Short description:

This open access edited book brings together new research on the mechanisms by which maternal and reproductive health policies are formed and implemented in diverse locales around the world, from global policy spaces to sites of practice.  The authors ? both internationally respected anthropologists and new voices ? demonstrate the value of ethnography and the utility of reproduction as a lens through which to generate rich insights into professionals? and lay people?s intimate encounters with policy.

Authors look closely at core policy debates in the history of global maternal health across six different continents, including:

Anthropologiesof Global Maternal and Reproductive Health will engage readers interested in critical conversations about global health policy today.  The broad range of foci makes it a valuable resource for teaching in medical anthropology, anthropology of reproduction, and interdisciplinary global health programs. The book will also find readership amongst critical public health scholars, health policy and systems researchers, and global public health practitioners. 

?This book is a remarkable example of the fruitfulness of policy anthropology, particularly in the field of health. Providing examples taken from six continents, it brightly demonstrates the extent to which anthropology is essential to understanding the concrete contexts in which policies are developed and implemented and what happens in encounters between policy and practice.? 

Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan, l?Université Abdou Moumouni

Long description:

This open access edited book brings together new research on the mechanisms by which maternal and reproductive health policies are formed and implemented in diverse locales around the world, from global policy spaces to sites of practice.  The authors ? both internationally respected anthropologists and new voices ? demonstrate the value of ethnography and the utility of reproduction as a lens through which to generate rich insights into professionals? and lay people?s intimate encounters with policy.

Authors look closely at core policy debates in the history of global maternal health across six different continents, including:

• Women?s use of misoprostol for abortion in Burkina Faso
• The place of traditional birth attendants in global maternal health
• Donor-driven maternal health programs in Tanzania
• Efforts to integrate qualitative evidence in WHO maternal and child health policy-making

Anthropologies of Global Maternal and Reproductive Health will engage readers interested in critical conversations about global health policy today.  The broad range of foci makes it a valuable resource for teaching in medical anthropology, anthropology of reproduction, and interdisciplinary global health programs. The book will also find readership amongst critical public health scholars, health policy and systems researchers, and global public health practitioners. 

Table of Contents:

Chapter 1. Introduction Lauren J. Wallace, Margaret E. MacDonald & Katerini T. Storeng.- Part I. Implementation Disconnects and Policy Rhetoric.- Chapter 2. Baby (not so) Friendly: Implementation of the Baby-Friendly Hospital Initiative in Serbia Ljiljana Pantović.- Chapter 3. The Promise and Neglect of Follow-up Care in Obstetric Fistula Treatment in Uganda Bonnie Ruder & Alice Emasu.- Chapter 4. The Domestication of Misoprostol for Abortion in Burkina Faso: Interactions Between Caregivers, Drug Vendors and Women Seydou Drabo.- Chapter 5. The ?Sustainability Doctrine? in Donor-Driven Maternal Health Programs in Tanzania Meredith G. Marten.- Part II. Policy Ambivalence.- Chapter 6. The Place of Traditional Birth Attendants in Global Maternal Health: Policy Retreat, Ambivalence, and Return Margaret E. MacDonald.- Chapter 7. Conflicted Reproductive Governance: The Co-existence of Rights-Based Approaches and Coercion in India?s Family Planning Policies Maya Unnithan.- Part III. Contesting Authoritative Knowledge and Practice.- Chapter 8. Regulating Midwives: Foreclosing Alternatives in the Policy-making Process in West Java, Indonesia Priscilla Magrath.- Part IV. The Rise of Evidence and Its Uses.- Chapter 9. Making Space for Qualitative Evidence in Global Maternal and Child Health Policy-making Christopher J. Colvin.- Chapter 10. The International Childbirth Initiative: An Applied Anthropologist?s Account of Developing Global Guidelines Robbie Davis-Floyd.- Chapter 11. Selling Beautiful Births: The Use of Evidence by Brazil?s Humanised Birth Movement Lucy C. Irvine