The Coloniality of Childbirth: Epistemic Erasure of Indigenous Traditional Birth Attendants in Global South History
Turkey Turkey Turkey 
Abstract
Background. Childbirth in the Global South has historically been shaped by Indigenous knowledge systems and the expertise of traditional birth attendants. Colonial administrations and biomedical institutions, however, frequently represented these practitioners as irrational, unskilled, and unsafe, thereby undermining their epistemic authority and marginalizing Indigenous approaches to maternal care.
Purpose. This study aimed to investigate how colonial power marginalized the epistemic authority of traditional birth attendants and to examine the extent to which these colonial hierarchies persisted within maternal healthcare systems after political independence.
Method. Employing a comparative historical design, the study integrated critical historiography, decolonial theory, feminist epistemology, and discourse analysis. Data were drawn from colonial reports, legislation, medical publications, missionary archives, training manuals, oral histories, and Indigenous testimonies from African, Asian, Latin American, Caribbean, and Pacific contexts. The sources were critically appraised, thematically coded, and comparatively interpreted across regions and historical periods.
Results. The findings revealed that epistemic erasure operated through racialized representations, licensing restrictions, selective retraining, archival exclusion, and the appropriation of Indigenous practices without recognition of their intellectual origins. Traditional birth attendants were frequently incorporated into formal health systems as subordinate auxiliaries, while their embodied, ecological, spiritual, and relational knowledge was excluded from authoritative definitions of safe childbirth. Community records nevertheless demonstrated continuing adaptation, resistance, and trust in Indigenous maternal care.
Conclusion. The study concludes that the modernization of maternal healthcare combined important clinical advances with enduring colonial structures of knowledge and professional control. Decolonizing childbirth therefore requires historically informed collaboration that safeguards access to emergency obstetric care while recognizing Indigenous authority, cultural safety, reproductive autonomy, and epistemic justice.
Full text article
References
Ackah-Baidoo, P. F. (2025). Gender and mining: Assessing the landscape for women entrepreneurs in the critical minerals supply chain. The Extractive Industries and Society, 24, 101753. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.exis.2025.101753
Afroz, N., Kabir, E., Alam, K., & Hossain, Z. (2025). Maternal health and child health disparities among Indigenous and non-Indigenous Australian children: Insights from repeated measures across infancy and adolescence. Social Science & Medicine, 381, 118292. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118292
Aronson, S. M., Batinelli, L., Rocca-Ihenacho, L., & Stevens, J. R. (2025). Stakeholders’ expectations and experiences of being involved with a global accreditation process for midwifery centres in LMICs: A rapid ethnography. Midwifery, 148, 104482. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2025.104482
Awaworyi Churchill, S., Smyth, R., & Trinh, T.-A. (2025). Gender norms and solar panel energy adoption in Australia: Evidence from a natural experiment. Energy Economics, 141, 108079. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eneco.2024.108079
Ayenew, A. A., Mol, B. W., Abeje, G., & Bradford, B. (2025). Healthcare and community perspectives on female genital mutilation/cutting (FGM/C): A qualitative study. eClinicalMedicine, 90, 103604. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.eclinm.2025.103604
Basurto-Peña, F. A., García-Perea, F., Nambo-Camacho, A. A., Martínez-Gordillo, M. J., Ortiz-Mendoza, N., Zavala-Ocampo, L. M., González-Trujano, M. E., & Aguirre-Hernández, E. (2025). Increasing the knowledge of medicinal flora of the Mixteca Alta, Oaxaca, the case of Santiago Huauclilla. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 352, 120225. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jep.2025.120225
Bredtmann, J., & Otten, S. (2025). Natives’ gender norms and the labor market integration of female immigrants. World Development, 185, 106794. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.worlddev.2024.106794
Chapman, C. (2025). Reifying risk and health: Cultural normativity, bureaucracy, and moral quandary in child abuse investigations in Japan. Children and Youth Services Review, 170, 108135. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.childyouth.2025.108135
Chawla, R., & Bhatt, P. (2025). Aging into (in)visibility: Tracing Hijra life narratives in Dayanita Singh’s Myself Mona Ahmed. Journal of Aging Studies, 75, 101350. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101350
David, S., Kelly, M. A., Hauck, Y., & Bradfield, Z. (2025). A co-designed conceptual educational framework for midwives to train Indigenous traditional birth attendants in low resource settings of remote Papua New Guinea. Midwifery, 149, 104547. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.midw.2025.104547
Dugle, G., Bishop, S., & Muthuri, J. (2025). Relational coordination of state partnership with traditional birth attendants: Soft partnering in Ghana’s maternal and child healthcare context. Social Science & Medicine, 380, 118238. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118238
Fern, S. E. (2025). Immigrant experiences of harm in sexual and reproductive healthcare in Spain. Social Science & Medicine, 367, 117768. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.117768
Fiks, E. (2025). The everyday ethics in sterilization camps in India. Social Science & Medicine, 377, 118150. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118150
Harvey, T. M., & Wallace, H. J. (2025). “I hope to feel part of something bigger than my immediate world…”; the values and attitudes that motivate participation in a virtual international midwifery student experience. Women and Birth, 38(2), 101883. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2025.101883
Ishise, H. (2025). Religion as an informal institution: A case of true pure land Buddhism and missing women in early modern Japan. Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, 229, 106823. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jebo.2024.106823
Jacobson, L. E., Darney, B. G., Campos Muñuzuri, M., & Veldhuis, S. (2025). Balancing autonomy and collaboration: Acompañantes’ perspectives on health system partnerships for medication abortion care in three Mexican states. SSM - Health Systems, 5, 100154. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssmhs.2025.100154
Jayarathne, S. (2025). Navigating geotrauma in transnational adoption: A visual journey into first mothers’ intimate biographies. Emotion, Space and Society, 54, 101070. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.emospa.2025.101070
Jurgutis, J., Wang, C., Cavanagh, A., Cheng, B., Kouyoumdjian, F. G., & Leason, J. (2025). Reproductive and maternal child health experiences of Indigenous women in prison: A scoping review. Social Science & Medicine, 384, 118516. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118516
Kasprowicz, V., Ockwell, D., Mills, E., & Byrne, R. (2025). Reconsidering the gender-energy nexus: A novel framework for understanding how and why electricity access influences gender relations. Energy Research & Social Science, 126, 104109. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.erss.2025.104109
Malone, N., Palomino, K. A., Penniston, T. L., Adane, N., Kerney, M. A., & Hargons, C. N. (2025). “It’s an honor to be in this body”: A Black feminist grounded theory of embodiment through yoga among Black womxn. Body Image, 55, 101982. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2025.101982
Martin, N., & Latner, J. (2025). Body functionality through an indigenous lens: Learning from indigenous knowledge systems to facilitate appreciation. Body Image, 54, 101923. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bodyim.2025.101923
Peterson, M., Rosing, A., Reimer, G. A., Larsen, C. VL., Haggerty, J., Schure, M., & Rink, E. (2025). Policymaker and stakeholder perspectives on determinants of fertility decisions through changing environmental and economic conditions in Greenland. Health & Place, 92, 103443. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.healthplace.2025.103443
Pickard, S. (2025). Taking upon ourselves the entirety of our human state: Young writers imagining what it is to be old. Journal of Aging Studies, 75, 101345. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jaging.2025.101345
Richardson, M., Waters, S. F., Tsethlikai, M., & Sarche, M. (2025). Indigenous infant development: Reconciling the past and grounding future praxis in Indigenous worldviews and strengths-based approaches. Infant Behavior and Development, 80, 102120. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.infbeh.2025.102120
Routray, S., & Gaur, R. (2025). A postcolonial feminist representation of motherhood in recent Bollywood sports movies. Women’s Studies International Forum, 109, 103062. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103062
Saniotis, A., Henneberg, M., & Galassi, F. M. (2025). Historic specimen of calvaria showing late-stage syphilitic involvement from the Vernon-Roberts Museum of The University of Adelaide (Australia). Morphologie, 109(367), 101058. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.morpho.2025.101058
Senkyire, E., Senkyire, G., Asiedua, E., Tawose-Adebayo, V., & Ohaja, M. (2025). Obstetric violence informed by theories of intersectionality, oppression, and power dynamics—A Ghanaian’s perspectives. AJOG Global Reports, 5(3), 100505. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.xagr.2025.100505
Shen, Y. (2025). Does education affect fertility timing? Evidence from Taiwan. China Economic Review, 94, 102499. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.chieco.2025.102499
Sibusiso, M., Nelly, S., & Puleng, M.-S. (2025). Addressing the multifaceted drivers of girl-child school dropout in the OR Tambo district, South Africa: Implications for policy and practice in Africa. International Journal of Educational Research, 134, 102807. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ijer.2025.102807
Szocik, K., & Abylkasymova, R. (2025). The bioethics of biomodification for the future of space exploration: Evaluating insights from feminist and non-feminist approaches. Futures, 174, 103694. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.futures.2025.103694
Tachibana, S. (2025). The gendering of agriculture in late nineteenth century colonial Hokkaido: The case of Kane Watanabe (1859–1945). Endeavour, 49(1), 100989. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.endeavour.2025.100989
Tam, M. W., Perez-Brumer, A., & Ross, L. E. (2025). Queer Tax: Examining 2SLGBTQ+ Black, Indigenous, and People of Colour’s experiences of accessing assisted reproductive technologies. Social Science & Medicine, 376, 118053. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.socscimed.2025.118053
Taye, T., Alemu, A., & Teshome, G. (2025). Negative social implications of Amharic proverbs on women, children, and power dynamics in Ethiopian society. Social Sciences & Humanities Open, 11, 101660. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ssaho.2025.101660
Thomas, S., Allan, G., Heaslip, V., & Furber, C. (2025). A systematic review of key principles relating to decolonising interventions in midwifery education. Women and Birth, 38(2), 101869. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wombi.2025.101869
Tlostanova, M., & Koobak, R. (2025). Decolonial feminist aesthetics and sensibilities in filmmaking. Women’s Studies International Forum, 111, 103101. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103101
Veronese, G., Hamamra, B., Mahamid, F., Bdier, D., & Cavazzoni, F. (2025). Intersectional violence against women in Gaza amidst genocide. Women’s Studies International Forum, 110, 103081. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.wsif.2025.103081
Authors
Copyright (c) 2026 Hale Yilmaz, Tolga Koc , Aylin Erdo?an
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.