Search

© 2018 Objective: The objective of this study was to explore midwives’ experiences of being ‘with woman’ in the intrapartum period within the context of an unknown midwife model. Design: A descriptive phenomenological design was used with individual in-depth interviews. Transcribed interviews were analysed using thematic analysis that incorporated the data analysis framework offered by Amadeus Giorgi. Setting: Hospitals within Western Australia providing intrapartum care to women where the midwife is not usually known to them. Participants: Ten midwives were interviewed and recruitment ceased when data saturation was reached. Findings: Findings confirm the importance of building a connection to enable partnership with the woman and provide woman-centred care that is inclusive of her partner. Factors influencing midwives’ ability to be ‘with woman’ included the ‘systems’ approach to childbearing as well as common birth interventions prevalent within the public hospital system. Midwives experienced both rewards and challenges associated with being ‘with woman’ in the unknown midwife model, adaptability and self-awareness were features that enhanced the ability to be ‘with woman’ within this model. Key conclusions: Findings present new knowledge about being ‘with woman’ a phenomenon so central to the profession of midwifery, yet previously unexplored in the empirical domain. Insights gained reveal the intersection between the phenomenon and the unknown midwife model and highlight characteristics of the midwives that facilitate being ‘with woman’ such as adaptive expertise. Implications for practice: Understanding the concept of being ‘with woman’ through the lived experience of midwives provides unique insight into the applied practices of the phenomenon. Characteristics of being ‘with woman’ as well as attributes and strengths demonstrated by the midwives provides important data for education and development of the profession. Explicating the challenges faced by midwives seeking to be ‘with woman’ in the unknown midwife model is useful for health leaders of service delivery and policy development to consider innovative ways to enhance this important practice advised by professional philosophy.

This article will explore the presentation of the body of the terrorist in a range of British and American films with a particular emphasis on how these films combine political and romantic plotlines. As part of a broad consideration of how the terrorist is presented, this essay will concentrate in particular on Cal (1984), The Crying Game (1992), The Dancer Upstairs (2002) and The Quiet American (2002). Rather than fully engage with the more complex discourse of politics, often these films ask audiences to conceptualize the transgressive figure of the terrorist through the very familiar vocabulary of love and sexual desire. Some accounts of this process have tended to underestimate the significance of the body in relation to political contexts and this essay will seek to redress this imbalance. In all of the above films, the terrorist has a complex and uncanny identity; he or she is a dangerous, shape-shifting and seductive figure that first infiltrates and then attempts to undermine the culture he or she politically opposes. Building on recent work by film critics and queer theorists, this article analyses how each film engages in a reciprocal movement whereby the threatening body of the terrorist itself becomes subject to unforeseen threat or challenge in erotic and romantic scenarios. The threatening and threatened body of the terrorist is also a queer body for which personal, gender and sexual identity are fluid and performative. While appropriating the versions of the traditional romantic plot as a means of humanizing the terrorist, these films create a vision in which normative heterosexuality is a sphere of confusion, failure and destruction. We conclude with a discussion of how The Siege (1998) and Kiss of the Spider Woman (1985) follow different but related trajectories to the dominant model explored in this essay.