‘Holistic Mothers’ or ‘Bad Mothers’?: Challenging Biomedical Models of the Body in Portugal

This paper is based on early fieldwork findings on ‘holistic mothering’ in contemporary Portugal. I use holistic mothering as an umbrella term to cover different mothering choices, which are rooted in the assumption that pregnancy, childbirth and early childhood are important spiritual occasions for...

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主要作者: Fedele, Anna (Author)
格式: 電子 Article
語言:English
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出版: Brill [2016]
In: Religion & gender
Year: 2016, 卷: 6, 發布: 1, Pages: 95-111
Standardized Subjects / Keyword chains:B Portugal / 母性 / 出生 / 靈性 / 整全觀 / 爭論
IxTheo Classification:AD Sociology of religion; religious policy
AG Religious life; material religion
AZ New religious movements
KBH Iberian Peninsula
NBE Anthropology
NCH Medical ethics
Further subjects:B Biomedicine
B Holistic Mothering
B Homebirth
B Goddess Spirituality
B Portugal
B Cam
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實物特徵
總結:This paper is based on early fieldwork findings on ‘holistic mothering’ in contemporary Portugal. I use holistic mothering as an umbrella term to cover different mothering choices, which are rooted in the assumption that pregnancy, childbirth and early childhood are important spiritual occasions for both mother and child. Considering that little social scientific literature exists about the religious dimension of alternative mothering choices, I present here a first description of this phenomenon and offer some initial anthropological reflections, paying special attention to the influence of Goddess spirituality on holistic mothers. Drawing on Pamela Klassen’s ethnography about religion and home birth in America (2001), I argue that in Portugal holistic mothers are challenging biomedical models of the body, asking for a more woman-centred care, and contributing to the process, already widespread in certain other European countries, of ‘humanising’ pregnancy and childbirth.
ISSN:1878-5417
Contains:Enthalten in: Religion & gender
Persistent identifiers:DOI: 10.18352/rg.10128