ABSTRACT
Maternal Risk and its Mediation: Learning from health-worker vulnerabilities examines the practices and perceptions of health providers and public health workers in the context of a changing state and international discourse on ‘safety’ in childbirth and risk in the form of maternal and infant mortality. Based on ethnographic work with a diverse category of ‘midwives’ and health-workers who often belong to the communities they serve, the chapter considers what kinds of mediation take place between different (biomedical and indigenous) understandings of the body, health, risk and rights and how this is shaped by the social and economic vulnerabilities of these birth workers.
