BIRTHING RESISTANCE | REZISTANS AK AKOUCHMAN

Creatively altered and anonymized rotoscope of an original photo of Naomi by China Tolliver (Rotoscope by A Jordan)

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CEE Postdoctoral fellow Alissa Jordan has released an audio documentary and a website in both English and Haitian Creole on the intersection of care and carcerality in "hospital detentions". The first episode, "Birthing Resistance: Stories of Hospital Prison" is co-hosted with birth activist and founder of Rise Up Midwife, China Tolliver, with a second Creole episode, "Rezistans ak Akouchman: Lòpital  Pa Prizon" hosted by Alissa.

The podcast combines creative ethnographic storytelling, birth stories, and analytic reflection to understand the emergence of “hospital-prisons” and medical detention in Haiti and around the world. It focuses on two Haitian mothers—Likna and Naomi—and their experiences of birthing in Euro-American mission hospitals where they were then imprisoned for months. Locked inside with their infants, and provided neither food, water, or toiletries, these hospitals leveraged Naomi, Likna, and their companions as corporeal collateral to force families and communities to pay outstanding debts for obstetric surgeries.

Called global public health’s “open secret” (Cowgill & Ntatumbe 2019) the practice of hospital detention is widespread across hospitals in well over 52 countries of the world. It overwhelmingly impacts black women, indigenous women, and women of color and their babies during birth journeys. In spite of its ubiquity, the amount of academic articles written on the practice could fit in a single hand, while local journalists from Kinshasa to Nairobi, and Madhya Pradesh to Bogota have published volumes of accounts on mothers (and others) experiences of clinical captivity. 

What is hospital detention and what are its histories? What kind of silences are being kept around medical detention? How are these silences related to deeper histories of  racial capitalism, medicine, and its particularly intense manipulations of black motherhood and black reproduction? And how have mothers like Likna and Naomi, healthcare workers like Guerlande, and other journalists from around the world been challenging it?

Drawing on commentaries and first-person storytelling by Haitian mothers, a Haitian human rights organizer, a senior AP health journalist, and an activist nurse,  both English and Creole versions of podcast attend to the everyday strategies of resistance that women, families, and organizers wield against the practice. 

The project also includes an interactive website, www.birthresistance.com, envisioned as a multilingual platform for promoting discussion, sharing research, and amplifying patient stories and strategies. It features full conversations with experts on the practice including mothers, journalists, academics, and activists.

Parèy Post-doktora di CEE, epi antwopològ kiltirel Alissa Jordan, fek pwodwi yon dokimante odyo epi yon sit web an Angle ak Kreyol Ayisyen. Dokimante sa gen pou fè ak yon praktis ki rele "detansyon lopital", epi kijan praktis sa melanje swen sante ak karseralite pou manman ki akouche lòpital. Dokimante prezante istwa di de manman Ayisyen, Naomi ak Likna, nan pwòp mo pa yo, epi yon mis ki reflechi sou praktis sa nan  lòpital misyon yo an Ayiti, epi lòt kòmantatè Ayisyen.

Epizòd Angle a gen Alissa Jordan ak China Tolliver (yon aktivis, yon doula, ak fondatè de Rise Up Midwife) kou ot, epi epizòd gen Alissa Jordan kou ot.

Kisa "detansyon lòpital" la ye, epi kisa istwa pa li? Ki kalite silans egziste alantou praktis sa? Kisa silans sa gen pou fè ak istwa de  kapitalis rasyal,  enjistis repwodiktif,  epi relasyon twouble a ki egziste  devan swen ak rechèch medikal ak pep Ayisyen an? Epi kijan manman yo ak fanmi yo reziste kont presyon sa yo lè yo pataje manje andan klink la, ede lòt pasyan chape tèt yo, oubyen akouche lakay yo?

Dokimantè sa a konbine rakonte istwa kreyatif, narasyon, konvèsasyon, ak analiz kritik yo pou konprann eksperyans di fanm ak fanmi Ayisyen lè moun akouche lòpital epi yo pa ka peye sa yo dwe.

Praktis di anprizonnen manman andan lòpital egziste nan plis pase 52 peyi nan mond lan. Li plis afekte fanm nwa, fanm natif, ak fanm di koule, ak tout bebe yo, lè yo akouche lòpital. Men—atravè lemonn—manman, fanmi, ak jounalis gen tan konbat li kou yon lenjistis grav. Nan istwa nouvèl lokal yo, an Madhya Pradesh an India oubyen nan Bogotà, anpil jounalis lokal denonse praktis sa epi eklere istwa di manman ki ka pase mwa oswa ane nan kaptivite klinik la. Men, nan kwen akademic yo, eksperyans manman yo preske envisib.

De epidemyolojis, Karen Cowgill & Abel Ntambue  (2019) rele praktis sa yon “sekre louvri” nan sante piblik mondyal.  Kukudji Yumba  Pascal (2018), yon bioetisyen epi yon istoryen nan University of Lubumbashi, eksplike ke praktis sa te kòmanse dapre ane 1987, le UNICEF ak WHO ekri Inisyativ Bamako epi plizye peyi restriktire swen sante pou l ta vin pi pwofitab. Tande Kounyela.


Pwoje sa incluye yon sit web, www.birthresistance.com, ki se yon platform plizyè lang ki ankouraje diskisyon, ki pataje rechech, epi ki anplifye istwa pasyan yo epi estrateji yo. Li genyen konvesasyon ak ti bout odyo an franse, kreyol, ak angle.

Birthing Resistance: Stories of Hospital Prison
Co-Hosted by Alissa Jordan and China Tolliver

Rezistans ak Akouchman: Lòpital  Pa Prizon
Ot: Alisa Djordan