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In this comprehensive and provocative study of maternal reactions to child death in Guinea-Bissau, West Africa, anthropologist Jónína Einarsdóttir challenges the assumption that mothers in high-poverty societies will neglect their children and fail to mourn their deaths as a survival strategy. Based on ethnographic fieldwork conducted from 1993 to 1998 among the matrilineal Papel, who reside in the Biombo region, this work includes theoretical discussion of reproductive practices, conceptions of children, childcare customs, interpretations of diseases and death, and infanticide. Einarsdóttir also brings compelling narratives of life experiences and reflections of Papel women.
Distance and proximity are concepts par excellence to describe what may happen in times of illness and suffering. When one faces distress and suffering the need of proximity of the sick or suffering person may manifest itself or - the opposite - a need of distance exists. A doctor or an anthropologist may believe proximity is necessary, but the other can disagree. Illness raises questions for all individuals. The sick individual will question his/her relationship with others and being-in-the-world. The authors of this volume take up issues of distance and proximity in illness and suffering in various situations. The papers were first discussed in a workshop at the 8th Biennial EASA (European Association of Social Anthropologists) conference in Vienna in September 2004.
Caring for small children and the family in Burkina Faso is hard work. Although the health infrastructure in Burkina Faso is weak and many citizens feel neglected by the state, Fragile Futures shows that the state continues to play an important role in people’s engagements and hopes for a better future. Based on more than twenty years of research engagement with Burkina Faso, it is an ethnography of how rural citizens address ambiguities of sickness and care and try to secure a decent future for themselves and their families.
In An Introduction to Childhood, Heather Montgomery examines the role children have played within anthropology, how they have been studied by anthropologists and how they have been portrayed and analyzed in ethnographic monographs over the last one hundred and fifty years. Offers a comprehensive overview of childhood from an anthropological perspective Draws upon a wide range of examples and evidence from different geographical areas and belief systems Synthesizes existing literature on the anthropology of childhood, while providing a fresh perspective Engages students with illustrative ethnographies to illuminate key topics and themes
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Most children in Africa start working from a very early age, helping the family or earning wages. Should this work be abolished, tolerated, or encouraged? Such questions are the subject of much debate. International and national organizations, employers, parents, and children often have diverse opinions and put pressure in different directions. The contributions in this book offer intensive fieldwork and careful analysis of children's activities, considering childhood and family, work and play, work in rural and urban contexts, paths to learning, work and school, and children's rights. (Series: Reports on African Studies / Beitrage zur Afrikaforschung - Vol. 52)
Catholic Women of Congo-Brazzaville explores the changing relationship between women and the Catholic Church from the establishment of the first mission stations in the late 1880s to the present. Phyllis M. Martin emphasizes the social identity of mothers and the practice of motherhood, a prime concern of Congolese women, as they individually and collectively made sense of their place within the Church. Martin traces women's early resistance to missionary overtures and church schools, and follows their relationship with missionary Sisters, their later embrace of church-sponsored education, their participation in popular Catholicism, and the formation of women's fraternities. As they drew together as mothers and sisters, Martin asserts, women began to affirm their place in a male-dominated institution. Covering more than a century of often turbulent times, this rich and readable book examines an era of far-reaching social change in Central Africa.
Nominated for the 2007 Book Prize by the Council on Anthropology and Reproduction (AAA) Reproductive disruptions, such as infertility, pregnancy loss, adoption, and childhood disability, are among the most distressing experiences in people’s lives. Based on research by leading medical anthropologists from around the world, this book examines such issues as local practices detrimental to safe pregnancy and birth; conflicting reproductive goals between women and men; miscommunications between pregnant women and their genetic counselors; cultural anxieties over gamete donation and adoption; the contested meanings of abortion; cultural critiques of hormone replacement therapy; and the globalization of new pharmaceutical and assisted reproductive technologies. This breadth - with its explicit move from the “local” to the “global,” from the realm of everyday reproductive practice to international programs and policies - illuminates most effectively the workings of power, the tensions between women’s and men’s reproductive agency, and various cultural and structural inequalities in reproductive health.