Public culture, private birth social patterns of Amish domestic space /

by Jolly, Natalie.

In this dissertation research project I argue that birth plays a significant role in the lives of Amish women and men. And though birth has long been understood as merely a biological process, my research demonstrates that it is also a significant feature in the landscape of a society. This analysis of birth in several Pennsylvania Amish communities yields knowledge about both the particularities of Amish women’s birth experiences as well as the sociocultural significance of birth within the larger Amish community. Aspects of the domestic realm, such as birth, continue to be overlooked in sociological analyses because of their location in the private sphere. Instead of lacking sociological relevance, these personal matters hold the key to unlock a more nuanced understanding of communities and of society more generally. It is unlikely that sociological findings of consequence will be generated without an appreciation of the relationship between the public and private spheres – this has certainly been the case for the scholarship on the Amish. It is only with a careful attention to the interwoven relationship between the public and the private that we will be able to produce research that approaches the level of complexity and intricacy inherent in society today. iii