Nomad RSI - Therapeutic diversity and the environment

Pascale Hancart Petitet (2008), Paris: Edilivre, 448p.
Language: French.

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This book explores the anthropology of knowledge around birth in contemporary India and in the context of HIV. It presents the work conducted by the author for her PhD thesis, entitled ’Maternities in South India. Knowledge around birth at the time of HIV/Aids’. The first section is concerned with various aspects of birth in an untouchable community living in a village of Tamil Nadu in South India. The main goal is to study the social organization of this community related to the event of procreation, pregnancy and delivery. The second section presents two studies related to the traditional birth attendants (TBA). Two biographies will point out how those women transform their medical practices in order to fit in with the modern context of birth care shaped by the biomedical system. This sectio then turn to some sanitary, social and political aspects of the TBA training in India. The third part examines the ethnography of birth in the biomedical context. It critically shows how the biomedical governmental institution aims to implement “birth control”. The fourth section addresses the medical, social and political issues of HIV Mother-To-Child Transmission (HIV MTCT) in the considered contexts. Finally, the author discusses the theoretical concept of “authoritative knowledge” in the context of contemporary India facing HIV/Aids.