Robbie Davis-Floyd

Robbie Davis-Floyd (born Robbie Elizabeth Davis; April 26, 1952 in Casper, Wyoming) is a medical and cultural anthropologist, researcher, author, and international speaker primarily known for her research on childbirth, midwifery, and obstetrics. She chose to study women's birth experiences due to her own birth experiences and esouses the viewpoint that midwives play an important role in safeguarding positive outcomes for women giving birth.

In Davis-Floyd's book first, Birth as an American Rite of Passage, she defines the technocracy as a society organized around the supervaluation of high technology and the global flow of information and argues that the beliefs and practices associated with birth are driven from a "technocratic model" that was influenced by the Industrial Revolution. Birth became industrialized in assembly-line fashion, then technocratized by the consistent use of high technologies such as ultrasound and the electronic fetal monitor, which is almost universally used in American births even though it has been shown to fail to improve outcomes while increasing the cesarean section rate The publication of the book furthered her interest to study the anthropology of reproduction. Her current focus is on transformational models of maternity care, including those created by holistic obstetricians in Brazil, a country with a very high cesarean rate.

Within their scope of research, Davis-Floyd and other scholars and birth advocates have worked to ensure that people have access to a range of knowledge on birth, childbirth processes, cultural perspectives, birth customs, safety practices, and health resources. Her primary work in this arena has been to serve as Lead Editor for the International MotherBaby Childbirth Initiative (IMBCI): 10 Steps to Optimal Maternity Care.

In light of her mission and elaborative studies, Davis-Floyd has collaborated with multiple people to explain birth in different contexts and parts of the world. For example, Davis-Floyd and midwife Elizabeth Davis co-authored Intuition as Authoritative Knowledge in Midwifery and Homebirth. Both had examined the interaction between midwives' authoritative knowledge and the intuition of home birth mothers. This form of authoritative knowledge occurs in a context where independent midwives rely on knowledge that they spiritually and personally embody, primarily through expertise and by knowing the women within the context of their communities. Home birth midwives make a conscious and purposeful attempt to provide alternative knowledge that is scientifically accurate and culturally appropriate. In Cyborg Babies, Davis-Floyd and Dumit show that new reproductive technologies create a barrier between mother and child, in regards to visualization, conception, and legislation. Reproductive technologies have been analyzed for their merits and paradoxes as they makes advancements in cross-cultural landscapes.

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