Regulating Traditional Mexican Midwifery: Practices of Control, Strategies of Resistance

Abstract

The institutionalization of Mexican midwifery has a long history. Despite global recommendations moving away from training traditional midwives, training courses still continue. Based on fieldwork in the State of Chiapas, I argue that while ongoing trainings offered to traditional midwives in Mexico aim at teaching them best practices, they also limit midwives’ autonomy and keep poor women’s reproductive behaviors under control. I demonstrate how midwives and medical personnel mobilize discourses of reproductive risk, women’s rights and indigenous cultural rights to reinforce or contest mechanisms of reproductive governance.