Download or read book Pragmatic Women and Body Politics written by Margaret Lock and published by Cambridge University Press. This book was released on 1998-01-29 with total page 382 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This thought-provoking volume compares the responses of women in a variety of countries and cultural settings to modern medical technologies. The contributors describe how women in East Africa deal with infertility, how American women respond to pre-natal diagnostic screening, how women in China and Japan choose to make use of reproductive technologies. The essays also explore wider themes, such as the emergence of the breast cancer movement, and how women confront environmental hazards which threaten them and their families. It is often assumed that women are passive in the face of biomedical technology, but this book shows that they make pragmatic choices, with responses ranging from acceptance to rejection or indifference. The reception of biomedical technology is situated in its local cultural contexts, and vital issues of women's health are related to political and ethnic concerns.
Download or read book Body and Nation written by Emily S. Rosenberg and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2014-07-31 with total page 346 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Body and Nation interrogates the connections among the body, the nation, and the world in twentieth-century U.S. history. The idea that bodies and bodily characteristics are heavily freighted with values that are often linked to political and social spheres remains underdeveloped in the histories of America's relations with the rest of the world. Attentive to diverse state and nonstate actors, the contributors provide historically grounded insights into the transnational dimensions of biopolitics. Their subjects range from the regulation of prostitution in the Philippines by the U.S. Army to Cold War ideals of American feminine beauty, and from "body counts" as metrics of military success to cultural representations of Mexican migrants in the United States as public health threats. By considering bodies as complex, fluctuating, and interrelated sites of meaning, the contributors to this collection offer new insights into the workings of both soft and hard power. Contributors. Frank Costigliola, Janet M. Davis, Shanon Fitzpatrick, Paul A. Kramer, Shirley Jennifer Lim, Mary Ting Yi Lui, Natalia Molina, Brenda Gayle Plummer, Emily S. Rosenberg, Kristina Shull, Annessa C. Stagner, Marilyn B. Young
Download or read book Living the Body written by Meenakshi Thapan and published by SAGE Publications. This book was released on 2009-01-06 with total page 214 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This is a book about embodiment and identity in the context of particular women’s lives in an urban setting. It is concerned with the development of a sociology of embodiment in the context of women’s lives in contemporary, urban India. The focus on embodiment is mediated by gender and class, two critical elements that constitute identity in relation to embodiment. The study is based on material collected from interviews with working class women in an urban slum and with professional, upper class women, with young women in secondary schools and from material from a women’s magazine.
Download or read book The Female Circumcision Controversy written by Ellen Gruenbaum and published by University of Pennsylvania Press. This book was released on 2015-03-17 with total page 251 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: To the Western eye, there is something jarringly incongruous, even shocking, about the image of a six-year-old girl being held down by loving relatives so that her genitals can be cut. Yet two million girls experience this each year. Most Westerners, upon learning of the practice of female circumcision, have responded with outrage; those committed to improving the status of women have gone beyond outrage to action by creating various programs for "eradicating" the practice. But few understand the real life complexities families face in deciding whether to follow the traditional practices or to take the risk of change. In The Female Circumcision Controversy, Ellen Gruenbaum points out that Western outrage and Western efforts to stop genital mutilation often provoke a strong backlash from people in the countries where the practice is common. She looks at the validity of Western arguments against the practice. In doing so, she explores both outsider and insider perspectives on female circumcision, concentrating particularly on the complex attitudes of the individuals and groups who practice it and on indigenous efforts to end it. Gruenbaum finds that the criticisms of outsiders are frequently simplistic and fail to appreciate the diversity of cultural contexts, the complex meanings, and the conflicting responses to change. Drawing on over five years of fieldwork in Sudan, where the most severe forms of genital surgery are common, Gruenbaum shows that the practices of female circumcision are deeply embedded in Sudanese cultural traditions—in religious, moral, and aesthetic values, and in ideas about class, ethnicity, and gender. Her research illuminates both the resistance to and the acceptance of change. She shows that change is occurring as the result of economic and social developments, the influences of Islamic activists, the work of Sudanese health educators, and the efforts of educated African women. That does not mean that there is no role for outsiders, Gruenbaum asserts, and she offers suggestions for those who wish to help facilitate change. By presenting specific cultural contexts and human experiences with a deep knowledge of the tremendous variation of the practice and meaning of female circumcision, Gruenbaum provides an insightful analysis of the process of changing this complex, highly debated practice.
Download or read book Geographies of Women s Health written by Nancy Davis Lewis and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 339 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This international collection explores the relationships between society, place, gender and health, and how these play out in different parts of the world. The chapters work together in examining the complex layering of social, economic and political relations that frame women's health. The authors demonstrate that women's health needs to be understood 'in place' if gains are to be made in improving women's health and health care.
Download or read book Social Representations for the Anthropocene Latin American Perspectives written by Clarilza Prado de Sousa and published by Springer Nature. This book was released on 2021-04-30 with total page 424 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Anthropocene has become a field of studies in which the influence of human activity on the Earth System and nature is both the main threat and the potential solution. Social Representations Theory has been evolving since the 1960s.It links knowledge and practice in everyday life and is an effective way to deal with systemic crises based on common sense. This book assembles key contributions by Latin American scholars working with social representations in the social sciences that are of conceptual relevance to the study of the Anthropocene and that investigate the societal consequences of complex interrelations between common sense and topics of global relevance, such asthe contradictions of sustainable development, the construction of risks beyond risk-perception, health, negotiation and governance in the field of education, gender equality, the usefulness of longitudinal and systemic ethnography and case studies, and agency and the link between inequality, crises and risk society in the context of COVID-19, presenting theoretical and methodological innovations fromSpanish, Portuguese and Frenchresearchthat have rarely been available in English. • This is the first book to address the relevance of Social Representations Theory for the Anthropocene as a societal era• It presents the multidisciplinary scope of Social Representations• This book covers emerging research contributions in Social Representations Theory from Latin America• This book presents innovative research and commentaries by established researchers in the field• This multidisciplinary book should be in the libraries of many disciplines in the social sciences and humanities
Download or read book Virtually Virgins written by Jessica L. Gregg and published by Stanford University Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 236 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book provides a detailed, intimate portrait of a community of women living in a shantytown (favela) in northeastern Brazil, while exploring the complex interplay between gender, sexuality, power, and disease. It reveals how poor Brasileiras are constrained by dominant cultural constructions of female sexuality as a dangerous force that must be controlled by men; yet these women also manipulate these expectations by using their sexuality as a means to secure economic support from men. The book argues that these constructions affect their interpretations of medical discourse on the prevention of cervical cancer. Since women view sex as both a force they can't control and as a necessary tool for their survival, they choose to de-emphasize medical warnings against risky sexual behavior, with grave consequences for their health. The text is threaded with poignant, humorous, sometimes graphic, and always memorable depictions of the women’s lives in the shantytowns, making this serious anthropological study a highly readable one as well.
Download or read book Reproduction Childbearing and Motherhood written by Pranee Liamputtong and published by Nova Publishers. This book was released on 2007 with total page 312 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Although reproduction including infertility, abortion, childbearing and motherhood is a significant human experience, its social meaning is shaped by the culture in which birthing women live. Reproduction and its management, therefore, occur within the social and cultural context of the event. As such, reproductive beliefs and practices differ across social and cultural settings. This book focuses on reproduction, childbearing and motherhood. In this volume, the authors show that despite the modernisation of the society and advanced medical technology and knowledge in reproduction, traditions continue to exert influence on how the women and their families manage their reproduction, childbearing and motherhood in their societies.
Download or read book Rethinking Violence Against Women written by R. Emerson Dobash and published by SAGE. This book was released on 1998-09-11 with total page 292 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Based on a series of international workshops sponsored by the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundations, this cutting-edge volume advances theories, methodologies, and policy analyses relating to various forms of violence against women. Under the skillful editorship of Rebecca Emerson and Russell P. Dobash, Rethinking Violence Against Women is the joint effort of recognized anthropologists, psychologists, philosophers, sociologists, and historians in the field. Divided in three parts, this text takes a comprehensive examination of the following topics: +
Download or read book Blessed Events written by Pamela E. Klassen and published by Princeton University Press. This book was released on 2021-06-08 with total page 335 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Blessed Events explores how women who give birth at home use religion to make sense of their births and in turn draw on their birthing experiences to bring meaning to their lives and families. Pamela Klassen introduces a surprisingly diverse group of women, in their own words, while also setting their birth stories within wider social, political, and economic contexts. In doing so, she emerges with a study that disrupts conventional views of both childbirth and religion by blurring assumed divisions between conservative and feminist women and by taking childbirth seriously as a religious act. Most American women who have a choice give birth in a hospital and request pain medication. Yet enough women choose and advocate unmedicated home birth--and do so for carefully articulated reasons, social resistance among them--to constitute a movement. Klassen investigates why women whose religious affiliations range from Old Order Amish to Reform Judaism to goddess-centered spirituality defy majority opinion, the medical establishment, and sometimes the law to have their babies at home. In considering their interpretations--including their critiques of the dominant medical model of childbirth and their views on labor pain--she examines the kinds of agency afforded to or denied women as they derive religious meanings from childbirth. Throughout, she identifies tensions and affinities between feminist and traditionalist appraisals of the symbolic meaning of birth and the power of women. What does home birth--a woman-centered movement working to return birth to women's control--mean in practice for women's gender and religious identities? Is this supreme valuing of procreation and motherhood constraining, or does it open up new realms of cultural and social power for women? By asking these questions while remaining cognizant of religion's significance, Blessed Events challenges both feminist and traditionalist accounts of childbearing while broadening our understanding of how religion is ''lived'' in contemporary America.
Download or read book Matters of Choice written by Iris Lopez and published by Rutgers University Press. This book was released on 2008-12-10 with total page 213 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Sterilization remains one of the most popular forms of fertility control in the world, but it has received little acknowledgment for decreasing birthrates on account of its dubious use as a means of population control, especially in developing countries. In Matters of Choice, Iris Lopez presents a comprehensive analysis of the dichotomous views that have portrayed sterilization either as part of a coercive program of population control or as a means of voluntary, even liberating, fertility control by individual women. Drawing upon her twenty-five years of research on sterilized Puerto Rican women from five different families in Brooklyn, Lopez untangles the interplay between how women make fertility decisions and their social, economic, cultural, and historical constraints. Weaving together the voices of these women, she covers the history of sterilization and eugenics, societal pressures to have fewer children, a lack of adequate health care, patterns of gender inequality, and misinformation provided by doctors and family members. Lopez makes a stirring case for a model of reproductive freedom, taking readers beyond victim/agent debates to consider a broader definition of reproductive rights within a feminist anthropological context.
Download or read book Abortion Sin and the State in Thailand written by Andrea Whittaker and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2004-07-29 with total page 208 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book discusses abortion in a non-Western, non-Christian context - in Thailand, where over 300,000 illegal abortions are performed each year by a variety of methods. The book, based on extensive original research in the field, examines a wide range of issues, including stories of the real-life dilemmas facing women, popular representations of abortion in the media, the history of the debate in Thailand and its links to politics. Overall, the work highlights the voices of women and their subjective experiences and perceptions of abortion, and places these 'women's stories' in an analysis of broader socio-political gender and power relations that structure sexuality and women's reproductive health decisions.
Download or read book Local Babies Global Science written by Marcia C. Inhorn and published by Routledge. This book was released on 2012-11-12 with total page 328 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In the late 1990s, Egypt experienced a boom period in in vitro fertilization (IVF) technology and now boasts more IVF clinics than neighboring Israel. In this book, Marcia Inhorn writes of her fieldwork among affluent, elite couples who sought in vitro fertilization in Egypt, a country which is not only at the forefront of IVF technology in the Middle East, but also a center of Islamic education in the region. Inhorn examines the gender, scientific, religious and cultural ramifications of the transfer of IVF technology from Euro-American points of origin to Egypt - showing how cultural ideas reshape the use of this technology and in turn, how the technology is reshaping cultural ideas in Egypt.
Download or read book Cultural Technologies Within a Technological Culture written by Christian Papilloud and published by LIT Verlag Münster. This book was released on 2008 with total page 173 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: While there is already a huge research literature marked by the sociology of technology, the analyses gathered in this volume try to go beyond classical sociological approaches. Rather, the idea is that crossing traditional boundaries will lead to new results when it comes to understanding the effects of technologies. This idea is based on the assumption that the implementation of technology in daily life is no longer directly associated with binaries such as "technology - nature", "object - subject", "alienated and creative activities", "social determination and self-determination", "material culture and social practices" or "interactive communication and mediated communication". In fact, technology gains social relevance as it is uniquely embedded into cultural practices. So far, this argument holds espe'cially true for analyses within the sociology of culture, ethnome'thodology and related fields. While these fields have primarily dealt with "old" technologies like communication skills, body performances or trained craftsmanship, their fundamental argument should be extended to the more advanced technologies and to the use of latest high-tech.
Download or read book Thai in Vitro written by Andrea Whittaker and published by Berghahn Books. This book was released on 2015-06-01 with total page 276 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In Thailand, infertility remains a source of stigma for those couples that combine a range of religious, traditional and high-tech interventions in their quest for a child. This book explores this experience of infertility and the pursuit and use of assisted reproductive technologies by Thai couples. Though using assisted reproductive technologies is becoming more acceptable in Thai society, access to and choices about such technologies are mediated by differences in class position. These stories of women and men in private and public infertility clinics reveal how local social and moral sensitivities influence the practices and meanings of treatment.
Download or read book Reproduction Globalization and the State written by Carole H. Browner and published by Duke University Press. This book was released on 2011-03-25 with total page 310 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Collection uses ethnographies of globalization to explore the consequences of interactions between global processes and national structures on human reproduction and reproductive health in a range of contexts.
Download or read book Gendered Agency in War and Peace written by Maria O’Reilly and published by Springer. This book was released on 2017-11-03 with total page 341 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This book examines how gendered agency emerges in peacebuilding contexts. It develops a feminist critique of the international peacebuilding interventions, through a study of transitional justice policies and practices implemented in Bosnia & Herzegovina, and local activists’ responses to official discourses surrounding them. Extending Nancy Fraser’s tripartite model of justice to peacebuilding contexts, the book also advances notions of recognition, redistribution and representation as crucial components of gender-just peace. It argues that recognising women as victims and survivors of conflict, achieving a gender-equitable distribution of material and symbolic resources, and enabling women to participate as agents of transitional justice processes, are all essential for transforming the structural inequalities that enable gender violence and discrimination to materialise before, during, and after conflict. This study establishes a new avenue of analysis for understanding responses and resistances to international peacebuilding, by offering a sustained engagement with feminist social and political theory.
