This collection explores birthing in the Pacific. Case studies from across the region show how simple contrasts between traditional and modern practice, technocratic and organic models of childbirth, indigenous and foreign approaches can be potent but problematic.

This collection explores birthing in the Pacific against the background of debates about tradition and modernity. A wide-ranging introduction and conclusion, together with case studies from Papua New Guinea, New Caledonia, Vanuatu, Fiji, and Tonga, show how simple contrasts between traditional and modern practices, technocratic and organic models of childbirth, indigenous and foreign approaches, and notions of "before" and "after" can be potent but problematic.