Bruce Whitehouse

The problem of infertility in high fertility populations: Meanings, consequences and coping mechanisms in two Nigerian communities

This paper examines how socio-economic contexts shape local meanings of infertility, how the prevalence of infertility affects these meanings, and how the above affect community responses, life experiences and infertility treatment-seeking behaviors in two African communities. The paper is based on interdisciplinary research conducted among the Ijo and the Yakurr people of southern Nigeria that included a survey of approximately 100 infertile women and a matching sample of 100 fertile women, as well as in-depth ethnographic interviews with infertile and fertile women in two communities: Amakiri in Delta State and Lopon in Cross River State. In-depth interview results show that female infertility is more problematic among the Ijo in Amakiri, where kinship is patrilineal (traced through the fathers side), than among the Yakurr in Lopon, where kinship is double unilineal (traced through both parents). Childless women in Ijo society are not only disadvantaged economically but are prevented from attaining full adult womanhood. They therefore leave the community more often than other members. In Lopon there is also a strong preoccupation with fertility as a central fact of life, but infertile women receive support from maternal kin as well as voluntary associations serving as support groups. Our survey data confirm that there are significant differences between the life experiences of infertile and fertile women and between the infertile women of the two communities. The overall findings indicate that while there are variations in the extent to which infertility is considered problematic, the necessity for a woman to have a child remains basic in this region. Motherhood continues to define an individual womans treatment in the community, her self-respect and her understanding of womanhood.

Suffering infertility: the impact of infertility on women's life experiences in two Nigerian communities.

This paper examines the experiences of women with infertility in two Nigerian communities with different systems of descent and historically different levels of infertility. First, the paper focuses on the life experiences of individual women across the two communities and second, it compares these experiences with those of their fertile counterparts, in each community. In doing this, women who are childless are distinguished from those with subfertility and compared with high-fertility women. The research is based on interdisciplinary research conducted among the Ijo and Yakurr people of southern Nigeria, which included a survey of approximately 100 childless and subfertile women and a matching sample of 100 fertile women as well as in-depth ethnographic interviews with childless and subfertile women in two communities: Amakiri in Delta State and Lopon in Cross River State. The findings indicate that while there are variations in the extent to which childlessness is considered to be problematic, the necessity for a woman to have a child remains basic in this region.

Introduction: Rethinking Challenges to State Sovereignty in Mali and Northwest Africa

ABSTRACT In framing its analysis around the concept of northwest Africa, this article examines not only the challenges for regional security and state authority in that region but also the processes through which regions are constructed by both local and international actors. It focuses especially on northern Mali and the various types of separatist, jihadist, and criminal networks that operate in this territory. The goal of this article, and of the special issue to which it is an introduction, is to illuminate emerging political orders in northwest Africa.

Definitions and the experience of fertility problems: infertile and sub-fertile women, childless mothers, and honorary mothers in two southern Nigerian communities.

Although infertility causes women considerable grief, social stigma, and economic deprivation, scholars have paid little attention to infertilitys definitions that may depart from the standard Western usage and how such definitions influence the way women experience the condition. This article, by listening to individual womens experiences of infertility in two Nigerian communities, examines these definitions and differentiates between culturally salient categories of infertility. In distinguishing between different kinds of childless women and those with low fertility, we intend to enhance understandings of infertility by considering womens subjective understandings of the condition and thus moving beyond the current medical definition. By comparing womens experiences in two different ethnic groups in Nigeria, we show how distinct forms of kinship structures and social organizations shape the ways low fertility is defined, managed, and experienced.

Women in limbo: Life course consequences of infertility in a Nigerian community

Abstract Infertility is a devastating problem around the world, particularly in the high fertility context of sub-Saharan Africa. Regardless of its medical origins, infertility causes African women personal grief and economic deprivation.This research was conducted among the Ijo who are organized into exogamous patrilineal descent groups. Women who marry into a patrilineage are perceived as bearers of sons who will eventually take their place in the lineages genealogy. Women only figure in the lineage structure as mothers.In addition to extensive ethnographic research in this community, the paper is based on a combination of surveys of 246 women and interviews of 25 fertile and 25 infertile women.Women who have never given birth were characterized as “useless”. Some managed to accumulate wealth or attained education but most feared a marginal old age. Respect was given to women who have had even one child, even if that child died. The biological process of gestation confers an adult status on women allowing them to undergo initiation and to function as mature individuals. In the life course the most prominent periods of suffering are the transition from the stages of ereso (girl) to erera (mature woman), and in the period of old age.

Centripetal Forces: Reconciling Cosmopolitan Lives and Local Loyalty in a Malian Transnational Social Field

Remembered places … have often served as symbolic anchors of community for dispersed people.

The Exaggerated Demise of Polygyny: Transformations in Marriage and Gender Relations in West Africa

The West African region has the world’s highest rates of polygyny, the practice of one man marrying two or more wives. Many scholars once foresaw polygyny’s eventual demise, and indeed polygyny appears to be on the decline even in West Africa. The practice is adapting to social change within the region, however. Most notably, polygyny is being reshaped in West Africa’s cities, where men and women are bound by very different conventions than their rural counterparts with respect to gender relations, nuptiality, sexuality, and allegiance to kin. Urban polygyny has also been affected by modern notions of romantic love and companionate marriage, and by the informalization of marriage. At the same time, polygyny retains a powerful influence as a cultural institution despite its diminishing prevalence. This chapter considers polygyny’s ongoing reconfiguration amid sweeping changes in African marital norms and behaviors. Drawing from a range of social science data, including large-scale surveys and ethnographic research as well as analysis by demographers, sociologists and anthropologists, the chapter reviews the current state of polygynous marriage and surveys its ongoing transformation in West Africa.