| Title |
Scissors as Symbols: Disputed Ownership of the Tools of Biomedical Obstetrics in Rural Indonesia
|
|---|---|
| Published in |
Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry, May 2012
|
| DOI | 10.1007/s11013-012-9268-9 |
| Pubmed ID | |
| Authors |
Vanessa M. Hildebrand |
| Abstract |
In the hands of both traditional and clinic midwives in rural Indonesia a simple biomedical tool, umbilical cord scissors, has come to develop a social life that symbolizes potential futures. In rural Indonesian villages resources are limited, maternal and infant mortality rates are high, and there is robust competition for both patients and status between traditional and clinic midwives, all set against nationalist pressure to "modernize." The perceived right to use the umbilical cord scissors in a professional setting is contested. The folk midwives use the umbilical cord scissors to publically reference access to biomedical obstetric knowledge, a domain claimed by clinic midwives. This paper explores the way that the traditional midwives construct a hybrid modern identity by marking a place for traditional and biomedical obstetric systems in the treatment of childbirth. Further, this paper argues that traditional midwives use the symbolically laden umbilical cord scissors in their attempt to remain locally relevant and to circumvent the mission of the clinic programs to eradicate their practice. |
Mendeley readers
The data shown below were compiled from readership statistics for 58 Mendeley readers of this research output. Click here to see the associated Mendeley record.
Geographical breakdown
| Country | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| United Kingdom | 1 | 2% |
| Unknown | 57 | 98% |
Demographic breakdown
| Readers by professional status | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Student > Master | 11 | 19% |
| Researcher | 10 | 17% |
| Lecturer | 6 | 10% |
| Student > Bachelor | 6 | 10% |
| Student > Ph. D. Student | 6 | 10% |
| Other | 11 | 19% |
| Unknown | 8 | 14% |
| Readers by discipline | Count | As % |
|---|---|---|
| Medicine and Dentistry | 18 | 31% |
| Social Sciences | 16 | 28% |
| Nursing and Health Professions | 5 | 9% |
| Business, Management and Accounting | 3 | 5% |
| Psychology | 2 | 3% |
| Other | 5 | 9% |
| Unknown | 9 | 16% |
Attention Score in Context
This research output has an Altmetric Attention Score of 7. This is our high-level measure of the quality and quantity of online attention that it has received. This Attention Score, as well as the ranking and number of research outputs shown below, was calculated when the research output was last mentioned on 24 September 2012.
All research outputs
#5,012,530
of 23,906,448 outputs
Outputs from Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry
#322
of 622 outputs
Outputs of similar age
#33,514
of 166,675 outputs
Outputs of similar age from Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry
#7
of 10 outputs
Altmetric has tracked 23,906,448 research outputs across all sources so far. Compared to these this one has done well and is in the 79th percentile: it's in the top 25% of all research outputs ever tracked by Altmetric.
So far Altmetric has tracked 622 research outputs from this source. They typically receive a lot more attention than average, with a mean Attention Score of 12.1. This one is in the 44th percentile – i.e., 44% of its peers scored the same or lower than it.
Older research outputs will score higher simply because they've had more time to accumulate mentions. To account for age we can compare this Altmetric Attention Score to the 166,675 tracked outputs that were published within six weeks on either side of this one in any source. This one has done well, scoring higher than 79% of its contemporaries.
We're also able to compare this research output to 10 others from the same source and published within six weeks on either side of this one. This one has scored higher than 3 of them.