“This thesis focuses on two main questions. First, how do women's bodily experiences give insight into the categories that the body represents? Second, how do these categories affect sexuality and reproduction? I focus these questions on women's experiences of birth in Guatemala and examine two main bodily categories: “mother” and “women.” I situate these questions in terms of an exploration of the following three questions: 1) What do different experiences of giving birth entail?; 2) What shapes these experiences?; and 3) How is the subject constituted by these experiences? My research about these questions is based on 10 weeks of participant-observation fieldwork in Guatemala in winter of 2015. I worked in an NGO called Asociaciòn Manos Abiertas in Ciudad Vieja, Sacatepéquez where I shadowed the staff and midwives of the birth center. This work included assisting in 7 births, as well as formal and informal interviews with a range of people, including doctors, midwives, pregnant women, and mothers. I also gathered birth stories from different women and videotaped a live birth. In my analysis of this research, I situate the specific, individual stories of each woman in terms of wider discussions of representation, the category of women and its relation to categories of race and social class, with specific attention to indigenous/ladino and rural/urban distinctions in the context of health care in Guatemala. "
"The specificity of the stories I gathered raised important questions for me about individual and collective experiences and how those interact with each other. I consider these questions in terms of how ideas of “woman” are defined, what the importance of bodily experiences is in relation to sexual difference, and how birth practices give insight into the conceptualisation of a woman’s body."
Senior project director: Netta van Vliet
After graduation
"After graduating from COA, I got a masters in public health with a focus on maternal and child health. I then went on to work for the local public health department in a teen empowerment and sexual health education program. After the pandemic, I decided to switch careers and completed a Front End Software Engineering certificate program. I am currently working as a Software Engineer for McGraw Hill Education."
-Natalia Zamboni Vergara-
