Bio

Giuditta Mitidieri is a Ph.D. candidate in Social Sciences at the University of Padova. In her research project she explores the experience of childbirth and childbirth assistance and how these vary in different settings: public hospitals, alongside and freestanding birth centers. Giuditta earned both her BA and her MA in Philosophy at the University of Bologna. Before that, she attended (and successfully dropped of) the Medicine and Surgery Faculty at the University of Bologna. Nonetheless she kept cultivating a vivid interest in medicine and human health. Her Bachelor thesis addressed the mind-body problem in modern philosophy through the lenses of contemporary neurosciences while in her Master thesis she started working on the complex relationship between female bodies and western medicine, with a focus on childbirth.

Abstract of the research project

My research project aims at exploring the experience of childbirth, describing beliefs, expectations, meanings and practices linked to this event. The research takes into account the perspective of both mothers and professionals (midwives and gynecologists). In order to do so I am studying in a comparative perspective three different birth settings, selected as paradigmatic examples of specific organizational logic and culture of birth: (1) a third level university hospital, (2) a private freestanding birth center and (3) an alongside public birth center – that is a woman-centred midwife-led facility under the management of a univeristy hospital. The first and the second settings can be considered as the two opposite poles in the spectrum of cultures around birth, while the third appears as one structure hybridised, nested within the other. It is aim of the research, in addition to describing how the experience of childbirth changes between these different contexts, to understand how (if) these two opposing cultures manage to coexist in the same environment and what kind of mutual compromises and contaminations have been put in place for this to happen. Data collection is based mainly on in-depth interviews and digital ethnography.

Publications (selections)

Conferences (selections)

9th December 2021 – Progettare un disegno di ricerca durante la pandemia da Covid-19: limiti e possibilità del digitale — VI Conferenza Nazionale dei Dottorandi in Scienze Sociali (Federico II University of Naples – Italy)

16th December 2021 – Mothers’ voices in Facebook communities: proposals for an emotional training of birth professionals – IX Convegno Società Italiana di Antropologia Applicata (Sapienza University of Rome – Italy)

22nd September 2022 – Riportare il vissuto materno ai professionisti del parto: proposte per tecniche elicitative nelle interviste in profondità – XII Forum Nazionale di Analisi Qualitativa (Roma3 University – Italy)

Co-tutele and periods abroad

Education

2014-2015 – Attended first year of Medicine and Surgery Faculty – Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna

2015-2017 – Bachelor Degree in Philosophy – Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna. Thesis: Descartes, Spinoza, Damasio: a Reflection between Philosophy and Neuroscience. Evaluation 110/110 cum laude

2017-2020 – Master Degree in Philosophy – Alma Mater Studiorum University of Bologna. Thesis: Varia et Innumera Accidentia: History and Critics of a Male Medicine for Female Bodies

2020-ongoing – PhD candidate in Social Sciences – University of Padua

Iris

https://www.research.unipd.it/rm/person/profile/form.htm?breadCrumbId=1&personId=137087