A1 Refereed original research article in a scientific journal

Writing birthing bodies: exploring the entanglements between flesh and materiality in childbirth




AuthorsAstrid Huopalainen, Suvi Satama

PublisherTaylor & Francis

Publication year2019

JournalCulture and Organization

Volume26

Issue4

First page 333

Last page354

Number of pages22

ISSN1475-9551

DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1080/14759551.2019.1618854

Web address https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14759551.2019.1618854


Abstract

This article enquires into the lived experiences of childbirth as a site of ‘fleshy becomings’ that disrupts the dominantly cleaned-up approaches to organising. Theoretically, we approach childbirth as a primitively humane experience in which birthing bodies become entangled with the materiality by which they are surrounded. The empirical material of the article consists of 12 in-depth interviews with first-time mothers in Finland as well as of photographs and autoethnographic research notes taken by the two authors of this article. By empirically highlighting the interplay between flesh and materiality in the ‘making’ of birthing bodies, this article offers novel viewpoints on the discussion of embodied experiences as well as on the entangled relations between flesh and materiality in the field of organisation studies. It also makes an empirical contribution using a unique contextual example of ‘birthing’ to illustrate how vulnerable topics can be researched, offering critical viewpoints on this subject.



Last updated on 2024-26-11 at 21:56