Robbie Davis-Floyd

Robbie Davis-Floyd (born Robbie Elizabeth Davis; April 26, 1952) is an American medical and cultural anthropologist, researcher, author, and international speaker primarily known for her research on childbirth, midwifery, and obstetrics.[1] She chose to study women's birth experiences due to her own birth experiences and espouses the viewpoint that midwives play an important role in safeguarding positive outcomes for women giving birth.[2]

Work

In Davis-Floyd's book first, Birth as an American Rite of Passage, she defines "technocracy" as a society organized around the super-valuation of high technology and the global flow of information. She argues that the beliefs and practices associated with birth are driven from a "technocratic model" that was influenced by the Industrial Revolution. Birth became industrialized in assembly-line fashion, then "technocratized" by the consistent use of high technologies such as ultrasound and the electronic fetal monitor, which is almost universally used in American births, even though it has been shown to fail to improve outcomes while increasing the cesarean section rate.[3][4][5] The publication of the book furthered her interest to study the anthropology of reproduction. Her current focus is on transformational models of maternity care, including those created by holistic obstetricians in Brazil, a country with a very high cesarean rate.

Within their scope of research, Davis-Floyd, other scholars and other birth advocates have worked to ensure that people have access to a range of knowledge on birth, childbirth processes, cultural perspectives, birth customs, safety practices, and health resources. Her primary work in this arena has been to serve as lead editor for the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (IMBCI): 10 Steps to Optimal Maternity Care.

In light of her mission and collaborative studies, Davis-Floyd has collaborated with multiple people to explain birth in different contexts and parts of the world. For example, Davis-Floyd and midwife Elizabeth Davis co-authored Intuition as Authoritative Knowledge in Midwifery and Homebirth.[6] Both had examined the interaction between midwives' authoritative knowledge and the intuition of home birth mothers.[7] This form of authoritative knowledge occurs in a context where independent midwives rely on knowledge that they spiritually and personally embody, primarily through expertise and by knowing the women within the context of their communities. Home birth midwives make a conscious and purposeful attempt to provide alternative knowledge that is scientifically accurate and culturally appropriate. In Cyborg Babies, Davis-Floyd and Dumit show that new reproductive technologies create a barrier between mother and child, in regards to visualization, conception, and legislation.[7] Reproductive technologies have been analyzed for their merits and paradoxes as they make advancements in cross-cultural landscapes.

These different models of birth, healthcare, and technological usage exist in all societies and fluctuate according to surrounding conditions. Davis-Floyd demonstrated this when she revised and updated 'Birth in Four Cultures: A Cultural Investigation of Childbirth in Yucatan, Holland, Sweden, and the United States' (Fourth Edition) in 1993, originally written by Brigitte Jordan].[8][9] The book was first published in 1978 and won the Margaret Mead Award in 1980.[9] Jordan and Davis-Floyd had completed a comparative analysis on how culture interacts with the physiology of birth in four different territories.[10] The research investigates the biological process of birth as it relates to cultural concepts that influence childbirth for the mother, newborn, and other people involved.[10] Birth in Four Cultures has demonstrated that birth is socially configured and distinguished by all cultures.[11][12] Brigitte Jordan's concept of authoritative knowledge, heavily promoted by Davis-Floyd, has been distributed and utilized by scholars around the world.[13] By her definition, authoritative knowledge is the knowledge that counts in a given situation, on the basis of which people make decisions and take actions. It often subsists in a hierarchy of knowledge systems in which one holds more weight than the other.[12] A system comes to carry more weight when it has superior purpose to explain a state of the world or greater hegemonic force because it is held by people in power.[12][14] Both anthropologists have acknowledged the use and spread of high technologies as a cultural factor of authoritative knowledge.[12][13] The use of technologies has contributed to a new symbiosis between humans and machines, the study of which is termed "Cyborg Anthropology."[15] Anthropologist Donna Haraway proposed this new discipline and utilized by Joseph Dumit of MIT and Robbie Davis-Floyd in 1992.[16] Davis-Floyd's research concerns reproduction and the technologies associated with birthing standards, in which the natural process of birth is intervened in via technologies that interfere with the hormonal flow of physiologic birth; these standard procedures serve as rituals that convey the core values of technocratic society to birthing women and practitioners alike. She has also analyzed medical training as a rite of technocratic intiation.[17]

Personal

Davis-Floyd was born in Casper, Wyoming and is the daughter of Walter Gray Davis (an independent oil operator) and Robbie Elizabeth Davis (a homemaker and genealogist) whose maiden name was Peyton.[1] In 1979, she married Robert N. Floyd (an architect) and later became a mother of two children, Peyton and Jason. Their daughter Peyton was killed in a car wreck in 2000 at the age of 20. At the request of Diony Young, editor of Birth: Issues in Perinatal Care, Robbie wrote an article about her experiences of Peyton's death called "Windows in Space/Time" (freely available on her website www.davis-floyd.com). It became the most-read article in the history of the journal.[1][18]

Education

Robbie Davis-Floyd was Valedictorian of her high school class.[19] She attended Wellesley College between 1969 and 1970.[1] Davis-Floyd later received her Bachelor of Arts from the University of Texas at Austin in 1972 (Summa cum Laude and with Special Honors in Plan II).[1] She earned her Master of Arts degree in anthropology and folklore (1974), as well as her PhD (1986) from the University of Texas.[1][2][20][21]

Career

Robbie Davis-Floyd has served in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Texas (Austin) in various forms since 1992, and continues to do so.[20] In 1975-1976, Davis-Floyd was a summer Spanish instructor for Centro de Artes y Lenguas Mexicanas, Cuernavaca in Morelos, Mexico.[1] The following year she was a high school teacher for St. Mary's Hall in San Antonio (1977-1979).[1] Davis-Floyd was an adjunct assistant professor of Sociology and Anthropology at the University of Tennessee, Chattanooga (1980-1983) and Trinity University, San Antonio (1987-1989).[1] She was a lecturer at the University of Texas (Austin) then became senior lecturer of anthropology and senior research fellow around 1990-1992 and 1998-current.[1] Davis-Floyd was a research associate in the Department of Anthropology at Rice University in Houston, Texas (1993, 1996, and 1999).[18][22] In 1997-1999, Robbie Davis-Floyd was a participant of the Council for European studies for the International Research Planning Groups Program.[1] She was a visiting lecturer at Baylor Medical School (1999), where she taught Baylor's first-ever course in Complementary and Alternative Medicine, and at Southern Methodist University (2002).[1] Between 2002 and 2003, Davis-Floyd was the Flora Stone Mather Visiting Professor in the anthropology department at Case Western Reserve University and an adjunct associate professor.[1][23] In 2017, Robbie Davis-Floyd continues to serve in the Department of Anthropology at University of Texas, Austin as senior research fellow.[24][25]

Membership

Robbie Davis-Floyd is a member of the American Anthropological Association, American Holistic Medical Association, Association for Feminist Anthropology, the American College of Nurse-Midwives.,[1] and the Midwives Alliance of North America (MANA). Davis-Floyd served as consumer representative to the Board of the North American Registry of Midwives (NARM) for 15 years as well as serving on the Midwifery Certification Task Force 1994-1997.[1][26][27] Davis-Floyd was chair of the editorial committee of the Coalition for Improving Maternity Services, helping to create the Mother-Friendly Childbirth Initiative for the US (1995) .[1] Currently, Davis-Floyd is a member of the board of the International MotherBaby Childbirth Organization (IMBCO) and lead editor for the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative.[13][28][29] She has served as an executive board member and program chair of the Society for Medical Anthropology (SMA), from 2004 to 2007.[1][30] Robbie Davis-Floyd was a founding member of the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction and currently serves as its senior advisor. She was also a member of Council on the Anthropology of Science, Technology, and Computing, Society for the Social Study of Science, as well as a board member of the Association for Pre- and Perinatal Psychology and Health for 19 years.[1] She is listed in Who's Who in America, Who's Who in American Women, and Who's Who in the World.

Publications

  • Davis-Floyd, Robbie. Birth As An American Rite Of Passage. Berkeley : University Of California Press, 1992. Print.
  • Jordan, Brigitte. Birth in Four Cultures: A Crosscultural Investigation of Childbirth in Yucatan, Holland, Sweden, and the United States, Fourth Edition. Waveland Press, 1992. Print. Revised, expanded, and updated by Robbie Davis-Floyd in 1993.[31]
  • Davis-Floyd, Robbie E., and Carolyn Sargent. Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives. University of California Press, 1997. Print.[32]
  • Davis-Floyd, Robbie, and Joseph Dumit, eds. Ebrary, Inc. Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots. Routledge, New York, 1998. Print.[33]
  • Davis-Floyd, Robbie, and John G. St. From Doctor to Healer: The Transformative Journey. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 1998. Print.[34]
  • Bourgeault, Ivy Lynn, et al., editors. Reconceiving Midwifery. McGill-Queen's University Press, 2004.[35]
  • Robbie Davis-Floyd and Christine Barbara Johnson, eds. Mainstreaming Midwives: The Politics of Change. New York: Routledge, 2006.[36]
  • Davis-Floyd, Robbie, et al., editors. Birth Models That Work. 1st ed., University of California Press, 2009.[37]

Awards & Honors

Robbie Davis-Floyd is a fellow recipient of the Society for Applied Anthropology at the University of Texas, Austin.[25] She was a fellow of the National Endowment for the Humanities in 1980.[1] Davis-Floyd was awarded a faculty development grant from Trinity University around 1988 and 1989.[1] She was recognized as a research fellow from the University of Texas in 1994.[1] In the same year, Robbie Davis-Floyd was an Academy of Consciousness Studies fellow at Princeton University.[1] She received the Institute of Noetic Sciences grant (1995-1997).[1] Davis-Floyd was honored with the American Society for Psychoprophylaxis in Obstetrics & Lamaze Research Award in 1996.[1] In 1996-1998 and 1999-2000, Robbie Davis-Floyd received two Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research grants.[1] She also received multiple research grants from the American Institute of Aeronautics and Astronautics between 1996 and 1998.[1] One of the research grants was provided by the Honeywell Corporation in 1998.[1] These research grants were awarded for "Space Stories: Oral Histories from the Pioneers of the American Space Program." .[38] In 2005, she received the Transforming Birth Fund Grant Award for Research & Best Practice Dissemination to support Birth Models that Work, via the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery.[39] Davis-Floyd received the Transforming Birth Fund Grant Award for Changemakers in 2006, which was supported by Waterbirth International.[39] During 2007 Davis-Floyd received an award from the Transforming Birth Fund Grant Award (for Research & Best Practice Dissemination) to have key articles and chapters of hers translated into Spanish. Her work continues to be supported by the Foundation for the Advancement of Midwifery.[39] Robbie Davis-Floyd was recognized by the NARM board for her 15 years of service to the North American Registry of Midwives and was honored with an award from MANA for her years of service to American midwifery in 2012.[2] She was also awarded with an "Homenagem" from ReHuNa, a birth activist organization in Brazil that was presented to her by the Brazilian Minister of Health in 2010 for defining "the technocratic, humanistic, and holistic paradigms of birth and health care"—theoretical concepts she created to help practitioners and mothers understand the implications of their ideological choices for the management and outcomes of their births.

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14 15 16 17 18 19 20 21 22 23 24 25 26 27 Contemporary Authors, New Revision Series COPYRIGHT 2009 Gale. "Davis-Floyd, Robbie Elizabeth 1951-Present".
  2. 1 2 3 "Friends of Michigan Midwives: Support for Midwives and Midwife-Friendly Legislation".
  3. ↑ "Summary of Birth as An American Rite of Passage".
  4. ↑ "Perspectives on the Anthropology of Birth".
  5. ↑ "Lamaze: An International History".
  6. ↑ Davis-Floyd, Robbie; Davis, Elizabeth (1996). "Intuition as Authoritative Knowledge in Midwifery and Homebirth". Medical Anthropology Quarterly. 10 (2): 237–269. JSTOR 649330.
  7. 1 2 "Medical Anthropology Quarterly" (PDF).
  8. ↑ "Birth in Four Cultures; Brigitte Jordan and Robbie Davis-Floyd".
  9. 1 2 "Remembering Brigitte Jordan".
  10. 1 2 Womack, Mari. "The Anthropology of Health and Healing".
  11. ↑ Grebeldinger, Jessica. "Assisted Reproductive Technologies: Reviewing Recent Perspectives and Addressing Research Gaps in Medical Anthropology".
  12. 1 2 3 4 Ketler, Suzanne. "Preparing for Motherhood" (PDF).
  13. 1 2 3 "Workshop: The Anthropology of Reproduction: Childbirth, Obstetrics, Midwifery, and the New Reproductive Technologies" (PDF).
  14. ↑ Browner, C. H. "The Production of Authoritative Knowledge in American Prenatal Care" (PDF).
  15. ↑ Downey, Gary Lee; Dumit, Joseph; Williams, Sarah (1995). "Cyborg Anthropology". Cultural Anthropology. 10 (2): 264–269. JSTOR 656336.
  16. ↑ "Cyborg Anthropology".
  17. ↑ Axness, Marcy. "Declare Your Independence in Birth Choices".
  18. 1 2 "Intuition: The Inside Story: Interdisciplinary Perspectives, edited by Robbie Davis-Floyd, P. Sven Arvidson".
  19. ↑ "Inquiry Reports about "The Medicalization of Birth" by Robbie Davis-Floyd".
  20. 1 2 "Alumni US: The University of Texas at Austin, Austin, Texas Area".
  21. ↑ "Inquiry Reports: Robbie Davis-Floyd, The Medicalization of Birth".
  22. ↑ "Corporate Futures: The Diffusion of the Culturally Sensitive Corporate Form, edited by George E. Marcus".
  23. ↑ "Reconceiving Midwifery".
  24. ↑ "Childbirth Activism: What's at Stake?".
  25. 1 2 "Author Bio of Birth Models That Work".
  26. ↑ "North American Registry of Midwives: Providing Certification Standards For Certified Professional Midwives (2009)" (PDF).
  27. ↑ "North American Registry of Midwives: Providing Certification Standards For Certified Professional Midwives (2016)" (PDF).
  28. ↑ "Human Rights in Childbirth Conference (2012)" (PDF).
  29. ↑ "Biography".
  30. ↑ "Society for Medical Anthropology (SMA) Annual Report" (PDF).
  31. ↑ "Birth in Four Cultures by Brigitte Jordan".
  32. ↑ "Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross-Cultural Perspectives by Robbie Davis-Floyd".
  33. ↑ "Cyborg Babies: From Techno-Sex to Techno-Tots, edited by Robbie Davis-Floyd".
  34. ↑ "Biomedicine (See References)" (PDF).
  35. ↑ Ivy Lynn Bourgeault, Cecilia Benoit, Robbie Davis-Floyd (2004). Reconceiving Midwifery. McGill-Queen's University Press. ISBN 9780773526891. JSTOR j.ctt81489.
  36. ↑ Smith, Susan L. (2008). "Mainstreaming Midwives: The Politics of Change (review)". Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 82 (1): 234–235. doi:10.1353/bhm.2008.0028.
  37. ↑ Robbie Davis-Floyd, Lesley Barclay, Betty-Anne Daviss, Jan Tritten (2009). Birth Models That Work (1 ed.). University of California Press. ISBN 9780520248632. JSTOR 10.1525/j.ctt1ppszz.
  38. ↑ Robbie Davis-Floyd and Dr. Kenneth J. Cox, Interviewers. "Space Stories: Oral Histories from the Pioneers of America's Space Program; An Oral History Project conducted in conjunction with the Houston Chapter of the AIAA and Honeywell Corporation" (PDF).
  39. 1 2 3 "Transforming Birth Fund Grant Award" (PDF).
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