Towards a Framework for Constructive Friction Processes: What Childbirth Practices in the Global South Teach Us about Destructive and Constructive Friction

This paper proposes a simple framework to understand constructive friction processes. In the framework, constructive friction is understood as a symmetrical integration between different bodies of knowledge and practice, and has three manifestations: integration occurring within actors, between actors, and at an institutional level. To explain this framework, we apply it to a recent study on childbirth practices in Latin America, specifically the changing relationship between midwifery and Western medicine. Latin American midwives have resisted destructive friction processes and are starting to participate in constructive friction processes in which their work is horizontally integrated with—and not into—Western medical practice. In our paper we also argue ethnographers have an advantage to apply the framework to understand and even engage in friction processes, because of our critical and methodological disposition.