Racial and Cultural Dynamics in Healthcare and Birth Practices

Mothers of Gynecology

enslaved Black women who were subjected to experimental surgeries by Marion Sims without anesthesia, based on the racist pseudoscience that they felt less pain. Experiments without anesthesia. Sims justified this through racist belief that Black women had "thicker skin" and higher pain tolerance

Monique Rainford TED Talk

Highlights that belief that Black people feel less pain still influences maternal care today. Black women in the US face higher maternal mortality regardless of income or education. Weathering = chronic stress of racism causing premature biological aging and poor pregnancy outcomes. Emphasizes structural competency over cultural competency

Cerdeña Reading

Healthcare acts as a key actor in racialization of Latinx people. Latinx birthing people framed as hypersexual and hyperfertile. Patients are non-white, providers are white. Patients treated as "others"

De facto

actual reality of barriers and harms in healthcare even if not written in law

De jure

explicit written laws that create hierarchies

Prenatal Care Color Line

systemic disparity in prenatal care quality; Latinx birthing people stereotyped as hypersexual and hyperfertile affecting treatment

Bridges Reading - Unruly Bodies

bodies (often women of color or poor people) seen as defective by state/medical systems requiring surveillance and management

Dudenian Fetus

fetus viewed as separate autonomous entity from birthing person; biomedical knowledge prioritized over birthing person; birthing person seen as vessel for "product"

Medicalization of Pregnancy

transforms pregnancy into medical problem, shifting authority away from birthing person

Technocratic Model of Birth (Robbie Davis Floyd)

body treated as machine, baby as product; biomedical practitioners hold authority; technology used for social control

Doula vs Midwife

Doula provides non-medical emotional/physical support; Midwife is licensed clinical provider responsible for birth

Informed vs Attuned Consent

Informed consent = legal documentation of risks/benefits; Attuned consent = relational, continuous reading of body/emotional state

Attuned Consent in Doulas

doulas act as consent workers, amplify client voice, and navigate institutional bias

Mason - Grandmother-Mother-Baby Triad

grandmothers often primary caregivers; mothers feel displaced, surveilled, and burdened; creates identity and agency conflict

Limits of Community and Kinship (Mason + lecture)

community can be coercive and surveilling; dependency due to precarity; failure of support leads to isolation and power imbalance

Religion

unified system of beliefs and practices relating to sacred things that make sense of the universe

Ritual

signals acceptance of moral/social order; associated with biopower; communicates transcendence; teaches initiated knowledge

Cosmology (biomedicine)

medical cosmology = universal framework based on science and enlightenment truth claims

Berger-Gonzales Reading

healer uses cosmology to restore balance between patient, healer, and community

Timekeepers

Maya healers using sacred calendars and ancestral communication to determine illness causes and ritual timing

Role of Social Support (Maya healers)

healing requires community participation to restore harmony and rebuild bonds

Csordas Reading

efficacy includes meaning-making, not just symptom reduction; tripartite view = body, mind, spirit

Tripartite View

body, mind/soul, and spirit all require treatment in healing

Langford Reading

biomedicine contains hidden Christian assumptions despite claims of secularism

Secularism vs Biomedicine

biomedicine is not fully secular; religious logic is rebranded as scientific professionalism

Social Identities

positions individuals occupy in society (race, gender, class, etc.)

Ascribed vs Agency Identity

ascribed = assigned identity; agency = self-defined identity

TallBear Reading - Recognition

Indigenous recognition depends on state/science; DNA used as genomic articulation reducing identity to biology; stakes = sovereignty and rights

Tran Reading - Recognition

Vietnamese suffering recognized differently depending on system; DSM (GAD) vs neurasthenia; recognition determines care access

GAD vs Neurasthenia

neurasthenia = bodily exhaustion diagnosis; GAD = DSM psychiatric diagnosis; shift from physical to biomedical framing

Plemons - FFS

facial feminization surgery produces gender recognition; dysphoria = mismatch of identity; aesthetics shaped by elite norms

Cosmetic Gaze

assumes all bodies can be improved through biomedical intervention

Plemons vs Aizura

Plemons = clinical recognition; Aizura = global/economic trans recognition systems

Petryna Reading - Recognition

Chernobyl sufferers must prove biological damage to access state aid

Sufferer vs Citizen

sufferer = biologically injured identity; citizen = legal identity

Political Ecology

political/economic systems shape environmental health outcomes

Chernobyl Case Study

focus on bureaucratic aftermath and proving illness, not explosion

Risk

state uses risk categories to regulate access to aid; people must perform illness

Biological vs Classical Citizenship

classical = legal rights; biological = rights based on bodily harm

Roberts - Colonia Periferico

low-income Mexico City neighborhood surrounded by pollution and industry

Porosity

bodies/environments are permeable to toxins, noise, and social forces

Protective Porosity

porosity enables mutual aid, caregiving, and community support

Flint vs Colonia Periferico

Flint = infrastructure failure; Colonia = ongoing environmental entanglement

Lamb Reading

globalization and migration weaken traditional kinship care systems

Old Age Homes

peer community benefits but also stigma and "social death"

Stonington Reading

end-of-life is a process; death is transition; dying person actively prepares mentally

Memento Mori

awareness of death encourages ethical living and detachment

Buddhadasa's Death

resisted medical intervention to prioritize spiritual death; challenged biomedical authority

Dignity and Good Death

culturally variable concepts shaped by social, medical, and religious values

Human Composting (Doughty)

natural organic reduction; eco-friendly burial alternative

Suzuki - Rationalization

funerals become standardized, efficient, and low-cost (McDonaldization)

Suzuki - Family Responses

convenience appreciated but ritual meaning reduced

MAID (Buchbinder)

medical assistance in dying; legal in some regions including Vermont

MAID Recognition Requirements

must be terminal, competent, 18+, physician-approved, and able to self-administer; grants legal right to die