Contingent lives : fertility, time, and aging in West Africa / Caroline H. Bledsoe with contributions by Fatoumatta Banja ; foreword by Anthony T. Carter.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Bledsoe, Caroline H.

Contributor:

Banja, Fatoumatta.

Series:

Lewis Henry Morgan lectures ; 1999.

The Lewis Henry Morgan lectures ; 1999

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Birth control--Gambia.

Birth control.

Family size--Gambia.

Family size.

Fertility, Human--Social aspects--Gambia.

Fertility, Human.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (417 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2002.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Most women in the West use contraceptives in order to avoid having children. But in rural Gambia and other parts of sub-Saharan Africa, many women use contraceptives for the opposite reason-to have as many children as possible. Using ethnographic and demographic data from a three-year study in rural Gambia, Contingent Lives explains this seemingly counterintuitive fact by juxtaposing two very different understandings of the life course: one is a linear, Western model that equates aging and the ability to reproduce with the passage of time, the other a Gambian model that views aging as contingent on the cumulative physical, social, and spiritual hardships of personal history, especially obstetric trauma. Viewing each of these two models from the perspective of the other, Caroline Bledsoe produces fresh understandings of the classical anthropological subjects of reproduction, time, and aging as culturally shaped within women's conjugal lives. Her insights will be welcomed by scholars of anthropology and demography as well as by those working in public health, development studies, gerontology, and the history of medicine.

Contents:

Front matter

Contents

Foreword

Preface

CHAPTER 1. Introduction

CHAPTER 2. Reproductive Tolls and Temporalities in Studies of Reproduction

CHAPTER 3. Setting, Data, and Methods

CHAPTER 4. Managing the Birth Interval: Child Spacing

CHAPTER 5. Disjunctures and Anomalies: Deconstructing Child Spacing

CHAPTER 6. Realizing a Reproductive Endowment in a Contingent Body

CHAPTER 7. Time-Neutral Reproduction, Time-Neutral Aging

CHAPTER 8. Reaping the Rewards of Reproduction: Morality, Retirement, and Repletion

CHAPTER 9. Discovering Our Habitus: Contingency and Linearity in Western Obstetric Observations

CHAPTER 10. Rethinking Fertility, Time, and Aging

APPENDIX A: Evidence for the Gambian Results in Western Medical Research

APPENDIX B: Gerontology and the Plasticity of Aging

Glossary

References

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-383) and index.

ISBN:

9786612932823

9781282932821

1282932829

9780226058504

0226058506

OCLC:

692204892