“Everything in India Happens by Jugaad”: Dai-mas in Institutions in Rural Rajasthan

ABSTRACT

Since the introduction of a scheme promoting institutional deliveries in India, dai-mas (traditional midwives) have not become obsolete, but remain integral to institutional caregiving in rural areas in ways that are not always recognized. Based on ethnographic fieldwork in rural Rajasthan, I discuss two institutional contexts in which dai-mas were encountered – traditional midwife training event and hospital births. By examining how dai-mas’ authoritative knowledge is reconfigured within institutions, I suggest that the polysemic Hindi term jugaad – a phrase describing the kinds of improvisation required in resource-poor settings – captures different aspects of dai-mas’ relationships with and within institutions and the state of maternal caregiving in rural India.

KEYWORDS:

• India
• authoritative knowledge
• dai-ma
• institutional childbirth
• maternal health
• traditional birth attendants

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank my informants for sharing their lives and stories with me. I am also grateful for the constructive feedback of the anonymous reviewers and the supportive comments of the editors. I am thankful to Jennifer Ortegren and Nikki Kalra for their invaluable support during fieldwork and inputs in various drafts of this article. I would also like to thank James Staples and Federica Guglielmo for unceasing encouragement and inspiration.

Correction Statement

This article has been republished with minor changes. These changes do not impact the academic content of the article.

Notes

1. Anthropologists commonly use the term dai to refer to women who assist in birth in north India. In my field site dai was always followed by an affix ma (mother). Therefore, alongside Chattopadhyay et al. (2017) I use the term dai-ma.

2. Caste is a form of social stratification in India that has been classically characterized by endogamy, non-commensality, and hereditary occupations.

3. All names have been changed to protect anonymity.

Additional information

Funding

Fieldwork for this article and writing of the PhD dissertation were funded by the Brunel University London PhD studentship, the Parkes Foundation PhD grant and the Royal Anthropological Institute’s Sutasoma Award;Brunel University London [n/a];Parkes Foundation [n/a];Royal Anthropological Institute [Sutasoma Award].

Notes on contributors

Eva Lukšaitė

Eva Lukšaitė is a medical anthropologist teaching at the School of Medicine, Keele University. Her work investigates women’s encounters with biomedical institutions and government’s interventions into maternal and reproductive health in rural north India.