CAR Newsletter for Fall 2020

In this issue:

  • CAR Announcements
    • CAR Business Meeting Coming Soon!
    • Zoom Book Party Happy Hour!
  • From the C-Chair
  • Member Announcements :
    • Robbie Davis-Floyd would like to remind everyone to add their recent books to the CAR Annotated Bibliography!
    • CAR Graduate Paper Award Winner: Congratulations Heather Wurtz!
  • Member Publications
    • Michal Raucher, Assistant Professor in the Department of Jewish Studies at Rutgers University, is pleased to announce the publication of her new book, Conceiving Agency: Reproductive Authority among Haredi Women (IU Press, 2020).
    • Patricia Zavella has published a new book, The Movement for Reproductive Justice: Empowering Women of Color Through Social Activism (New York University Press, 2020).
    • Lydia Dixon has published a new book titled, Delivering Health: Midwifery and Development in Mexico (Vanderbilt University Press, 2020).
    • Adrienne Strong, Assistant Professor in Anthropology at the University of Florida, has published a new book called Documenting Death: Maternal Mortality and the Ethics of Care in Tanzania (University of California Press, 2020)
    • Lydia Z. Dixon (2020) Making Women into Protagonists: Midwives Reimagine the Mexican Childbirth Narrative, Medical Anthropology, 39:6, 521-537, DOI: 10.1080/01459740.2020.1714609
    • A special issue “Behind the Measures of Maternal and Reproductive Health: Ethnographic Accounts of Inventory and Intervention” was published in Social Science & Medicine, in June 2020. The issue was edited by Jan Brunson & Siri Suh.
  • COVID-19 and Reproductive Health
    • Several of our CAR members have been working on research related to COVID and reproductive health. You can read more about the research in this section!
  • Notes from the Field
    • Returning from the field: Reflections on Research and Motherhood By Megan Cogburn

      And many more! Click here to read!

CAR FALL 2018 NEWSLETTER

In this issue:

  • CAR Announcements
  • Member Announcements
  • AAA Panels on Reproductive Health
  • Member Publications
    • Guerra-Reyes, Lucia, and Ruth A. Iguiñiz-Romero. “Performing purity: reproductive decision-making and implications for a community under threat of Zika in Iquitos, Peru.”
    • Kasstan, Ben & Sarah Crook 2018. “Reproductive rebellions in Britain and the Republic of Ireland: Contemporary and past abortion activism and alternative sites of care.”
    • Kasstan, Ben. 2018. Irish voters repealed the eighth: Now it’s time to ensure access to abortion care in law and in practice.”
    • Kasstan, Ben, Meghann Gregg, and Jonathan Kasstan. 2018. Sanitizing public health language: A response to the CDC language controversy. PLOS Public Health Perspectives [blog].
    • Konign, Anika. “Parents on the Move: German Intended Parents’ Experiences with Transnatioanl Surrogacy”
    • M. Medich, D. Mindry, M. Tomlinson, D. Swendeman, “The Forthcoming pull of soccer and the push of Xhosa boys in HIV and drug abuse intervention in the Western Cape, South Africa.”
    • M. Merdich, D. Swendeman, W.S. Comulada, U.H. Kao, J.J. Myers and R.A. Brooks. “Protocol for Promising Approaches for Engaging HIV-positive Youth and Young Adults in HIV Primary Care Using Social Media and Digital Technology Interventions: typologies and evaluation.”
    • Morgan, Lynn M. (2018): “Human Life is Inviolable”: Costa Rica’s Human Rights Crucible.”
    • Morton, Christine and Henley M, Seacrist M and LM Roth. Bearing Witness: U.S. and Canadian Maternity Support Workers’ Observations of Disrespectful Care in Childbirth. Birth.”
    • Suh, S. 2018. “Metrics of survival: Post-abortion care and reproductive rights in Senegal.”
    • Taragin-Zeller, Lea. “Towards an Anthropology of Doubt: The Case of Religious Reproduction in Orthodox Judaism.”
    • Williamson, K. Eliza. 2018. “Care in the Time of Zika: Notes on the ‘Afterlife’ of the Epidemic in Salvador (Bahia), Brazil.”
  • Advanced Graduate Student Mentorship Column
  • Teaching
  • Notes from the Field
    • Adrienne Strong: Reflections on birth companions in Tanzania
    • Julie Johnson Searcy: Notes from the Field: South Africa

And many more! Click here to read!

CAR Newsletter Spring 2018

In this issue:

  • Member Announcements
  • Publication Announcements
    • Suzanne Gottschang: Formulas for Motherhood in a Chinese Hospital
    • Marcia Inhorn: America’s Arab Refugees
    • Kristen J. Wilson: Others’ Milk: The Potential of Exceptional Breastfeeding
  • Notes From the Field:
    • Jessica Posega: Trauma, Travel, and Pro-Choice Activism in Belfast, Northern Ireland
  • Teaching Column:
     Tsip Ivry: Illuminating Women’s Reproductive Labour in Students’ Stories of ‘How Babies Come into the World
  • Click here for the link!

CAR Newsletter Fall 2017

In this issue:

  • AAA Meeting Guide with list of panels submitted by Members.

 

  • Publication Announcements
    • Lihong Shi, Choosing Daughters: Family Change in Rural China
    • Cecilia Tomori, Aunchalee E.L. Palmquist and EA Quinn: Breastfeeding: New Anthropological Approaches
    • Robbie Davis Floyd: Ways of Knowing about Birth: Mothers, Midwives, Medicine, and Birth Activism

 

  • Notes from the Field:
    • Mounia El Kotni: Obstetric Violence Hits the Headlines in France
    • Brenna McCaffery: Encounters with Activism and the Abortion Pill in Ireland
    • Fadley Husain: Belian and the Water Medicine

And more!

Click here for the link

CAR Newsletter Spring 2017

In this issue:

  • Report from G3 Conference: Migration Trajectories and Perinatal Health (Brussels, Feb 2-3, 2017)
  • SfAA Panel Guide!
  • News updates and Job Announcements
  • Exciting new member publications
  • Notes from the Field
    • Pregnancy, Childbirth and Technologies of Governance in Rural Tanzania by Megan Coburn
    • Return to the Field by Lauren Wallace who write about her fieldwork in Ghana
  • And more…!

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CAR Newsletter Fall 2016

In this issue:

  • AAA Meeting Guide with list of panels submitted by Members, including a panel organized by Robbie Davis-Floyd called “Back to the Basics of Birth”
  • CAR Advocacy – information about the Carework in the Academy Ad hoc Advocacy Committee, headed by CAR members Sallie Han and Jill Fleuriet
  • Important announcement from Robbie Davis-Floyd regarding, among other things, the Annotated Bibliography on CAR’s website and an exciting new Internship opportunity for students
  • Notes from the Field – rich ethnographic descriptions and notes including:
    • Gynecology Talk: Race-Sexuality-Class Privilege and Reproductive Encounters by Nessette Falu
    • Nutritional Epigenetics and Prenatal Diets: “I’ve been eating this way for years” by Natali Valdez
    • “Sexual panic” in Bluefields, Nicaragua by Ishan Gordon.
  • Community Engagement opportunity – the Projeto aBRAÇO a Microcefalia, in Salvador, Brazil, which support women who have given birth to babies affected by the zika virus.
  • Book Award and Member publications
  • And more…!

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CAR Newsletter Spring 2016

In this Issue:

Society for Applied Anthropology Annual Meetings 2016 Panel and Paper Guide for Anthropology and Reproduction.

 

CAR Advocacy Committee Statement on Abortion Legislation Published in Medical Anthropology Quarterly.

The CAR Advocacy Committee published MAQ Policy Statement opposing restrictive abortion legislation. Read the full statement here: “The Council on Anthropology and Reproduction (CAR) Opposes Legislation that Creates Barriers to Safe Abortion Care.”

Notes from the Field

The Role of Social Movements in Brazil and of UK/Brazil Partnerships in Changing Childbirth by Christine McCourt and Camilla Schneck AND Crisis, Uncertainty, Responsibility: Pregnancy in the Time of Zika by K. Eliza Williamson

Call for Papers on Sustainable Birth for Edited Collection due by May 15th.

In accord with the current focus on sustainability, we explore systematic and innovative solutions to excess maternal and neonatal mortality and morbidity that can be adapted across nations, regions, and communities to restore mother-centered and newborn-centered models of birth. Please send 250-word abstract to Kim.Gutschow@williams.edu by May 15, 2015. For more
information, please contact the editors.

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CAR Newsletter Fall 2015

In this Issue:

  • A list of reproduction-related panels and papers at this year’s AAA annual meeting
  • Notes from the field, advocacy reports, and conference reports from Jessica Lott, Robin Whitaker, and Mounia El Kotni
  • Award announcements
  • Recent publications
  • News updates from CAR members around the world
  • Opportunities and upcoming conferences and symposia
  • … and more!

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CAR Newsletter Spring 2015

In this Issue:

CAR meetup at SfAA, Thursday, March 26th

CAR History, “Looking Back: Narrative Histories of CAR”

By Eliza Williamson

For the current issue we asked long-time members to reflect on their experiences in CAR, past and present. We were able to collect two short interviews–one with Robbie Davis-Floyd and the other with Susan Erikson. Lynn Morgan also submitted an early memo on CAR’s advocacy initiatives. Various others helped us gather information on CAR’s beginnings.

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CAR NEWSLETTER FALL 2014

In this Issue:

Notes from the Chair: Notes on Teaching Anthropology

By Sallie Han

Teaching a course in the Anthropology of Reproduction in particular has presented itself as an opportunity – not only for my students, but also for myself – to read across the four fields of anthropology. This semester, I assigned the first chapter of Brigitte Jordan’s Birth in Four Cultures (in which she describes a biosocial approach to childbirth) with evolutionary anthropologist Wenda Trevathan’s “The Evolution of Bipedalism and Assisted Birth,” and Holly Dunsworth’s posts critiquing the obstetrical dilemma hypothesis on The Mermaid’s Tale blog (http://ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2012/07/thatobstetrical-dilemma-really-tied.html and http://ecodevoevo.blogspot.com/2012/08/that-obstetricaldilemma-really-tied.html).

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CAR Newsletter Spring 2014

In This Issue:

Our First CAR Not ­Mentoring Hangout: A Success! By Dick Powis and Lucia Guerra­-Reyes

Now that we know that we can hold a Not-Mentoring Hangout without an issue, we are interested in scheduling them monthly.If you’re interested in participating in a Hangout, if you have an idea for a topic that you would want discussed, or if you just want more information on teleconferencing, please contact Lucia Guerra-Reyes (luciaaguerra@gmail.com) or Dick Powis (richard.powis@gmail.com).

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CAR Newsletter Fall 2013

In This Issue:

Ina May Gaskin Inducted into the National Women’s Hall Of Fame
By: Robbie Davis-Floyd

She gave a brilliant talk. She began by noting that even though she could not legally practice in New York State as a CPM, she had actually and legally attended a birth in New York, on a Native American reservation there that is not officially part of NY. “Balance” was her theme—the balance the Six Nations achieved by having men as chiefs, with a committee of women as the voters who decided what the male leaders could and could not do, such as when they could and could not go to war.

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CAR Newsletter Spring 2013

In This Issue:

Membership Column:
Eggs, feathers, and tweets: more CAR news for members
By Claire Wendland

In a heartfelt op-ed piece for CNN, CAR member Marcia Inhorn recently pleaded “Women, consider freezing your eggs.” Inhorn’s editorial hit notes that will sound familiar to many anthropologists of reproduction: she described the relentless pace and overwhelming work expectations of academic life that pushed her own choice to become pregnant later and later. Drawing on her own experience, and noting that women with career ambitions face a “fertility penalty,” Inhorn ended the piece by explaining that she will now begin recommending egg freezing to her female graduate students. While the editorial did mention some of the concerns one might have about the technology, it downplayed them in portraying egg freezing as a “technological game-changer” that may allow women to “have it all” after all

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CAR Newsletter Fall 2012

In This Issue:

Notes From the Field:
“Hurry Up and Wait: Patience in Preliminary Field Research”
By Jess Newman

Still without this experience, I wouldn’t have gotten a glimpse at what awareness-raising and activism look like before it even registers in public consciousness. In 2008, the Moroccan Association for Family Planning (AMPF) publish an exploratory study on unsafe abortion (avortment á risques) in the hopes of sparking a debate about abortion’s criminalization. It met with indifferent results, prompting only a few non-committal public statements from politicians. A few articles surface in local media about a gynecologist who was fast becoming politicized as a result of treating so many women with complications from botched abortions, but the discussion ended there.
 

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CAR Newsletter Spring 2012

In This Issue:

Notes From the Field of an Embryo Ethnographer
By Risa Cromer

With all that is happening across the United States concerning women’s reproductive health and autonomy-personhood amendments, funding attack on Planned Parenthood and their patients, incarcerations of women like Bei Bei Shuari, government mandated ultrasounds, and remarkable statement about pills between our knees-I want to offer a few windows into a world where embryonic personhood is the status quo. I highlight examples of grief an loss with embryo adoption and consider some resonant examples from my volunteer works as a peer counselor. Even across gulfs like embryonic personhood, I believe it is worthwhile to identify shared reproductive experiences, such as grief or loss. 
 

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