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Social Mobilisation Around the Act of Childbirth
Subjectivity and politics
Diane Gosden
Yooroang Garang: School of Indigenous Health Studies, University of Sydney, Australia
Carolyn Noble
School of Applied Social and Human Sciences, University of Western Sydney, Australia
Abstract
This article explores subjective and political dimensions of the home birth movement which emerged in public discourse in Australia from the late 1970s. In re-defining their subjectivity around the act of childbirth, women participants created an emancipatory social movement that encouraged other women to resist medical/state control over that aspect of their lives.
As they fought collectively to establish their right to birth at home, the personal and the political became entwined in their rejection of the dominant codes concerning childbirth.
Keywords
birth stories, childbirth, home birth, material discourse, social mobilisation,social movement,subjectivity
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