Contingent lives [electronic resource] : fertility, time, and aging in West Africa / Caroline H. Bledsoe with contributions by Fatoumatta Banja ; foreword by Anthony T. Carter.
Material type: TextSeries: Lewis Henry Morgan lectures ; 1999.Publication details: Chicago : University of Chicago Press, 2002.Description: 1 online resource (xx, 396 p.) : illISBN:- 9780226058504 (electronic bk.)
- 0226058506 (electronic bk.)
- 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
- Gambia
- 363.9/6/096651 22
- HQ766.5.G25 B54 2002eb
- 2002 G-987
- WQ 205
Item type | Current library | Call number | URL | Status | Date due | Barcode | |
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ელ.რესურსი | ეროვნული სამეცნიერო ბიბლიოთეკა 1 | Link to resource | 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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