ABSTRACT
In this chapter, the author outlines her methodological approach, including her fieldwork access and research ethics. The author first discusses her researcher stance and relationships with her interlocutors. She also clarifies the modalities of production of the ethnographic material. She then describes her home birth parents’ interlocutors and develops the holistic care script she identified based on her fieldwork observations. Finally, the author situates out-of-hospital birth practices and the modalities of the holistic care model in Switzerland in regard to its inherent opposition to a technocratic perspective on birth. She recounts the emergence of modern midwifery practice in Switzerland and contextualises natural childbirth and out-of-hospital birth practices. She presents the common features and the connections between the independent midwives who participated in the research. She gives some insights on the modalities of independent midwifery in Switzerland in regard to work temporalities and discusses the notions of authoritative knowledge and experiential knowledge in this context.
