reductive narratives of emancipation and increased bodily autonomy, I will consider the consequences of these norms for individual behaviour during pregnancy. Especially for migrant workers these norms resulted in different conflicts regarding bodily autonomy, as they were excluded on both an ideological and structural level. Their epistemic disobedience was expressed in different forms, from activist interventions and knowledge production to birthing practices.

Author

• Bettina Sophia Wagener, University of Siegen, Germany