Practices of midwives in Denmark and Sweden: bodies, politics and social change

In this project I pose questions concerning health care professions and their relations to the state and social change. My focus is on the work of midwives in Denmark and Sweden, where the midwife profession has been shaped partly in different ways, and includes work in different fields. Contested issues in political debates that are connected to the midwife profession, and that I am particularly interested in, are access to assisted reproduction for same sex couples and single persons, as well as access to abortion. In relation to changes in the work of midwives, I explore how midwives in Denmark and Sweden respectively, understand their driving forces in their work and their relation to the state, how they have chosen their specific field within the profession and how they consider norms for bodies, gender and sexuality.