Understanding life through unwanted childlessness: Ethnography and fiction from Ghana,Bangladesh and ‘dystopia’ (Respond to this article at http://www.therai.org.uk/at/debate) |
| |
| Authors: | Sjaak van der Geest Papreen Nahar |
| |
| Institution: | 1. Emeritus Professor of Medical Anthropology at the University of Amsterdam, the Netherlands. His email is S.vanderGeest@uva.nl.;2. PostDoctoral Research Associate at the Department of Anthropology, Durham University, UK and Research Associate at the Institute of Health and Society, Newcastle University, UK. Her email is papreen.nahar@durham.ac.uk. |
| |
| Abstract: | Drawing on ethnographic work in Ghana and Bangladesh, and on a British dystopian novel, we sketch the social, emotional, and existential consequences of childlessness for women who desperately want a child, as is still common in the two countries where the authors carried out research. For these women, childlessness leads to loneliness and a sense of uselessness. Underlying these emotions is the notion that children constitute and personify continuity; childlessness thus stands for the discontinuation of life. |
| |
| Keywords: | |
|
|
