The afterlife is where we come from : the culture of infancy in West Africa / Alma Gottlieb.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gottlieb, Alma.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Beng (African people)--Social conditions.

Beng (African people).

Beng (African people)--Psychology.

Beng (African people)--Kinship.

Infants--Care--Côte d'Ivoire.

Infants.

Infants--Care.

Child rearing.

Kinship.

Social conditions.

Côte d'Ivoire.

Infants--Development--Côte d'Ivoire.

Infants--Development.

Child rearing--Côte d'Ivoire.

Physical Description:

xxv, 404 pages : illustrations, maps ; 24 cm

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2004.

Summary:

When a new baby arrives among the Beng people of West Africa, they see it not as being born but as being reincarnated after a rich life in a previous world. Far from being a tabula rasa, a Beng infant is thought to begin its life filled with spiritual knowledge. How do these beliefs affect the way the Beng rear their children? In this unique and engaging ethnography of babies, Alma Gottlieb explores how religious ideology affects every aspect of Beng child-rearing practices -- from bathing infants to protecting them from disease to teaching them how to crawl and walk -- and how widespread poverty limits these practices. A mother of two, Gottlieb includes moving discussions of how her experiences among the Beng changed the way she viewed her own parenting. Throughout the book she also draws telling comparisons between Beng and Euro-American parenting, bringing home just how deeply culture matters to the way we all rear our children. Anthropologists, anyone who is interested in the place of culture in the lives of infants and vice versa, and indeed all parents will enjoy The Afterlife Is Where We Come From.

Contents:

Part 1 Studying Babies, Studying the Beng

Chapter 1 Working with Infants: The Anthropologist as Fieldworker, the Anthropologist as Mother 3

Chapter 2 Do Babies Have Culture? Explorations in the Anthropology of Infancy 38

Chapter 3 The Beng World 62

Part 2 Days in the Lives of Beng Babies

Chapter 4 Spiritual Beng Babies: Reflections on Cowry Shells, Coins, and Colic 79

Chapter 5 Soiled Beng Babies: Morning Bath, Evening Bath, and Cosmic Dirt 105

Chapter 6 Sociable Beng Babies: Mothers, Other Caretakers, and "Strangers" in a Moral Universe 136

Chapter 7 Sleepy Beng Babies: Short Naps, Bumpy Naps, Nursing Nights 165

Chapter 8 Hungry Beng Babies: Breast Water/Ordinary Water/Sacred Water and the Desire to Breast-feed 185

Chapter 9 Developing Beng Babies: Speaking, Teething, Crawling, and Walking on (a Beng) Schedule 220

Chapter 10 Sick Beng Babies: Spirits, Witches, and Poverty 236

Chapter 11 From Wrugbe to Poverty: Situating Beng Babies in the World at Large 266.

Notes:

Includes bibliographical references (pages 335-384) and index.

ISBN:

0226305015

0226305023

OCLC:

52311952