Natal Signs: Cultural Representations of Preguancy, Birth and Parenting by Burton Nadya;

Author:Burton, Nadya;
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Demeter Press
Published: 2015-08-15T00:00:00+00:00

ANNA HENNESSEY

Representations of Birth and

Motherhood as Contemporary Forms

of the Sacred

THIS PAPER EXAMINES WAYS IN WHICH images of birth and the maternal body are contemporary forms of the sacred, and, controversially, how their production represents a renewed interest in birth and mothering as primary sources of empowerment for many women. Through research in art history, religious studies, philosophy, medical anthropology, and feminism, I first show how members of an international movement devoted to birth and art are actively using religious, secular, and re-sacralized art imagery in the visualization of labour and birth and as a ritualistic part of birth as a rite of passage. While this process of ritualizing art objects is interesting in itself, the focus of the paper then shifts to explore how these images communicate a celebration of birthing and maternal bodies. Emerging from this celebration is a renewed model of feminism that considers physiology, acts of childbirth, and mothering as foundational for the empowerment of many women. This model diverges from dominant forms of feminism that point to the problem of birth and motherhood as negatively related to biological essentialism. Anti-essentialism in feminism grew in part as a reaction to the alternative birth movement of the late twentieth century, and it has been highly influential not only within women’s studies and feminist discourse but across the humanities. I contend that a logical fallacy is at the heart of these critiques and examine how they have played a part in silencing academic discourse on childbirth, female physiology, and maternal experiences.1 Contemporary representations of birth and motherhood act as a powerful material means of reinvigorating these discussions.2

A contemporary art movement devoted to images of birth has developed rapidly in the United States and abroad over the past two decades. It has gained international presence through online image sharing and networking and through small exhibitions, including a permanent collection, the Birth Rites Collection, which opened in 2008 at Goldsmiths University in London.3 The movement has a wide reach, and its members include artists who create artwork about birth, as well as others interested in using the artwork for personal or professional reasons. Such members include writers, pregnant women, fathers, partners, doulas, midwives, doctors, childbirth educators, yoga instructors, and acupuncturists, among others.4 Many of those involved are interested in ways to facilitate labour and birth, often with a focus on natural or alternative methods of birth. However, the movement cannot be defined as a natural birth movement since its focus is not on natural birth but on how objects and representations of birth are associated more broadly with birth as an important rite of passage. This paper theorizes a particular way in which images are used during birth as a rite of passage.

I begin with a discussion of religious birth art. The particular images that I have chosen show crowning or aspects of birth in an overt way and they are also actively used within the birth community. Appropriated in the context of birth in the twenty-first century, these images are

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