Bureaucracy and Surveillance-Care: The Partograph in Tanzanian Maternity Care.

Abstract

Based on fieldwork in maternity wards in Tanzania, I argue that the partograph - a graphical representation of a pregnant woman's labor - far exceeds its intended role as tracking and surveillance of labor progress. Through surveillance and its concomitant documentation, nurses, especially, also utilize this document to co-create care for themselves and their colleagues. These forms of care proliferate largely unseen by global health systems but are vital for understanding the meeting point of bureaucracy, surveillance, and care and the dynamics of maternity care in this and other lower resource settings. Nurses use the partograph to generate novel forms of surveillance-care.