AUTHORITATIVE KNOWLEDGE AND ITS CONSTRUCTION

Introductory Remarks to Symposium on "Birth in Twelve Cultures:

Papers in Honor of Briitte !ordan"
"nnual #eetins of the "merican "nthropoloical "ssociation$
San %rancisco C"$ &ecem'er ($ )**+
Briitte !ordan
,ero- Palo "lto Research Center and
Institute for Research on .earnin
.ast Chanes: *+/)+/0)
Abstract: "uthoritative 1nowlede and its Construction: 2ithin any particular social situation a multitude of ways of
knowin e-ist$ 'ut some carry more weiht than others/ Some kinds of knowlede are discredited and devalued$ while
others 'ecome socially sanctioned$ even o3cial$ and are accepted as rounds for leitimate inference and action/ In the
hope of contri'utin to the desin of 'etter social and technoloical support for people4s activities durin child'irth and
otherwise$ I e-plore the characteristics of settins$ social arranements$ and technoloies that lead to particular
distri'utions of authoritative knowlede and attendant decision5makin power/ 6)0 mins/7
I cannot 'ein to e-press to you how deeply I feel the honor you have accorded me
with this symposium/ I am tremendously pleased to 8nd assem'led in one spot such
a lare num'er of individuals who are all actively involved in the anthropoloical 6in
contrast to the medical7 study of 'irth/ 2hen I 'ean investiatin child'irth and
midwifery in 9ucatan 6and I 'elieve that is now almost e-actly +0 years ao7$ what
we now know as the "nthropoloy of Birth or the 8eld of :thno5;'stetrics did not
e-ist/
There were a very few anthropoloists who had ever even considered the topic in
any systematic way 6there was a seminal survey article 'y #araret #ead and <iles
<ewton which mostly 'emoaned the fact that there were no ood ethnoraphic data
on child'irth and some crosscultural comparisons pulled out of the Human Relations
"rea %iles7/ But there were few anthropoloists who considered the topic a leitimate
topic in anthropoloy 55 and even that is sayin too much/ It wasn4t that people
arued is it or isn4t it leitimate$ it simply wasn4t there/ Child'irth did not e-ist in
anthropoloy/
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There was no notion of 'irth as a cultural system> the idea of ethno5o'stetrics 6a
term later coined 'y Carol #cClain7 had not seen the liht of day$ nor the notion that
western cosmopolitan o'stetrics could 'e studied in a comparative anthropoloical
manner as ?ust another ethno5o'stetric system 6an idea that Ro'ert Hahn has 'een
responsi'le for7/ Believe me$ for a strulin raduate student those were
intellectually lonely days indeed/
So I am tremendously pleased to see how far we have come/ The "nthropoloy of
Birth is now a lively and vital 8eld and if I have contri'uted to its rowth$ I take reat
pleasure in that/
@I also take reat pleasure in the repu'lication of Birth in %our Cultures which truly
would not have happened without the la'or of love 'estowed on it 'y Ro''ie &avis5
%loyd/ The 'ook has 'een updated and revised/ 2e also added three new chapters
to it which contain some of my more recent writins/ /// none of which would have
happened without Ro''ie4s dedication/A
<ow$ I think I should also tell you that I no loner work in the area of child'irth/ I4ve
chaned my career$ aain$ 6I actually think it takes a'out ten years to make a dent
in a iven 8eld7$ and after havin participated in illuminatin$ at least partially$ the
territory of child'irth$ I felt I needed to move on/ In my current life I am tryin to
understand$ toether with my colleaues at ,ero- P"RC and IR.$ how people
oraniBe themselves to work together$ play toether$ live toether 55 and what we as
anthropoloists and social scientists can do to contri'ute to the desin of 'etter
workin and learnin environments/
So I have 'een less directly concerned with child'irth recently and have focused
more on the underlyin$ or I am tempted to say$ overlyin Cuestion of cultural
chane$ and in particular the role new kinds of artifacts and technoloies play in that
chane/ But while the shift from medical anthropoloy to the anthropoloy of work
may seem fairly radical$ there are also some underlyin themes that have remained
constant$ and that actually have deepened in sini8cance for me in my e-posure to
industrial work settins/ ;ne of these is the notion of authoritative knowlede/
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There are two ways in which one miht use the idea of authoritative knowlede:
D one$ the more conventional use$ sees authoritative knowlede simply as the
knowlede that is attached to persons in authority positions$ as$ for e-ample$ the
doctor in child'irth$ the teacher in the classroom$ the foreman in a plant>
D the second$ and this is what I have 'een mostly concerned with$ looks at "1
as the knowlede on the 'asis of which decisions are made in a iven settin$ 'y a
iven social roup/
.et me tell you what I think the second use 'uys us/
;ne issue that arose for me very early on in my work came from the o'servation
that in some social situations multiple kinds of knowlede are present 'y virtue of
the e-perience and 'ackround of the various participants/ In some roups$ these
diEerent kinds of knowlede are in conFict$ in others$ they 'ecome a resource for
constructin a ?oint way of seein the world$ a way of de8nin what shall count as
authoritative knowlede/
This is the case$ for e-ample$ in child'irth in 9ucatan where women in the rural
communities draw on a lare 'ody of wisdom that is assem'led in each particular
'irth from a shared history and from the e-perience of those present$ that is$ the
woman4s immediate family$ the villae midwife$ and other e-perienced women in
the community/ 2hat is interestin is that in such situations$ all participants lend a
hand to ive aid 55 physical$ emotional$ ritual$ spiritual 55 and if the la'or is drawn5out
and di3cult$ they 'uild a shared store of knowlede throuh stories$
demonstrations$ and remedies/ In this manner$ a ?oint view of what is oin on in
this la'or$ with this woman5plus5'a'y$ is constructed in which every'ody involved in
the 'irth shares/
In contrast to western medicaliBed 'irths$ there is no one in chare here/ There is no
sinle decision5maker/ It is certainly not the midwife 6which was initially a surprise
for me 'ecause I e-pected her to act as some sort of doctor eCuivalent7> it is not the
woman$ either 6which was somethin that I$ as a feminist raduate student$ would
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have loved to see7/ Rather$ the store of knowlede reCuired for conductin a 'irth is
created and recreated 'y all participants ?ointly as they do the work of 'irthin/
2hat is interestin is that we have also found this horiBontal distri'ution of
authoritative knowlede in our more recent work in hih5technoloy work places/ %or
e-ample$ when we studied the control center for an airline4s round operations$ we
found that the people who work there are also constantly enaed in updatin each
other on the state of their world$ where the "world" at issue is the world of planes in
the air$ on the round$ and at the ates and their state of readiness in reard to
passeners$ 'aae$ fuel$ food and crews/ In this situation information comin into
the room throuh any of a num'er of channels 6such as printers$ radios$ telephones$
computer screens$ video monitors7 is potentially relevant to every'ody in the room
and we 8nd that information is not treated as privileed/ People do not withhold
information$ they constantly ive and solicit help$ and they develop shared work
practices and technoloies which support the ?oint updatin of the common stock of
knowlede on the 'asis of which decisions are made in the room/
To 'e sure there are supervisors in the ops room/ But for the routine work of ettin
planes in and out they function not so much as controllers of information and
decision5makers 'ut as an e-tra pair of hands$ an e-tra set of viilant eyes$
some'ody who can keep watch over a particular pro'lem as it develops and possi'ly
link to outside resources if they are reCuired/ The routine decisions are all made 'y
the workin team/
In contrast to the ops room$ there are other situations where multiple kinds of
knowlede donot come toether$ where one kind of knowlede wins out and carries
the day/ This is typical for "merican hospital 'irths where medical knowlede
supersedes and deleitimiBes other potentially relevant sources of knowlede such
as the woman4s prior e-perience and the knowlede she has of the state of her 'ody/
<onmedical knowlede is devalued 'y all participants$ usually includin the woman
herself who comes to 'elieve that the course charted on the 'asis of professional
medical knowlede is the 'est for her/ If she does not acCuiesce and decides to
actively resists$ we et$ in the e-treme case$ the phenomenon of court5ordered
cesarean sections$ that is$ the leal enforcement of one particular kind of
knowlede/
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I4ve surely painted a one5sided picture here and thins are 'y no means as 'lack
and white and as uncomplicated and straihtforward as I have made them out for
the sake of a )05minute presentation//
#ay'e the Cuestion we miht want to ask at this point$ is: does this kind of analysis$
i/e/ an analysis in terms of "uthoritative 1nowlede$ ive us any leverae for
restructurin the shape of 'irth in our own society/ "nd I think it does/ I think what
we need to think a'out is how we can move from a situation in which authoritative
knowlede is hierarchically distri'uted$ into a situation where it is$ 'y consensus$
horiBontally distri'uted$ i/e/ where all participants in the la'or and 'irth contri'ute to
the store of knowlede on the 'asis of which decisions are made/
In our technocratiBed systems we need to ask Cuestions such as: 2hat would have
to happen for the woman to truly 'ecome a part of the decision5makin processH
2hat if her knowlede$ 'oth 'odily and intellectual$ were to 'e accorded leitimate
statusH 2hat if she had a place in the professional participation structures set up
around the 'irthH Could there be a translation process 'etween what the woman
knows and what the staE understand to 'e the situationH Could there 'e a mutual
accommodation of these diverent ways of knowin such that one sinle
authoritative knowlede structure emeresH
This$ I 'elieve is the challene for the future of child'irth in the technoloiBed
western world as well as in the developin countries of the Third 2orld/
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