Grace, Nicola
(2024)
Being with woman: a creative-critical exploration of midwifery identity and aspects of the mother-midwife relationship.
PhD thesis, University of Nottingham.
Abstract
This creative-critical thesis is comprised of two sections. The first section is a memoir, titled With Woman: A Memoir of Birth, Death and Midwifery. The second section is a critical commentary, ‘Telling Midwifery and Other Untellable Things Through Memoir’.
In With Woman I reflect on my life, seeking to catch glimpses of what it means to be a midwife, to be with women at this most significant time of their lives in the light of my own experiences of childbirth and the death of my daughter. Stories of births I have attended are woven throughout the memoir, alongside writing in a range of modes including prose, poetry and edited journal extracts. These pieces depict my life as a woman, mother, and midwife intersecting with the lives of others. Juxtapositions of pieces, references to the writing process, and repetitions of the same memory or story, foreground constructed, mutable qualities of narrative, memory and the self.
‘Telling Midwifery and Other Untellable Things Through Memoir’ forms the contextual and critical section of the thesis. I begin with an exploration of the social and political contexts of the midwifery practice depicted in With Woman before moving to a discussion of my creative practice-based, autoethnographic methods. Next, I define the subgenre of midwifery memoir within the broader memoir genre. This discussion is followed by an examination of ways in which midwives represent themselves in memoir, particularly in terms of their autonomy and how autonomy has been eroded from the mid-twentieth century to the present. The critical section ends with a switch of focus to analyse a selection of life writing outside the subgenre of midwifery memoir. I examine works by Maggie Nelson, Rachel Zucker and Arielle Greenberg, reflecting on how these authors use a range of formal modes, including ‘fragmented prose,’ to conceptualise fragilities of memory and self through narrative. I compare their approaches with my own in With Woman, and discuss collaborative narrative strategies. The critical contextual chapters are completed with a short conclusion that draws together the threads from the previous chapters, plus a meditative piece, ‘St Mary’s Churchyard, 10th October 2021’. This final part bookends the critical with the creative and emphasises that the thesis is intended as a creative-critical whole.
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