Join the Department of Africana Studies for a celebration of Grace Hampton's legacy, a lecture from Esther Ajayi-Lowo, Ph.D., a facilitated Q&A session, a short video presentation, and delicious catered food and cake! Advance registration required.

Ajayi-Lowo is assistant professor of women and gender studies at Texas Christian University. Her passion as a scholar-activist-teacher lies at the intersection of gender, race, health care, and social justice. She is a full-spectrum doula with research interests in indigenous birthing epistemologies, African feminisms, transnational feminism, Black maternal health, and global reproductive justice. Ajayi-Lowo’s research has been supported by prestigious institutions, including the Social Science Research Council (SSRC) and the American Association of University Women (AAUW). She has published on sexuality, reproductive justice, African and African diasporic birthing, and decolonial pedagogy more broadly. Her article “Safe Motherhood Initiative: Whither African Indigenous Birthing Knowledge?” was published in Meridians in 2024. Ajayi-Lowo is currently rounding off her book manuscript, Decolonizing Childbirth: Mothers, Midwives, and Modernity in Nigeria, an ethnographic exploration of contemporary African Indigenous birthing epistemologies and approaches.

Read more about the lecture topic below!

“Rethinking Birthing Skill: Amplifying African Indigenous Birthing Epistemologies and Practices in Maternal Health Discourse”

Birthing skills have been defined solely by Western medical standards. “Skilled” birth attendants, for instance, are defined as those with Western medical birthing training, including doctors, nurses, midwives, and OBGYNs. In contrast, the assumption of being “unskilled” hinges on others without Western biomedical training. Hence, birth attendants such as traditional midwives, who do not possess Western medical training, are typically marginalized in maternal health policies and strategies, creating a hierarchical dichotomy between “skilled” and “unskilled” birth attendants. In addition, traditional midwives’ lack of birthing skills is typically premised on the lack of evidence of such skills on maternal health. However, measuring birthing skills through a Western medical lens is colonial as it dismisses other kinds of Indigenous and traditional birthing epistemologies and practices. Taking a decolonial feminist turn, this paper challenges the concept of birthing skill by validating African Indigenous birthing knowledges that have been carried from generation to generation. Expanding what counts as evidence of birthing skills, it centers the perspectives of Yoruba agbebi (traditional midwives) and the birthing experiences of abiyamo (mothers) who use agbebi’s birthing services in Nigeria. This paper draws on oral narration, interviews, focus groups, paper documentation, and years of researchers’ ethnographic observation to amplify Agbebi’s unique intergenerational birthing know-how and highlight the testimonies of mothers who have received quality care and experienced positive maternal and infant outcomes.