Abstract:
Drawing on ethnographic research and interviews with 60 urban Indigenous Papuan
parents, we investigate how a frontier context shapes childbirth and maternity care.
Building on arguments about how medical care may perpetuate violence and
inequalities, we show tensions and contestations between Papuans and the
Indonesian medical system over what care Papuans want and what is made
available to them. Urban Papuans embraced medical advice and hospital assistance.
They valued preserving the mother’s strength and fertility through vaginal childbirth
or avoiding caesarean sections, which some described as part of a larger agenda of
Papuan persistence amid Indonesian colonialism. But they often encountered what
we call ‘frontier obstetrics’: invasive technological interventions in hospital births
that display Indonesian power and authoritative knowledge, with little consideration
for consent or culture in medical encounters. Challenging authoritative knowledge
and contesting c-sections are ways some Papuans may disrupt and exceed the care
that they are offered.