La médicalisation de la procréation en Transjordanie. Trajectoires féminines à l’époque du Mandat

Abstract

The article focusses on the medicalisation of procreation promoted by the colonial governement in Transjordan and on the consequent transformation of birth practices in the local society. It specifically investigates the impact of public health policies on colonised women’s lives considering the ways the former changed local procreation practices and the new life trajectories they elicited for the women who chose to train as birth attendants. Transjordanian midwives and nurses trained in the newly imposed biomedical system became at the same time objects and agents of social change contributing in the long term to the transformation of birth, parenting and family representations.