Object lesson: Placenta/placentae

Abstract

This article delves into the multifaceted nature of the placenta, both as a physiological organ and a cultural symbol, through personal narrative, Indigenous-feminist scholarship, and scientific inquiry. Beginning with the author’s pregnancy experience and reflections on birth practices, it navigates the placenta’s role in childbirth, its cultural significance, and the lack of discourse surrounding its importance. The inquiry expands to incorporate contemporary issues such as microplastic pollution and its presence in human placenta, emphasizing the interconnectedness of environmental pollution and colonialism. Through the lens of anticolonial science and art as ritual, the article proposes artful avenues for engaging with placenta/placentae as an object lesson and environmental activism, advocating for a deeper understanding of our relationship with the land.

Keywords:

• Education
• arts in education
• anticolonial science
• land-based learning
• feminism and women’s studies
• feminist science

Notes

1 There are several complications that can happen with the placenta including placental abruption, previa, accrete, and retained placenta. Placental abruption is when the placenta peels away from the inner wall of the uterus before delivery. This can deprive a fetus of oxygen and nutrients and cause the mother heavy bleeding. Placenta previa is a condition that occurs when the placenta covers the cervix. Placenta accrete is when the placenta detaches from the uterine wall after childbirth. This can cause severe blood loss during delivery. If a placenta isn’t delivered within 40 minutes after childbirth, it’s called retained placenta. Left untreated, a retained placenta can cause severe inflection and life-threatening blood loss (Khong, T.Y, Mooney, E.E., Nikkels, P.G., Morgan,T.K., Gordijn, S.J. (Eds.). (2019) Pathology of the Placenta. Springer.).

2 Many Indigenous scholars and artists speak about the inherent relationship between land and culture (King, 2003; LaDuke, 2015; Robinson, 2015; Simpson, 2014; Watts, 2013).

3 Raman Microspectroscopy derives from Raman spectroscopy, a “technique used to determine vibrational modes of molecules…it is commonly used in chemistry to provide a structural fingerprint by which molecules can be identified” (Gardiner, 1989).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Nicole Rallis

Nicole Rallis is a settler of mixed European ancestry living on the traditional, ancestral, and unceded lands of the Quw’utsun peoples on Vancouver Island. She is a PhD candidate in curriculum studies and art education at The University of British Columbia. Her research interests include a/r/tography, poetic inquiry, embodied learning and land-based pedagogies. Nicole’s dissertation work investigates the ways that in-service art teachers in the Cowichan Valley are artfully engaging with the lands they work, live, and create with to think through important social, political, ecological and cultural issues. She is an editor and contributor to the book Walking in Art Education: Ecopedagogical and A/r/tographical Encounters.