Prof. Angela Castañeda is Co-Editor of Doulas and Intimate Labour: Boundaries, Bodies and Birth

December 3, 2015

Angela N. Castañeda, Edward Myers Dolan Professor of Sociology and associate professor of sociology and anthropology at DePauw University, is co-editor of Doulas and Intimate Labour: Boundaries, Bodies and Birth.  Published by Demeter Press, the book is a collaboration with Julie Johnson Searcy.

"Scholars turn to reproduction for its ability to illuminate the practices involved with negotiating personhood for the unborn, the newborn, and the already-existing family members, community members, and the nation," notes a synopsis. "The scholarship in this volume draws attention to doula work as intimate and relational while highlighting the way boundaries are created, maintained, challenged, and transformed. Intimate labour as a theoretical construct provides a way to think about the kind of care doulas offer women across the reproductive spectrum."

Susan K. Grabia of the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Nursing calls the book "a comprehensive compendium of scholarly contributions from a diverse group of doulas, researchers and midwives," and adds that it "provides insight, clarification, direction, and considerations, for present and future growth of the doula model of care."

Learn more and order the book at the publisher's website.

Professor Castañeda (pictured at left) earned her doctorate in cultural anthropology from Indiana University. Her research interests focus on issues of identity, festival, religion, and expressive culture among communities of the African Diaspora in Latin America and the Caribbean.

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