Doula e maternità tra spazio pubblico e privato. Considerazioni dal campo su attivismo, ricerca e cambiamento

Public and applied anthropology builds and sheds light on the mutual interconnections between field, researcher, and society. This article looks at the emergence of a “doula movement” in Italy, its relationship with the researcher-activist, and its potential role within broader feminist and activist efforts in support of women’s rights in childbirth. The doula is a non-sanitary professional or lay individual that accompanies women on the path to motherhood by providing them with emotional, practical, and relational support. Her place is next to the mother, in both public and private spaces. Doulas intrinsically serve as enabling agents for women’s empowerment, self-awareness, and overall well-being as mothers. This paper deploys three main interpretative keys to frame and interpret the broader scenario: language, boundaries, and emotions. Being both a researcher and a doula, I raise questions concerning benefits and risks of an insider and activist approach to the subject, the viability of ethnography as a means of social change, and of the go-between role of the ethnographer. In addition to the well-known responsibilities 1) on the field, 2) during the writing process, and 3) in the aftermath of publication, this article suggests a fourth concern for the public anthropologist: the very choice of the field. It explores how a diffused and engaged restitution process throughout the fieldwork constitutes the basis for a collaborative endeavor. This undertaking can be interpreted as an aim to promote social change through and beyond the intellectual product of ethnographic research.