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Budapest W1: Politics of Reproduction - The Politics of Reproduction


Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp. 1991. “The Politics of Reproduction.” Annual Review of Anthropology, Vol. 20 (1991), pp. 311-343.


"social anthropologists whose studies of kinship, marriage, parenting, and fosterage recognized reproduction as systematically organized, sensitive to changes in domestic economies, and therefore always an aspect of the distribution of power in any society" p.313

 "The simultaneous demands of work and childcare deeply constrain women's reproductive decisions, the value placed on children, and the social organization of childcare including its commodification" p.314

 Population control: The internationalisation of state and market interests

 New Reproductive Technologies - are they used by male doctors in order to usurp female reproductivity? Are infertile women being used as guinea pigs, whilst poor fertile women are recruited as surrogates? So called "cures" for infertility are also placing more emphasis on biological parenthood, making involuntary childlessness more problematic. P.315
In addition, pre-birth screening often leads to the abortion of foetus' not deemed 'perfect' enough

 Medicalisation and its discontents

 "While the benefits are undeniable, the spread of medical hegemony, through the introduction of hospital-based birth technologies, for instance, often displaces or competes with indigenous practices and may disorganise or extinguish local forms of knowledge" p.318

 Teen pregnancies - there is little research done on this because of it's categorisation as a "social problem" - for some young mothers, it can prove a positive boost in their trajectory towards adulthood, whilst for others, it can continue a cycle of despair.

 The Construction of infancy and the politics of child survival

 "In investigating poor birth outcomes, which are generally labeled "social problems"when they involve the poor, anthropologists have noted powerful socioeconomic circumstances that cannot be corrected via individual action. Primary in a complex web of problems is expensive, inadequate, and sometimes patronising healthcare that leads to miscommunication, distrust, and irregular use of pre- and perinatal services" p.324

 "Anthropologists have examined infanticide as a post-gestational form of reproductive control, as a mechanism of gender determination and birth spacing, and as an"investment strategy"for privileging some offspring over others" p.326

 Rethinking the demographic transition

 "Western development rhetoric often assumes that societies lacking contraceptive technology cannot consciously control reproduction. Ethnographic studies demonstrate that individuals and communities consciously develop practices to achieve desired fertility, whether low or high." p.326 

 Networks of Nurturance

 "The Western propensity to conflate biological and social parenthood has isolated motherhood as both a social practice and a kinship category, masking the need for (and limiting the analysis of) the multiple non-kin caretakers- nannies, au pairs, and domestic labourers - who extend the basis of childcare in capitalist economies" p.329














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