Runestad's chapter explores the crystallization of sophrology in Europe and its uptake in Japan as a way to improve birth experiences and outcomes in a maternity clinic.
Assistant Professor of Anthropology Pamela Runestad published a peer-reviewed book chapter in an edited volume, “Therapy, Spirituality, and East Asian Imaginaries,” published by Amsterdam University Press. This publication is her third publication on maternity clinic practices in Japan.
The 2025 volume takes a case study approach to explore how and why global circulations of medical practices, technologies and ideas identified as “East Asian” have taken the forms they have. Runestad’s chapter explores the crystallization of sophrology (an “East-meets-West” philosophy used to mitigate pain) in Europe and its uptake in Japan as a way to improve birth experiences and outcomes in a maternity clinic.
She also articulates how sophrology is explained by academics, practitioners and the general public; noting that writers in all genres have participated in the circulation of unsubstantiated and problematic stereotypes of East Asia in describing Sophrology. She calls for critical reflexive reading and research skills that push writers to be more intentional and critically aware of their use of references. In addition to combining social science research and meta-analysis of ideological circulation, this chapter can be used in courses related to ethnography, maternal health, Japanese culture, writing across disciplines and critical thinking as everyday practice.
The chapter is titled “A Collaboration Between Mother and Baby: Sophrology in a Japanese Maternity Clinic and the Making of Medical Knowledge, and is published in “Therapy, Spirituality, and East Asian Imaginaries,” written by Eds Ioannis Gaitanidis, Luis Fernando Bernardi Junqueiria, Avery Morrow, and Sangyun Han.
Previous publications related to this project include:
- “Feeding Mothers, Making Citizens: Japanese Maternity Clinic Meals as Treatment, Care, and Identity.” Verge: Studies in Global Asias: 9(2): 157-185.
- “The Medical Anthropologist as Patient: Developing Research Questions on Hospital Food in Japan Through Auto-Ethnography.” AsiaNetwork Exchange: A Journal for Asian Studies in the Liberal Arts 23(1): 66-82.
- Runestad also published a peer-reviewed book chapter on how to teach ethnographies in medical and global health classes in Spring 2024.
- “Global Health Anthropology Pedagogy: Using book-length ethnographies to teach global health worldviews in American undergraduate courses.” Routledge Handbook of Global Health and Anthropology. Eds Tsitsi Masvawure and Ellen Foley.119-137.