Maternities and Modernities
Maternities and Modernities
Looking for an examination copy?
This title is not currently available for examination. However, if you are interested in the title for your course we can consider offering an examination copy. To register your interest please contact collegesales@cambridge.org providing details of the course you are teaching.
Feminist theories have focused on contemporary, Western, experiences of maternity. This volume shows that birthing and mothering can be a very different experience for women in other parts of the world. The contributors document a wide variety of conceptions of motherhood in Asia and the Pacific, revealing how the experience of motherhood has been influenced by missionaries, colonial policies, and the introduction of Western medicine and biomedical birthing methods. They raise important questions about the costs and benefits of becoming a modern mother in these societies.
- A novel approach combining history and anthropology
- First book in this area to concentrate on non-Western mothering, explores mothering in Malaysia, India, Bangladesh, Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Vanuatu, The Solomon Islands
- Potential for use as a reader; particularly accessible to students because of broad editorial introduction and epilogue
Reviews & endorsements
"The articles in this impressive volume contribute substantially to illuminating understanding of women's experiences of maternity and the effects of modernity on them in other parts of the world." The Contemporary Pacific
"Undergraduates and above." Choice
Product details
March 1998Paperback
9780521586146
320 pages
224 × 150 × 20 mm
0.47kg
9 b/w illus. 5 maps
Available
Table of Contents
- Introduction: colonial and postcolonial plots in histories of maternities and modernities Margaret Jolly
- 1. Shaping reproduction: maternity in early twentieth-century Malaya Lenore Manderson
- 2. Modernizing the Malay mother Maila Stivens
- 3. 'Good wives and mothers' or 'dedicated workers'? Contradictions of domesticity in the 'mission of sisterhood', Travancore, south India Jane Haggis
- 4. Maternity and the story of enlightenment in the colonies: Tamil coastal women, south India Kalpana Ram
- 5. The dai and the doctor: discourses on women's reproductive health in rural Bangladesh Santi Rozario
- 6. Other mothers: maternal 'insouciance' and the depopulation debate in Fiji and Vanuatu, 1890–1930 Margaret Jolly
- 7. Just add water: remaking women through childbirth, Anganen, Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea Leanne Merrett-Balkos
- 8. From sisters to wives: changing contexts of maternity on Simbo, Western Solomon Islands Christine Dureau
- Epilogue: maternal experience and feminist body politics: Asian and Pacific perspectives Kalpana Ram.
