Parteras en Resistencia
Photography +
oral history archive
A living memory of birth, care, and resistance.
Every midwife
carries history.
A photographic and historical archive of
birth, midwives, memory, and resistance.
This archive will document the lives, work, knowledge, and experiences of midwives whose contributions have too often been overlooked, marginalized, or erased from history.
Every story shared through the archive will be approached with informed consent, respect for cultural boundaries, and a commitment to collaboration and reciprocity.
Parteras en Resistencia is a digital photography and oral history project dedicated to preserving the histories, knowledge, struggles, and victories of traditional and community midwives in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities across the Americas.
As an ethnographer and midwife, I use photography, testimony, and collaborative documentation to build an archive that honors these remarkable women that inspire me, who have carried knowledge of birth and care across generations while enduring colonization, slavery, erasure from the maternal health system and criminalization. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation and interviews, this project centers parteras as guardians of birth, advocates, healers, activists, educators, historians, and knowledge keepers.
We tell their stories and celebrate their RESISTENCIA
Parteras en Resistencia
Photography + oral history archive
A living memory of birth,
care, and resistance.
Every midwife
carries history.
A photographic and historical archive of
birth, midwives, memory, and resistance.
This archive will document the lives, work, knowledge, and experiences of midwives whose contributions have too often been overlooked, marginalized, or erased from history.
Every story shared through the archive will be approached with informed consent, respect for cultural boundaries, and a commitment to collaboration and reciprocity.
Parteras en Resistencia is a digital photography and oral history project dedicated to preserving the histories, knowledge, struggles, and victories of traditional and community midwives in the Caribbean, Latin America, and Afro-descendant and Indigenous communities across the Americas.
As an ethnographer and midwife, I use photography, testimony, and collaborative documentation to build an archive that honors these remarkable women that inspire me, who have carried knowledge of birth and care across generations while enduring colonization, slavery, erasure from the maternal health system and criminalization. Grounded in ethnographic fieldwork, including participant observation and interviews, this project centers parteras as guardians of birth, advocates, healers, activists, educators, historians, and knowledge keepers.
We tell their stories and celebrate their RESISTENCIA
Not all knowledge
is meant to be public.
The people who carry these traditions
decide how their stories and knowledge are
DOCUMENTED, SHARED, and PRESERVED
Keep the Stories Alive
Komadrona Media Lab brings stories of birth, traditional care and community knowledge into the world.
Help us preserve these stories, bring them to new audiences, and keep the conversation going.
HOST
Bring a Komadrona Media Lab film to your community or organization. Host a screening followed by a conversation with a panel of experts, creating space to explore birth, traditional care, ancestral knowledge, and reproductive justice.
SUPPORT
Help preserve the stories, knowledge, and experiences that shape our understanding of birth and community care. Your contribution supports Komadrona Media Lab’s projects, including the Parteras en Resistencia Archive and its work to preserve midwives’ stories for generations to come.
BELONG
Follow the stories as they unfold. Sign up for our newsletter to hear about new projects, screenings, events, and opportunities to get involved. Komadrona Media Lab grows through the people who believe in and make space for this work.
What the Archive Holds
A growing collection of history, birth practices, community ,and research documenting the many lives of a midwife.
Oral Stories
Traditional Knowledge
Birth
Acts of Resistance
A Living Memory
The knowledge belongs to the midwives and communities who carry it.
Her knowledge lives in the hands that welcome life, the plants and practices passed down through generations, and the communities she has cared for.
A growing collection of birth practices, community histories, and research documenting the many lives of a midwife.
More than an archive, Parteras en Resistencia is an act of memory and resistance. It affirms that midwifery knowledge is not a relic of the past, but a living body of knowledge that continues to shape how communities understand birth and care.
Keep Her Story Alive
Sponsor the story of a midwife in your community.
Help preserve her story for future generations. Help sustain this work.