Fertility, Conjuncture, Difference

In the last forty years anthropologists have made major contributions to understanding the heterogeneity of reproductive trends and processes underlying them. Fertility transition, rather than the story of the triumphant spread of Western birth control rationality, family forms, and modern technology to the whole world, reveals a diversity of reproductive means and ends continuing before, during, and after transition. This collection brings together anthropological… (more)

In the last forty years anthropologists have made major contributions to understanding the heterogeneity of reproductive trends and processes underlying them. Fertility transition, rather than the story of the triumphant spread of Western birth control rationality, family forms, and modern technology to the whole world, reveals a diversity of reproductive means and ends continuing before, during, and after transition. This collection brings together anthropological case studies which employ a 'conjunctural' approach (as an alternative to mainstream demographic models of 'fertility decision-making') and places them in a comparative framework to address how fertility is simply one element of a complex anthropological or compositional demography in which the formation and size of families is not decided solely or primarily by reproduction.