Contingent Lives
Caroline H. Bledsoe · 2002
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About the book
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 ageing and the ability to reproduce with the passage of time, the other a Gambian model that views ageing as contingent on the cumulative physical, social, and spiritual hardships of personal history, especially obstetric trauma.
Book details
- Year
- 2002
- Language
- English
- Publisher
- University Of Chicago Press
- Editions
- 3
- Pages
- 416
- ISBN
- 9780226058511
Data source: Wikidata
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