
Contingent Lives
Fertility, Time, and Aging in West Africa
Caroline H. Bledsoe(Author)
University of Chicago Press
Published on 1. July 2002
Book
Hardback
416 pages
978-0-226-05851-1 (ISBN)
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Description
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.
Reviews / Votes
"Making brilliant use of the puzzle of women in The Gambia using modern contraception as a means to increase their fertility, Bledsoe shows - in a way no one previously has done so well - just why anthropological insights are needed in demographic research. Contingent Lives offers a rich contribution both to social theory and to social methodology." - David Kertzer, Brown UniversityMore details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Chicago
United States
Publishing group
The University of Chicago Press
Target group
Professional and scholarly
Dimensions
Height: 23 mm
Width: 16 mm
Thickness: 3 mm
Weight
680 gr
ISBN-13
978-0-226-05851-1 (9780226058511)
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E-Book
11/2010
1st Edition
University of Chicago Press
€46.79
Available for download
Person
Caroline H. Bledsoe, professor of anthropology at Northwestern University, is the author of Women and Marriage in Kpelle Society and is the coeditor of several books, most recently Fertility and the Male Life Cycle in the Era of Fertility Decline.