School of Life Sciences

photo of Rebecca Ashley

Ms Rebecca Ashley

Post:School Tutor (Ecology and Evolution)
Email:R.E.J.Ashley@sussex.ac.uk
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Role

I am a PhD candidate in the Department of Anthropology. My research explores industrialised midwifery practice, risk management and audit technologies in post-crisis Iceland. I am interested in the emergence of bureaucratic forms of risk governance, the everyday politics of birth work, and how midwives negotiate instability and crisis.

I completed a BA in Anthropology at the University of Sussex (First Class Honors, 2005-8), and an MA in Anthropological Research Methods at SOAS, University of London (Merit, 2009-10). I am a qualified midwife, and hold a BSc in Midwifery Studies from King's College London (First Class Honors, 2011-14). 

I am a graduate associate at the Centre for Cultures of Reproduction, Technologies and Health (CORTH) at Sussex. I am a member of the Association of Radical Midwives, and sit on the advisory board of the Vagina Museum

I am supervised by Professor Maya Unnithan and Dr Rebecca Prentice

My doctoral research is funded by a +3 ESRC/Sussex DTC studentship.

Activities

Conference and workshop presentations: 

'A short history of radical midwifery.' Róttæki Sumarháskólinn/Radical Summer University (Reykjavík, August 2017).

'Protocols for place of birth: evidence-based guidance.' Risk and power in maternal health seminar (UCL Anthropology Department, February 2015).

‘On being critical at the bottom of the pyramid.’ Shaping our science: medical anthropology, interdisciplinarity and public space (EASA Medical Anthropology Young Scholars, University of Oxford, July 2010). 

Publications:

NJF Nordic Midwifery Conference 2016: a report for CORTH, University of Sussex.