Murdock Melanie, Durant Sarah
Department of Gender Studies, Queen's University, Kingston, Ontario, Canada.
School of Indigenous and Canadian Studies, Carleton University, Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.
Birth. 2024 Oct 11. doi: 10.1111/birt.12888.
The land we call Canada is a settler colonial country where reproductive healthcare is used as a mechanism to control, subjugate, and erase Indigenous people and to advance the White settler state. Healthcare providers play an integral role in the healthcare system and contribute to Canada's colonization. In this piece, we critically analyze how settler midwifery is complicit with colonialism in reproductive healthcare by exploring the history of midwifery in Canada, midwifery education, and contemporary settler midwifery.
European settlers omitted the history of Indigenous midwifery in Canada and to justify their erasure, they conceptualized Indigenous Peoples as uncivilized and their birthing practices as substandard. To establish a colonial healthcare system, settler midwives replaced traditional Indigenous birth attendants. When midwifery became regulated, midwives were required to train in formal post-secondary institutions that sustain colonial logics, systems, and practices. Midwifery education programs maintain colonialism by reinforcing medicalized Western practices and sustaining barriers to the growth of Indigenous midwifery. As a result, Western birthing practices are widespread among settler midwives and Indigenous Peoples face barriers to comprehensive and culturally sensitive care. To decolonize Canadian midwifery, we must dismantle stereotypes about Indigenous Peoples and their birthing practices in historical narratives, implement an anti-colonial approach to midwifery education, support Indigenous midwives in returning birth home, and improve the provision of culturally sensitive care.
Settler midwifery in Canada is complicit in colonialism; building anti-colonial alliances can help support Indigenous midwives in leading a decolonial future for reproduction and birthing.
我们称之为加拿大的这片土地是一个移民殖民国家，在那里，生殖健康护理被用作控制、征服和消灭原住民以及推进白人移民国家发展的一种手段。医疗保健提供者在医疗保健系统中发挥着不可或缺的作用，并促成了加拿大的殖民化。在本文中，我们通过探究加拿大助产术的历史、助产士教育以及当代移民助产术，批判性地分析了移民助产术在生殖健康护理中是如何与殖民主义同流合污的。
欧洲移民忽略了加拿大原住民助产术的历史，并且为了为他们的抹杀行为辩解，他们将原住民概念化为未开化的民族，将他们的分娩方式视为不合格的方式。为了建立一个殖民医疗保健系统，移民助产士取代了传统的原住民接生员。当助产术开始受到监管时，助产士被要求在维持殖民逻辑、体系和做法的正规高等院校接受培训。助产士教育项目通过强化西医化的做法以及维持原住民助产术发展的障碍来维持殖民主义。结果，西方分娩方式在移民助产士中广泛存在，而原住民在获得全面且具有文化敏感性的护理方面面临障碍。为了使加拿大的助产术去殖民化，我们必须消除历史叙述中对原住民及其分娩方式的刻板印象，实施反殖民的助产士教育方法，支持原住民助产士将分娩回归本土，并改善具有文化敏感性护理的提供。
加拿大的移民助产术与殖民主义同流合污；建立反殖民联盟有助于支持原住民助产士引领生殖和分娩的去殖民化未来。
