Description
Book SynopsisReceived an Honorable Mention for the 2015 First Michelle Rosaldo Prize for a First Book in Feminist Anthropology from the Association for Feminist AnthropologyWinner of the Adele E. Clarke Book Award from ReproNetwork After Cuba's 1959 revolution, the Castro government sought to instill a new social order. Hoping to achieve a new and egalitarian society, the state invested in policies designed to promote the well-being of women and children. Yet once the Soviet Union fell and Cuba's economic troubles worsened, these programs began to collapse, with serious results for Cuban families. Conceiving Cuba offers an intimate look at how, with the island's political and economic future in question, reproduction has become the subject of heated public debates and agonizing private decisions. Drawing from several years of first-hand observations and interviews, anthropologist Elise Andaya takes us inside Cuba's households and medical systems. Along the way, she introduces us to the women who
Trade Review"Andaya reveals the complex entanglement of women’s reproductive choices, healthcare practices, and the state’s agenda to reshape gender ideologies. This rich ethnography will appeal to regional specialists, and to scholars of gender, reproduction, post-socialism, and social change."
-- Nadine Fernandez * author of Revolutionizing Romance: Interracial Couples in Contemporary Cuba *
Table of ContentsIntroduction : reproduction, women, and the state
(Re)producing the new woman : the early revolutionary years
Reproducing citizens and socialism in prenatal care
Abortion and calculated risks
Engendered economies and the dilemmas of reproduction
Having faith and making family overseas
Conclusion : reproducing the revolution
