Description
Book Synopsis The concept of “Waithood” was developed by political scientist Diane Singerman to describe the expanding period of time between adolescence and full adulthood as young people wait to secure steady employment and marry. The contributors to this volume employ the waithood concept as a frame for richly detailed ethnographic studies of “youth in waiting” from a variety of world areas, including the Middle East Africa, Asia, Europe, Latin America and the U.S, revealing that whether voluntary or involuntary, the phenomenon of youth waithood necessitates a recognition of new gender and family roles.
Trade Review “Using a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods with participants from multiple countries, contributing authors find that there are multiple ways to understand the liminality implied by “waithood.”…This book could be used in courses on political science, women’s studies, sociology, and ethnic studies…Recommended” • Choice
“This volume makes important interventions in research and ethnographic literature on marital, medical, and economic delays to self and social fulfilment…[It] will serve as an excellent resource for scholars of reproduction and kinship and is a necessary addition to any undergraduate curriculum on the study of time and temporality.” • Medical Anthropology Quarterly
“This is a beautifully organized and very well edited volume… The chapters are rich both ethnographically and theoretically and as a whole this volume makes several unique and distinctive contributions to an interdisciplinary academic literature on kinship and reproduction”. • Lisa L. Wynn, President, Australian Anthropological Society
Table of Contents List of Figures
Introduction: Waithood: Gender, Education, and Global Delays in Marriage and Childbearing
Nancy J. Smith-Hefner and Marcia C. Inhorn
Part I: Waithood, Statehood, and the Struggle for Dignity
Chapter 1. Youth, Economics, and the Politics of Waithood: The Struggle for Dignity in the Middle East and North Africa
Diane Singerman
Chapter 2. “Trusting is a Dicey Affair”: Muslim Youth, Gender Relations, and Future-Making in Southwestern Uganda
Dorothea E. Schulz
Chapter 3. Waiting at the Fada: Young Men, “Tea Circles,” and Delayed Adulthood in Niger
Adeline Masquelier
Chapter 4. Emergent Waithood: Institutions and Marriage Delays among Mayan Women in Guatemala
Nicole S. Berry
Part II: Gender, Education, and the Aspiration for Autonomy
Chapter 5. Active Waithood: Youthmen, Fatherhood, and Men’s Educational Aspirations in Sierra Leone
Kristen E. McLean
Chapter 6. “Giving Oneself Time”: Marriage and Motherhood in Urban Rwanda
Aalyia Feroz Ali Sadruddin
Chapter 7. Tactics of Marriage Delay in China: Education, Rural-to-Urban Migration, and “Leftover Women”
Zachary M. Howlett
Chapter 8. Too Educated to Marry? Muslim Women and Extended Singlehood in Indonesia
Nancy J. Smith-Hefner
Part III: Delayed Marriage and the Meanings of Singlehood
Chapter 9. Conjugal Conundrums: Conversion and Marriage Delay in the Contemporary Caribbean
Brendan Jamal Thornton
Chapter 10. Between Cynicism and Idealism: Voluntary Waithood in Iran
Mehrdad Babadi
Chapter 11. Refusing to Settle: Migration among Single Professional Women in Jordan
Fida Adely
Chapter 12. Never-Married Women in India: Gendered Life Courses, Desires, and Identities in Flux
Sarah Lamb
Part IV: Delayed Childbearing and the Quest for Motherhood
Chapter 13. Blamed for Delay: French Norms and Practices of ART in the Context of Increasing Age-Related Female Infertility
Manon Vialle
Chapter 14. Waiting Too Long to Mother: Involuntary Childlessness and Assisted Reproduction in Contemporary Spain
Beatriz San Román
Chapter 15. The Egg Freezing Revolution? Gender, Education, and Reproductive Waithood in America
Marcia C. Inhorn
Conclusion: Waithood in the Twenty-First Century
Marcia C. Inhorn and Nancy J. Smith-Hefner
Index
