Contingent lives [electronic resource] :fertility, time, and aging in West Africa / Caroline H. Bledsoe with contributions by Fatoumatta Banja ; foreword by Anthony T. Carter.
By: Bledsoe, Caroline H.
Contributor(s): Banja, Fatoumatta.
Material type:
BookSeries: Lewis Henry Morgan lectures: 1999.Publisher: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2002Description: 1 online resource (xx, 396 p.) : ill.ISBN: 9780226058504 (electronic bk.); 0226058506 (electronic bk.).Subject(s): Birth control -- Gambia | Family size -- Gambia | Fertility, Human -- Social aspects -- Gambia | Reproduction -- Gambia | Family Planning Services -- Gambia | Social Science | Régulation des naissances -- Gambie | Famille -- Dimension -- Gambie | Fécondité humaine -- Aspect social -- Gambie | SOCIAL SCIENCE -- Abortion & Birth Control | Anticonceptie | Vruchtbaarheid | Gezinsgrootte | Sociale aspecten | Geburtenregelung | GambiaGenre/Form: Electronic books.DDC classification: 363.9/6/096651 Online resources: EBSCOhost | Item type | Current location | Call number | url | Status | Date due |
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ელ.რესურსი
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ეროვნული სამეცნიერო ბიბლიოთეკა 1 | http://web.a.ebscohost.com/ehost/detail/detail?sid=085ec20f-ab4d-4210-b37f-8bf9f846a571%40sessionmgr4005&vid=0&hid=4114&bdata=JnNpdGU9ZWhvc3QtbGl2ZQ%3d%3d#db=nlebk&AN=348222 | Available |
Includes bibliographical references (p. 357-383) and index.
Foreword; Preface; 1. Introduction; 2. Reproductive Tolls and Temporalities in Studies of Reproduction; 3. Setting, Data, and Methods; 4. Managing the Birth Interval: Child Spacing; 5. Disjunctures and Anomalies: Deconstructing Child Spacing; 6. Realizing a Reproductive Endowment in a Contingent Body; 7. Time-Neutral Reproduction, Time-Neutral Aging; 8. Reaping the Rewards of Reproduction: Morality, Retirement, and Repletion; 9. Discovering Our Habitus: Contingency and Linearity in Western Obstetric Observations; 10. Rethinking Fertility, Time, and Aging; Appendixes; Glossary.
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 continge.
Description based on print version record.
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