Infertility around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies

Published by University of California Press 2002

Infertility around the Globe

New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies

Edited by: Marcia Inhorn and Frank van Balen

https://doi.org/10.1525/9780520927810

Overview
Contents

About this book

This exceptional collection of essays breaks new ground by examining the global impact of infertility as a major reproductive health issue, one that has profoundly affected the lives of countless women and men. Based on original research by seventeen internationally acclaimed social scientists, it is the first book to investigate the use of reproductive technologies in non-Western countries. Provocative and incisive, it is the most substantial work to date on the subject of infertility.

With infertility as the lens through which a wide range of social issues is explored, the contributors address a far-reaching array of topics: why infertility has been neglected in population studies, how the deeply gendered nature of infertility sets the blame squarely on women's shoulders, how infertility and its treatment transform family dynamics and relationships, and the distribution of medical and marital power. The chapters present informed and sophisticated investigations into cultural perceptions of infertility in numerous countries, including China, India, the nations of sub-Saharan Africa, Vietnam, Costa Rica, Egypt, Israel, the United States, and the nations of Europe.

Poised to become the quintessential reference on infertility from an international social science perspective, Infertility around the Globe makes a powerful argument that involuntary childlessness is a complex phenomenon that has far-reaching significance worldwide.

Author / Editor information

Inhorn Marcia :

Marcia C. Inhorn is Associate Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education, School of Public Health, International Institute, and the Department of Anthropology at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. Her books include Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility, and Egyptian Medical Traditions (1994) and Infertility and Patriarchy: The Cultural Politics of Gender and Family Life in Egypt (1996). She is coeditor of The Anthropology of Infectious Disease: International Health Perspectives (1997). Frank van Balen is Associate Professor of Education and in the Faculty of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Amsterdam. He is the author of three books in Dutch on childlessness, infertility, and new reproductive technologies, as well as a large number of articles on these subjects in international journals.

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Part I. Discourses and Debates
1. Introduction. Interpreting Infertility: A View from the Social Sciences Frank van Balen and Marcia C. Inhorn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	3
2. The Uses of a “Disease”: Infertility as Rhetorical Vehicle Margarete Sandelowski and Sheryl de Lacey Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
3. Fertile Ground: Feminists Theorize Infertility Charis M. Thompson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	52
4. The Psychologization of Infertility Frank van Balen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	79
Part II. Gender and Body Politics
5. Infertile Bodies: Medicalization, Metaphor, and Agency Arthur L. Greil Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	101
6. Deciding Whether to Tell Children about Donor Insemination: An Unresolved Question in the United States Gay Becker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	119
7. Conceiving the Happy Family: Infertility and Marital Politics in Northern Vietnam Melissa J. Pashigian Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	134
8. Positioning Gender Identity in Narratives of Infertility: South Indian Women’s Lives in Context Catherine Kohler Riessman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	152
9. Childlessness, Adoption, and Milagros de Dios in Costa Rica Gwynne L. Jenkins, Silvia Vargas Obando and Jose´ Badilla Navas Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	171
Part III. The Infertility Belt
10. Problematizing Fertility: “Scientific” Accounts and Chadian Women’s Narratives Lori Leonard Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
11. Is Infertility an Unrecognized Public Health and Population Problem? The View from the Cameroon Grassfields Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	215
12. Infertility and Matrilineality: The Exceptional Case of the Macua of Mozambique Trudie Gerrits Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	233
13. Infertility and Health Care in Countries with Less Resources: Case Studies from Sub-Saharan Africa Johanne Sundby Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	247
Part IV. Globalizing Technologies
14. The “Local” Confronts the “Global”: Infertile Bodies and New Reproductive Technologies in Egypt Marcia C. Inhorn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263
15. Rabbis and Reproduction: The Uses of New Reproductive Technologies among Ultraorthodox Jews in Israel Susan Martha Kahn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	283
16. The Politics of Making Modern Babies in China: Reproductive Technologies and the “New” Eugenics Lisa Handwerker Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	298
17. Conception Politics: Medical Egos, Media Spotlights, and the Contest over Test-Tube Firsts in India Aditya Bharadwaj Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	315
Contributors Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	335
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	341

Language: English
Publisher: University of California Press
Pages
- Main content: 355

eBook

Published: May 30, 2002
ISBN: 9780520927810