Simona Spiegel

State initiatives to combat racial disparities in maternal mortality call forth Black and Indigenous midwives, who are identified as a key solution for their unique capacity to provide racially congruent, person-centered care that notably improves birth outcomes. Midwives are known to use intuition as authoritative knowledge, or knowledge that becomes the basis upon which decisions are made and actions are taken. It is both a life-saving tool that resists biomedical jurisdiction, and sets midwifery apart from mainstream healthcare. While the intuitive traditions of Black midwives were once the primary form of U.S. birth care, Black and Indigenous midwives now make up less than ten percent of the midwifery workforce, and encounter racialized barriers to training and certification. In response to these conditions, Black and Indigenous midwives are forming trainee support groups to create opportunities for learning, mentorship, and political organizing. Focusing on the experiences of midwifery trainees in these collectives, this research investigates meanings, modalities, and uses of intuition among Black and Indigenous midwives in three spheres – pedagogy, practice, and politics – to answer: what does it mean to foster life in the face of death?