Sigmund Kim
Department of Anthropology, University of Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands.
Med Anthropol. 2025;44(4):378-391. doi: 10.1080/01459740.2025.2495633. Epub 2025 May 4.
In the United States, women of color experience worse pregnancy and birth outcomes than white women. Likewise, many women of color report facing discrimination from perinatal health providers, and many experience precarity that can negatively impact birth experiences and outcomes. In this context, more women of color now embrace the use of community-based doulas. Using ethnographic data, I argue that community-based doulas, as members of the communities in which they offer their services, are uniquely able to negotiate the tensions between their clients and biomedical birth practitioners to engender acts of transformative agency and forward the cause of reproductive justice.
在美国,有色人种女性的怀孕和分娩结果比白人女性更糟。同样,许多有色人种女性报告称面临围产期医疗服务提供者的歧视,许多人还经历着不稳定状况,这可能会对分娩经历和结果产生负面影响。在这种背景下,现在有更多的有色人种女性接受使用基于社区的导乐服务。利用人种志数据,我认为,基于社区的导乐作为她们提供服务所在社区的成员,能够独特地协调其客户与生物医学分娩从业者之间的紧张关系,从而促成变革性行动,并推动生殖正义事业。