Date of Award
8-1-2018
Degree Name
Master of Fine Arts
Department
Mass Communication and Media Arts
First Advisor
Overturf, Dan
Abstract
Coyote Midwives is a documentary film about the birth workers who are leading alternative maternity care and reproductive justice in the state of Illinois. This film examines the medicalization of labor and delivery, the patriarchal norms that constitute a threat to a birthing parent’s health, and the structure in place to ensure that birth remains exclusively physician-controlled. Coyote Midwives captures the energy, spirit, and empowering potential of birth, the negotiation and compromise of “professionalizing” midwives, and the networks of criminalized, black market, safe maternity care that persevere despite the illegalities.
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