Cultural Politics of Reproduction

Maya Unnithan-Kumar is Professor of Social and Medical Anthropology at the University of Sussex. Her research interests are in the anthropology of the body, childbirth and infertility, reproductive technologies, mobility, health inequalities and human rights. Her recent research was funded by the Economic and Social Sciences Research Council focused on State and civil society understandings of reproductive rights and their application to health policy and programs in India.

• AcknowledgmentsList of ContributorsIntroduction: Migration and the Politics of Reproduction and Health: Tracking Global Flows through EthnographySunil K. Khanna and Maya Unnithan-KumarChapter 1. Migration, Belonging and the Body that Births: Pakistani Women in BritainKaveri QureshiChapter 2. To Be or Not To Be?: Cape Verdean Student Mothers in PortugalElizabeth P. ChallinorChapter 3. ‘Good Women Stay at Home. Bad Women Go Everywhere’: Agency, Sexuality and Self in Sri Lankan Migrant NarrativesSajida Z. AllyChapter 4. ‘No That’s not a Religious Thing, That’s a Cultural Thing’: Culture in the Provision of Health Services for Bangladeshi Mothers in East LondonLaura GriffithChapter 5. Health Inequalities and Perceptions of Place: Migrant Mothers’ Accounts of Birth and Loss in Northwest IndiaMaya Unnithan-KumarChapter 6. Acculturation and Experiences of Postpartum Depression amongst Immigrant MothersMirabelle E. Fernandes-Paul    Chapter 7. ‘A Mother who Stays but Cannot Provide is not as Good’: Migrant Mothers in Hanoi, VietnamCatherine Locke, Nguyen Thi Ngan Hoa and Nguyen Thi Thanh TamChapter 8. ‘A “City-Walla” Prefers a Small Family’: Son Preference and Sex Selection among Punjabi Migrant Families in Urban IndiaSunil K. KhannaChapter 9. Restoring the Connection: Aboriginal Midwifery and Relocation for Childbirth in First Nation Communities in CanadaRachel OlsonBibliographyIndex

“This is a welcome addition to the literature on both migration and reproduction, bringing together in interesting ways the causes and consequences of forcible or agentive movement upon birth practices, plans, and outcomes…Overall, the chapters complement each other… providing a nice mix of ethnographic breadth and detailed analysis.”  ·  Perveez Mody, King’s College, Cambridge“The phenomena that the volume addresses are complex, multi-faceted, timely and cutting-edge… Not only are these debates at the centre of anthropological inquiry, the strength of this volume lies precisely in its utility for both the humanities and the social sciences, while the writing is clear and appropriate for both advanced undergraduates and postgraduate students.”  ·  Anastasia Christou, Middlesex University