For the second part of this two-part interview, visiting scholars Elif Gül and Melina Gioconda Davis sat down to discuss the research projects that brought them to the ZtG, where they share an office. They chat about their interests at the intersection of science, knowledge production, and politics.

Melina: In our time at the ZtG, we’ve talked a lot about how our shared background as sex educators and as people trained first via professional sexology/education networks shapes our work as researchers. Can you tell us about your past work and how it informs your research interests and project?

Elif: I started my sex education journey long before planning to do a PhD. I was a bachelor’s student and had a strong interest in studying sexuality; however, there were not many options to do so at the university. So I started a training at the Austrian Society for Sexology while studying Cultural and Social Anthropology. After that, I was able to pursue my MA in Gender and Sexuality Studies in Amsterdam, where we had a clear focus on the social studies of human sexuality, and that remains the essence of what I am most interested in. And more specifically, in inequalities that we face when we talk about sexuality. So, I moved on to look into contraceptive asymmetries in my master’s thesis and from there became very interested in childbirth and birth justice matters. As a sex educator, I have a different perspective on how we as a society birth and are made to birth.

 

Melina: Can you tell me more about the connection you see between sex education and birthing practices? 

Elif: In general, this relates to many aspects of birth, but an example can be sex education and how little space we have for actual birth education within that. In Austria and Germany, as a society, we know very little about pregnancy, childbirth, and the postpartum period. Somehow, this knowledge only becomes important when we are pregnant and about to become parents. This is reflected in the data and findings of my dissertation.. Many midwives and obstetricians are doing this educational work while caring for their patients. This mirrors how we as a society devalue this process and time of life and isolate it. Because we know so little, we are much more vulnerable and dependent on medical authority and knowledge.

 

Melina: You’ve already hinted at it, but can you give us a short pitch of your dissertation project?

Elif: My project engages with violence during childbirth in Austrian hospitals and takes a closer look at care practices and enactment of medical knowledge within the hospital. It is designed as a critical feminist medical ethnography and takes as its starting point the many complaints about the current system in which we birth. In the past 20 years or so, activists, women, and other birthers, midwives, obstetricians, and partners have brought to public attention that they faced or observed violence, discrimination, disrespect, and abuse during pregnancy, childbirth, or the postpartum period from healthcare providers.

 

Melina: Is there any data about the prevalence of this form of violence? 

Elif: It’s hard to say, because only a few countries actually evaluate this or have done so in the past, but the EU commission summarises the available research on reported obstetric violence as ranging from 21 to 81% depending on the country. This might seem shocking; however, even if we suppose that it was “just” the 21%, even that is too high and very much worth looking into more closely.

 

Melina: Thanks so much for the context. And tell us, how will your research contribute to knowledge on this topic? And what is your unique contribution? 

Elif: I do not think that it is different in its essence, as many other scholars have worked on this topic to understand this form of violence. What I tried to do differently is to actually do fieldwork in the hospital, as someone who is not a healthcare practitioner, and more importantly, work from the perspectives of the healthcare providers, so in my case, obstetricians and midwives. I find this particularly important, as very often the constraints of the hospital and its rules and guidelines also affect these workers, and they might not be able to provide the best care possible. This has also led to a divide between healthcare workers and women and birthers, which is not fruitful if we want to improve birth care. I believe that it is very important to work with obstetricians and midwives on this topic. My goal is to create a participatory research process that is enriching for the workers in question, because they are working in this field daily.

 

Elif Gül is a PhD candidate at the University of Vienna Department of Gender Studies and Science and Technology Studies and a sex educator. She currently works on birth justice matters as part of the dissertation project. Her research interests include feminist technoscience, sexualities and bodies, contraceptive asymmetries, and reproductive justice.