Breastfeeding is an intimate and deeply rooted bodily practice, as well as a highly controversial sociocultural process which invokes strong reactions from advocates and opponents. Touching on a wide range of issues such as reproduction, sexuality, power and resources, and maternal and infant health, the controversies and cultural complexities underlying breastfeeding are immense.Ethnographies of Breastfeeding features the latest research on the topic. Some of the leading scholars in the field explore variations in breastfeeding practices from around the world. Based on empirical work in areas such as Brazil, West Africa, Darfur, Ireland, Italy, France, the UK and the US, they examine the cross-cultural challenges facing mothers feeding their infants.Reframing the traditional nature/culture debate, the book moves beyond existing approaches to consider themes such as surrogacy, the risk of milk banks, mother-to-mother sharing networks facilitated by social media, and the increasing bio-medicalization of breast milk, which is leading its transformation from process to product. A highly important contribution to global debates on breast milk and breastfeeding.

Exploring the rise of a new global culture of breastfeeding, this important collection frames some of the key international debates surrounding the feeding of infants through in-depth ethnographies.

About the Author
Tanya Cassidy is a research fellow at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth, Ireland and is adjunct professor with the Department of Sociology, Anthropology, Criminology at the University of Windsor in Canada. Abdullahi El Tom is Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM), Ireland and was elected to the executive board of the European Association of Social Anthropologists in 2010.

Reviews

"Anthropology not only can and must shed light on the cultural diversity and significance of the body parts and practices and their relation to wider factors and questions, but it can and must also confront assumptions and avoidances about these same parts and practices ... Ethnographies of Breastfeeding breaks some new ground in anthropology and suggests some tantalizing and important new research directions. - Anthropology Review Database - David Eller

Editors Cassidy and El Tom have put together a broad look at the modern and historical experience of breastfeeding. They consider not just the product and the process of breastfeeding but also the participants, including mothers, children, wet nurses, surrogates, and health care professionals. The collection takes an international perspective, focusing on South American countries, Middle Eastern Countries, and African countries as well as Europe and the US ... Chapter notes, extensive bibliography. Summing Up: Recommended. Upper-division undergraduates and above. - CHOICE - S. Marks, University of Massachusetts, Lowell

Offering much more than a study of conceptual shifts over time, the various takes on the 'product' and 'process' of milk feeding as a reproductive and socio-political conduct make [this] book a fascinating read ... A great addition to undergraduate and postgraduate studies of reproductive care and maternal and infant health. - Somatosphere.net

The great thing about this book ... is its power, building on the strength of international global ethnographic evidence, to reconfigure debates about babies and human milk so that breastfeeding is no longer just about the imposition of obligations on individual women ... This book does not ignore this debate or this pressure - but rather it expands and reorganizes it - Blog review: Conradbrunstrom.wordpress.com"

Book Information
ISBN 9781474294447
Author Tanya Cassidy
Format Paperback
Page Count 288
Imprint Bloomsbury Academic
Publisher Taylor & Francis Ltd
Weight(grams) 453g