Birth in Eight Cultures

This stunning sequel to Brigitte Jordan’s landmark Birth in Four Cultures brings together the work of fifteen reproductive anthropologists to address core cultural values and knowledge systems as revealed in contemporary birth practices in Brazil, Greece, Japan, Mexico, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Tanzania, and the United States. Six ethnographic chapters form the heart of the book, three of which are set up as dyads that compare two countries; each demonstrates the power of anthropology’s cross-cultural comparative method. An additional chapter with ethnographic vignettes gives readers a feel for what fieldwork is really like on the ground. The eminently readable, theoretically rich chapters are enhanced by absorbing stories, photos, quotes, thought questions, and film suggestions that nudge the reader toward eureka flashes of understanding and render the book suitable for undergraduate and graduate audiences alike. Also by Robbie Davis-Floyd and available from Waveland Press: Ways of Knowing about Birth: Mothers, Midwives, Medicine, and Birth Activism (ISBN 9781478633624). Titles of related interest also available from Waveland Press: Gabriel, Touching Bellies, Touching Lives: Midwives of Southern Mexico Tell Their Stories (ISBN 9781478627104), Holloway, Monique and the Mango Rains: Two Years with a Midwife in Mali (ISBN 9781577664352), and Jordan, Birth in Four Cultures: A Crosscultural Investigation of Childbirth in Yucatan, Holland, Sweden and the United States, Fourth Edition (ISBN 9780881337174).