Development and Women's Reproductive Health in Ghana, 1920-1982

This book investigates the history of women’s reproductive health in Ghana,arguing that between the 1920s and 1980s, it was largely driven by discourses ofdevelopment and population control rather than a concern for women’s health orrights.Between the 1920s and 1980s, the choices that Ghanaian women maderegarding their reproductive health were defined by development policy andpractice. Spanning the colonial and immediate postcolonial periods, this bookdemonstrates that whilst the substance of development discourse shifted overtime, principles of development continued to be used to impact and legitimisereproductive health policy and practices well after independence. The bookexplores Ghana’s pluralist health system, the introduction of maternal and childwelfare, the dominance of the Red Cross in Ghana’s maternal and child healthlandscape, nationalist pronatalism and global population activism. In order tounderstand how global iterations of development and health policy impactedordinary lives in Ghana, the author uses evidence from multiple ‘levels,’ includingprivate papers, national archives and records of international and transnationalorganisations. Providing balanced archival perspectives, the book includesextensive oral history interviews carried out with both rural Ghanaian women andtraditional birth attendants, as well as with midwives, doctors and family planningfieldworkers.This book will have an important impact on a number of historical fieldsincluding Ghanaian history, global health history, global histories of populationand family planning and histories of development. It will be of interest toresearchers and students in the history of public health, development, Africa,Ghana and gender.