Birthing the nation: From 18th and 19th century racial pelvimetry science to present-day obstetric racism (AISSR Impulse Grant 2025-2026)
After World War II, the term ‘race’ was rightfully considered highly problematic in many European countries. As such, other terms, concepts, euphemisms, and even policies prohibiting any reference to ‘race’ were introduced. “Migration background”, “country of origin”, and “allochtoon/autochthon” are several examples of terms used in different European countries. Remarkably, however, ‘race’ does remain used in European medicine and health care – and even seems to be making a comeback in inclusion and diversity initiatives. Highly interesting is thus that currently, Dutch and European care professionals are using race-based healthcare in national contexts where ‘race’ is otherwise obscured or even illegal to use, such as in France. All the while, critical reflection of why and how exactly this contested construct ‘race’ is currently being used in care in different European countries remains largely unscrutinised. Within the AISSR Impulse Grant, we examine ‘race’ in Dutch healthcare, specifically in reproductive care in the Netherlands.
Project papers:
Paper 1 Exploring haunting pasts to decolonize the present: ‘race’ as a ghost variable in obstetrics and gynaecology: While the race science of the eighteenth and nineteenth century is relegated to phenomena of the past, language, ideas, and objects from this period remain circulating in the present. In this project we explore the presence of racial pelvimetry science of the eighteenth and nineteenth century as it appears in and haunts present-day obstetrics and gynaecology. Karkazis and Jordan-Young (2020) evoke the notion of haunting, to conceptualize ‘race’ as a ghost variable to trace “ideas of ‘race’ in particular niches of science, technology, and medicine where it is submerged and disavowed, yet wields power”. Adjacent to the archival research already being conducted by Paul Wolff Mitchell and Laurens de Rooy on racial pelvimetry science of the eighteenth and nineteenth century, Bahareh Goodarzi (post-doc) and Alana Helberg-Proctor will follow this racial pelvimetry science as it appears in obstetrics and gynaecology textbooks and scientific research in the twentieth and twenty-first century. Method: We will conduct content analysis of recent publications (twenty-first century) and Dutch historical obstetric textbooks found in medical archives such as Het Trefpunt voor de Medische Geschiedenis in Nederland (TMGN, the largest medical history library in the Netherlands) on Urk and research publications (twentieth century) we intend to explore what ‘race’ is made to be herein and, importantly, how these present- day practices relate to the racial pelvimetry science of the eighteenth and nineteenth century. Some of the preliminary archival research to identify and locate Dutch historical obstetric textbooks for this project has already been conducted.
Paper 2 “Kaukasisch ja/nee”: VBAC and the racialization of risk in obstetrics: Vaginal birth after caesarean (VBAC) prediction models are used to predict the chance of successful vaginal birth after a previous caesarean delivery and are used for obstetric clinical decision-making and patient counselling on the decision for VBAC (trial of labour) or an elective repeat caesarean section (ERCS). Most all models include a variable related to ‘race’ or ‘ethnicity’, yet the inclusion of these variables and their use in European practice is understudied and highly problematic. Namely, ‘race’ and ‘ethnicity’ here serve as proxies for a plethora of social, economic, historical and other risk factors, but are in clinical practice essentialized into biological types. Method: To gain understanding of how racialization occurs in Dutch medical context we will firstly document which VBAC models are currently being used in the Netherlands, and examine how these models were developed and the racial and ethnic variables included in them. Secondly, through focus groups with obstetric health care professionals using these models we will examine what these racial and ethnic terms and categories mean to health care professionals and how patients are categorized into them.
Funding: UvA Amsterdam Institute for Social Science Research (AISSR) Impulse Grant 2025
Project period: Sep 2025 – Sep 2026
Team:
Project leader: Dr. Alana Helberg-Proctor
Post-doc: Dr. Bahareh Goodarzi is a midwife lecturer and assistant professor (0.4 FTE) at the Department of Midwifery Science Amsterdam UMC, Vumc / AR&D / UMCG / AVAG, InHolland. Goodarzi received her PhD in 2023 on risk selection in maternal and newborn care. The focus of her current work is reproductive justice, obstetric racism, and medical racialization.
External advisor: Dr. Laurens de Rooy is a historian of science and medicine specialized in history of anatomy, zoology and anthropology, focused on the collections of Museum Vrolik, the Anatomical Museum of the University of Amsterdam. Laurens is director of Museum Vrolik and an Assistant Professor of Medical History in the Department of Medical Biology at the Amsterdam University Medical Centre. Laurens is also a PI of the NWA project “Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums.”
External advisor: Dr. Paul J. Wolff Mitchell is an independent archival researcher and anatomical collections specialist. Paul’s specializations include his research on the history of racial science and anatomical collections, focusing on decolonization and restitution. He was a postdoctoral researcher in the Health, Care and the Body programme group at the University of Amsterdam, Department of Anthropology, and part of the Dutch Research Council supported project, “Pressing Matter: Ownership, Value and the Question of Colonial Heritage in Museums.”
