Médicalisation de la maternité et de la garde des enfants dans les contextes coloniaux et postcoloniaux

How to be a mother? Medicalization of motherhood and childcare in colonial and postcolonial contexts

Call for papers
 

EAHMH 2025 Health Beyond Medicine Conference Panel

Taking off in the metropoles at the beginning of the twentieth century, the medicalization of childbirth was slowly transferred to colonial settings in the interwar period. Colonial governments, missionaries, and charitable organizations tried to change not only the ways in which women gave birth but also how they behaved during pregnancy, raised their children, and understood their role as wives and mothers. Education of girls and women, therefore, primarily focused on suppressing local midwifery practices, promoting hospitalized birth, and teaching women new ways of child-rearing, nutrition, and hygiene. However, it also served to construct gender identities and universalize the role of women within the state and family. The responses of local communities varied, and resistance and acceptance of new ideas and practices usually went hand in hand. Many of those ideas persisted well into the postcolonial period albeit often with particular local characteristics.
This panel explores the changing ideas and practices around motherhood and childcare, and how they constructed gender roles and influenced women’s lives in colonial and postcolonial settings. It welcomes papers that address the following topics:
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The developments around maternal and child healthcare, and education of women and girls in domestic roles.
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The transnational nature of those developments, and the role of governments, missionaries, and NGOs in promoting new practices in childbirth, child-rearing, nutrition, and hygiene.
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The responses of local communities to these developments, and how they influenced women’s roles within the family and society.
Organizer: Ivana Zečević, University of Groningen
Deadline for abstracts: 23rd February 2025.
Notifications for accepted/rejected abstracts: 1st of March 2025.
Deadline for the panel submission: 10th of March 2025.
Conference website: https://hi.converia.de/frontend/index.php?folder_id=564&page_id=
Please send your abstracts to i.zecevic@rug.nl. Proposals should not exceed 300 words.