| Description |
1 online resource (xviii, 257 pages) : illustrations |
| Contents |
Fertility and the politics of identity in Cameroon -- The short-lived marriage of a king's wife : Paulette's "plugged fertility" and blocked mobility -- Being Bangangté: social organization and identity -- Cooking inside : the symbolic construction of gender, marriage and fertility -- The kitchen plundered : fear of infertility -- Seeking remedies : medical pluralism and the distribution of fear -- "Then we were many" : the search for vitality in a changing context -- Appendix. Kings of Bangangté |
| Summary |
"Plundered Kitchens, Empty Wombs examines the symbolic language of food, fertility, and infertility in a small, mountainous African kingdom to explore more general notions of gender, modernity, and cultural identity. In the Cameroon grassfields, an area of high fertility, women hold a paradoxical fear of infertility. By combining symbolic, political-economic, and historical analyses, Pamela Feldman-Savelsberg traces the way reproductive threat is invoked in struggles over gender and ethnic identities. Women's fears of reproductive disorders, she finds, are an important mode of expression for their worries about much larger issues, such as rural poverty, brought about or exacerbated by political and economic changes in this century. A lively case study of an infertile queen who flees the palace sets the stage for discussions of the ethnographic and historical setting, the symbolism of fertility and infertility, and the development and interaction of cosmopolitan and ethno-gynecologies. The book concludes with an analysis of the links between women's role in human reproduction and the divine king's role in social reproduction, both occurring in the rapidly changing context of a multiethnic African nation. Plundered Kitchens, Empty Wombs underscores the relevance of medical anthropology to other anthropological specializations, as well as to epidemiologists, population specialists, and development planners. It should reach a broad audience in medical anthropology, public health, and women's studies"--Publisher's description |
| Bibliography |
Includes bibliographical references (pages 225-248) and index |
| Notes |
Master and use copy. Digital master created according to Benchmark for Faithful Digital Reproductions of Monographs and Serials, Version 1. Digital Library Federation, December 2002. http://purl.oclc.org/DLF/benchrepro0212 MiAaHDL |
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digitized 2010 HathiTrust Digital Library committed to preserve pda MiAaHDL |
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Print version record |
| Subject |
Women, Ngangte -- Ethnic identity
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Women, Ngangte -- Psychology
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Women, Ngangte -- Health and hygiene
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Fertility, Human -- Cameroon -- Bangangté (Kingdom)
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Fertility, Human -- Social aspects -- Cameroon -- Bangangté (Kingdom)
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Infertility, Female -- Cameroon -- Bangangté (Kingdom) -- Psychological aspects
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Human reproduction -- Cameroon -- Bangangté (Kingdom)
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Women, Black -- Cameroon -- Bangangté (Kingdom) -- Social conditions -- 20th century
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Ethnology.
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Infertility, Female -- ethnology
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Infertility, Female -- psychology
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Anthropology, Cultural
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Women -- psychology
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Ethnology
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Fertility, Human
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Human reproduction
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Manners and customs
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Population
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Bangangté.
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Vrouwen.
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Voortplanting (biologie)
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Sociale status.
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Femmes -- Cameroun -- Santé et hygiène.
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Fertilité humaine -- Cameroun -- Maham.
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Women.
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Gender roles.
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Role behavior.
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| SUBJECT |
Bangangté (Kingdom) -- Population
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Bangangté (Kingdom) -- Social life and customs
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Cameroon |
| Subject |
Africa -- Bangangté (Kingdom)
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Kamerun
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Bangangté
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| Genre/Form |
Ethnographies.
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Études ethnographiques.
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| Form |
Electronic book
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| LC no. |
98051223 |
| ISBN |
9780472904259 |
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0472904256 |
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