Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review“A well-written, compelling, dynamic narrative that broadens and complicates readers’ understanding of the contributing causes and impacts of maternal mortality. . . . Highly recommended.” * Choice *
“
Partial Stories offers a new narrative about maternal death in Africa by undermining ‘the notion that any of the single stories we already think we know is definitive.’ . . . The care Wendland put into thinking about how to tell the stories she shares is evident throughout.” * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *
“I really enjoyed reading this book. . . . It’s a book that, to me, speaks to the reader’s humanity at least as much as it speaks to their intellect.” * New Books Network *
"Written by an ethnographer and obstetrician, this wide-ranging and comprehensive book offers a much more nuanced picture of maternal deaths and maternal health than much of the literature on critical global health can do—and it does so out of a commitment and an expertise, yet also a humility and curiosity that is often lacking in critical global health scholarship. It fills an important gap." -- Ruth Jane Prince, University of Oslo
"At last maternal mortality, that raging topic in obstetric, global health, and epidemiology circles, receives the sophisticated, complex, qualitative, and nuanced treatment it has long deserved. By emphasizing partialities and sharing stories, this anthropology offers up an important set of diagnostics about why so many poor, black, African women still die in pregnancy and childbirth, and how these death scenes unfold and what they conceal." -- Nancy Rose Hunt, author of A Colonial Lexicon: Of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the Congo
Table of ContentsIntroduction
Bonnex Kaunda: “There are too many goings-on these days.” 1 Dangerous Modernities
Agnesi Kunjirima: “You can make your pregnancy safe.” 2 Knowing Bodies
Lillian Siska: “I help them right here at home.” 3 Ambivalent Technologies
Chimwemwe Bruce: “Changes, yes, but no development.” 4 Abundant Scarcity
Rhoda Nantongwe: “By the time she comes to the hospital, it is too late.” 5 Countless Accountings
Dyna Ng’ong’ola and Kettie Pensulo: “Women in this community are very much concerned.” 6 Fragile Authority
Conclusion
Glossary of Chichewa Terms
Key People and Places
Abbreviations
Acknowledgments
References
Notes
Index
