000			02012nam a2200253 4500
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008			250417b |||||||| |||| 00| 0 eng d
020			_a9780226058528
037			_cTextual
040			_aRTL _cRTL
084			_aY:5:5(Y).658 P2 _qRTL
100			_aBledsoe, Caroline H.
245			_aContingent lives: Fertility, time, and aging in West Africa
260			_aChicago _bUniversity of Chicago Press _c2002
300			_axx, 396 p. : ill. _bIncludes bibliographical references and index
490			_aLewis Henry Morgan lectures/1999
520			_a 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.
650			_aBirth control- Gambia _9752408
650			_aFamily size- Gambia _9752409
650			_aFertility, Human- Social aspects- gGambia _9752410
700			_aAnthony T. Carter _9752411
700			_aFatoumatta Banja _9752412
942			_2CC _n0 _cTB _hY:5:5(Y).658 P2
999			_c1309123 _d1309123