REPRODUCTIVE JUSTICE AND CHILDBIRTH REFORM: DOULAS AS AGENTS OF SOCIAL CHANGE by

This dissertation is an investigation of doulas as agents of social change through the lens of feminist theory. Doulas are nonmedical health care workers who provide physical, emotional, and informational support during pregnancy, childbirth, and/or the postpartum period. Because of doulas ’ willingness to work within the structures of the hospital setting, some have questioned the effectiveness of doulas as change-makers. While much feminist scholarship on the politics of birth centralizes the issue of medicalization, I demonstrate that expanding this line of analysis aids in better understanding the cultural impact of doula care as part of a larger picture of reproductive health advocacy. Through discourse analysis, participant observation, face-to-face ethnographic interviews, and online surveys, I track the goals and effects doulas ascribe to their work, both activist and professional, and on both an individual and group level. Rather than asking whether doulas can successfully challenge the medicalization of birth, I seek to understand how the doula movement contributes to social justice through challenging various overlapping axes of inequality, related to race, class, gender, and sexuality. This analysi