Kaja Skoftedalen

The overarching focus of this PhD project within Critical Medical Anthropology is to explore social dimensions of maternal health in Southeastern Tanzania. I am interested in dynamics between different actors' perspectives on pregnancy and birth, health and illness, and what is seen as constituting good maternal health. I will explore how women navigate political and cultural expectations of where and how they should give birth, and their experiences with health facilities and health workers.

This PhD-project is based on long-term anthropological fieldwork over a period of 12 months in 2023-2024. The fieldwork was based ob an ethnographic approach involving participant observation, unstructured interviews, spontaneous focus groups, and semi-structured in-depth interviews.

My PhD is part of the interdisciplinary NFR project Reporting in context: An interdisciplinary initiative to strengthen maternal health services and surveillance in Ethiopia and Tanzania (MATRISET), headed by Astrid Blystad. The MATRISET project is a collaboration between the University of Bergen, the University of Dar es Salaam, the Muhimbili University of Health and Applied Sciences, Addis Ababa University, and the University of Sussex.