Publication details
Meandering Practices and Normative Expectations on Men Encountering Stillbirth
| Authors | |
|---|---|
| Year of publication | 2017 |
| Type | Appeared in Conference without Proceedings |
| MU Faculty or unit | |
| Citation | |
| Description | Little is known about mourning and grieving practices on stillbirth in the family. Even less research attention has been paid to men, and practises expected from them as men, encountering such a liminal experience either as fathers (Weaver-Hightower 2012), relatives or friends, or as involved professionals. This presentation utilises work-in-progress analysis of gender relations around stillbirth in the Czech Republic contextualised by international research. The study is grounded in author´s long-time involvement with CSMM (Hearn et al. 2013; Pringle et al. 2005; Šmídová 1999) and explorations of power relations in reproductive medicine (Šmídová 2011, 2015). “Intimate death” (Beyen 2010) changes practices even beyond the family. The shift from displaced death involves change in protocols and professional conduct of involved professions, including obstetricians, social workers, funeral homes staff and representatives of care services for the bereaved besides midwifes represented by women. The change in normative expectations on men in these professions opens an interesting arena for an analysis of reproduction and meandering change in status quo in gender relations. It presents a relevant topic in researching men and masculinities´ practices and politics in the family and spheres of “intimate death” beyond it. |
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