"Everything in India Happens by Jugaad": Dai-mas in Institutions in Rural Rajasthan.

Lukšaitė, E

Abstract

Since the introduction of a scheme promoting institutional deliveries in India, dai-mas (traditional midwives) have not become obsolete, but remain integral to institutional caregiving in rural areas in ways that are not always recognized. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in rural Rajasthan, I discuss two institutional contexts in which dai-mas were encountered - traditional midwife training event and hospital births. By examining how dai-mas' authoritative knowledge is reconfigured within institutions, I suggest that the polysemic Hindi term jugaad - a phrase describing the kinds of improvisation required in resource-poor settings - captures different aspects of dai-mas' relationships with and within institutions and the state of maternal caregiving in rural India.

Citation

Lukšaitė, E. (2021). "Everything in India Happens by Jugaad": Dai-mas in Institutions in Rural Rajasthan. Medical Anthropology, 1 - 15. https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2021.1952575

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Jul 27, 2021
• Publication Date: Jul 27, 2021
• Journal: Medical Anthropology
• Print ISSN: 0145-9740
• Publisher: Routledge
• Pages: 1 - 15
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1080/01459740.2021.1952575
• Keywords: India; authoritative knowledge; dai-ma; institutional childbirth; maternal health; traditional birth attendants
• Publisher URL: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/01459740.2021.1952575