Abstract
This paper deals with midwives learning to do ultrasound scans in around week 17 of pregnancy and a central aspect of that learning: seeing and communicating the (ab)normal. It is an investigation into acquiring what Charles Goodwin refers to as a “professional vision” (1994) and into what that vision entails in terms of embodied skills. The focus is on “what we learn how to see” (Haraway 1991:190), or the structuring of embodied seeing in a medical practice.
The paper discusses the different parts of professional vision that Godwin points out: highlighting – in ultrasound that is the way in which deviances in the body of the foetus gets noticed by the midwives; coding – the way deviances are named; and material representations where the normal gets almost unrepresented but where there is a scopic focus on and interest in the deviant.
The paper discusses the different parts of professional vision that Godwin points out: highlighting – in ultrasound that is the way in which deviances in the body of the foetus gets noticed by the midwives; coding – the way deviances are named; and material representations where the normal gets almost unrepresented but where there is a scopic focus on and interest in the deviant.
Original language | English |
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Publication status | Published - 2010 |
Event | XVII International Sociological Association (ISA) World Congress of Sociology - Gothenburg, Gothenburg, Sweden Duration: 2010 Jul 11 → 2010 Jul 17 |
Conference
Conference | XVII International Sociological Association (ISA) World Congress of Sociology |
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Country/Territory | Sweden |
City | Gothenburg |
Period | 2010/07/11 → 2010/07/17 |
Subject classification (UKÄ)
- Gender Studies
Free keywords
- ultrasound
- normal
- pathological
- practice
- medicine
- midwives