A precarious rite of passage in postreform China: heroin use among Nuosu youths on the move

This article employs the rite of passage concept to analyze why and how heroin use and a subsequent HIV/AIDS epidemic have taken hold among minority Nuosu (Yi) young men in Southwest China. It juxtaposes structural inequalities and sociocultural particularities in social suffering among Nuosu youths as they attempt to create meaningful lives in China's market reform era. Since the 1980s, young Nuosu have ventured out to Han-dominant cities in search of fun and opportunities. This movement has become a new foray into manhood and inadvertently set up their encounter with heroin and the subsequent introduction of HIV into their hometowns. The article is based on my 20-month ethnographic fieldwork in Limu, a mountainous Nuosu community in Liangshan Yi Autonomous Prefecture, Sichuan Province, between 2002 and 2009.     

Age at first birth and disadvantage among ethnic groups in Britain

This article examines the relationship between age at first birth and poverty among ethnic minorities in Britain. It is well known that ethnic minorities, particularly Pakistanis and Bangladeshis, have very high rates of family poverty and early fertility. Because it has been established that early motherhood is associated with a high risk of poverty and other disadvantages, it is tempting to link Pakistani and Bangladeshi poverty with their early family formation patterns. We find, however, that age at first birth had little effect on the poverty experienced by ethnic minorities. While the disadvantaged outcomes of teenage motherhood within the white community appear to be associated with the young women's departure from the dominant social norm, when early fertility is the norm in a minority community, it does not lead to any further disadvantage beyond that experienced by the ethnic group as a whole.     

On the Limits of Life Stages in Ethnography: Toward a Theory of Vital Conjunctures

This article argues for a new anthropology of the life course, one founded in indeterminacy and innovation. The fact that vital life events are rarely coherent, clear in direction, or fixed in outcome dramatically limits the usefulness of the life cycle model. In its place, I propose a unit of social analysis based in aspiration rather than event. I call this the vital conjuncture—integrating the "vital" of demographic vital events with Bourdieu's conception of the conjuncture of structure and action. Vital conjunctures suggest a new way of aggregating life history experiences and thus working between the individual and the social, free from the stultifying assumption of Stapes de vie. To illustrate the usefulness of the concept of "vital conjuncture, I focus on motherhood among young, educated Beti women in southern Cameroon. I demonstrate that rather than a clear threshold into female adulthood, here motherhood is a loosely bounded, fluid status. Contrary both to folk intuition and to the assumptions of a life cycle framework, Beti motherhood is not a stable status. Beti women who have borne children are not necessarily mothers, at least not all the time. Motherhood, instead, constitutes a temporary social status, an agent position that can be inhabited in specific forms of social action. The material offers perhaps an extreme example of what I argue is a more general phenomenon: "life stages" emerge only as the result of institutional projects, their coherence should be an object, rather than an assumption, of ethnographic inquiry. [Keywords: life course, Africa, demography, vital conjuncture]     

Sexuality and the Art of Seduction in Sinhalese Exorcism

In the interest of extending an understanding of ritual aesthetics this paper examines Sinhala exorcism as a domain of seduction. The analysis centres on a major Sinhala ritual held only for women, and its related mythology, in which sexuality is conceived as being destructive of regenerative processes. The rite engages seductive forces to break the destructive dynamic. The argument develops into a general discussion of the ‘logic’ of Sinhalese exorcism and how the aesthetic and seductive forces of rite are able to break the paradox of contradiction which is also integral to the ritual process. The article stresses ritual as a dynamic of both depth and surface, the two aspects being in complementary relation.     

Reinscribing the birthing body: homebirth as ritual performance

In this article, I examine the clinical practices engaged in by U.S. homebirth midwives and their clients from the beginning of pregnancy through to the immediate postpartum period, deconstructing them for their symbolic and ritual content. Using data collected from open-ended, semistructured interviews and intensive participant-observation, I describe the roles ritual plays in the construction, performance, and maintenance of birth at home as a transgressive rite of passage. As midwives ritually elaborate approaches to care to capitalize on their semiotic power to transmit a set of counterhegemonic values to participants, they are attempting, quite self-consciously, to peel away the fictions of medicalized birthing care. Their goal: to expose strong and capable women who "grow" and birth babies outside the regulatory and self-regulatory processes naturalized by modern, technocratic obstetrics. Homebirth practices are, thus, not simply evidence-based care strategies. They are intentionally manipulated rituals of technocratic subversion designed to reinscribe pregnant bodies and to reterritorialize childbirth spaces (home) and authorities (midwives and mothers).     

Effects of state contraceptive insurance mandates

Using U.S. Natality data for 1996 through 2009 and an event analysis specification, we investigate the dynamics of the effects of state insurance contraceptive mandates on births and measures of parental investment: prenatal visits, non-marital childbearing, and risky behaviors during pregnancy. We analyze outcomes separately by age, race, and ethnicity. Among young Hispanic women, we find a 4% decline in the birth rate. There is evidence of a decrease in births to single mothers, consistent with increased wantedness. We also find evidence of selection into motherhood, which could explain the lack of a significant effect on birth outcomes.     

A tradeoff between reproduction and growth in contemporary Finnish women

Women have been suggested to trade growth in height for reproduction, as an earlier age at menarche and first birth seem to be related to shorter adult stature. Although women likely accrue fitness benefits by maturing and starting reproduction at young age, short adult stature may be selected against by natural and sexual selection later in their life. We studied how age at menarche and first reproduction affected adult height and whether adult height in turn was related to lifetime reproductive success in Finnish women born 1946–1958. Our results show that a delay of 1 year in age at menarche and first reproduction was related to a 0.43- and 0.20-cm increase in adult height, respectively. The sex of the first-born offspring was not related to adult height. Moreover, women gained fitness benefits by starting reproduction early but not by growing tall. These findings among Finnish women are thus compatible with tradeoffs between reproduction and growth, by showing a compromised adult height at the cost of early age at menarche and first birth. However, in these women, natural selection favored those women who traded their stature for young motherhood.     

Life-in-Death: Raising Dead Sons in New Orleans

The social and religious work of African-American women in New Orleans who mourn and memorialise the dead attends primarily to sons and grandsons, the young black men who are most frequently the victims of homicide. Based on ethnographic and historical research in two Christian congregations, this article examines the forms of relatedness that women have developed to support and advocate for each other, the displaced, and the deceased. Tracing more broadly the development of vulnerability and violence at the urban margins, I argue that this work unfolds in a continued context of social death, predicated on dominant and still racist determinations of human value. I thus examine the transformative potential of African-American religious women’s relational practices, highlighting in particular their assertion of black social and spiritual value, in the kingdom of God if not yet in the inclusive, just, and sustainable city and world they envision.     

Male pubertal seclusion and risk of death in Indians from Alto Xingu, central Brazil.

Male pubertal seclusion is a cultural characteristic shared by 10 Indian tribes in Alto Xingu, central Brazil. The seclusion lasts from several months to three years, with periods of interruption. Seclusion acts as a rite of passage and is connected with a boy's social, psychological, and physical maturation process into adulthood. This period is marked by many rules and taboos, and boys are considered highly vulnerable to the workings of evil entities. From 1978 to 1985, 133 boys between the ages of 11 and 20 years were observed in seclusion. Twenty-four of these youths showed clinical symptoms of intoxication, with seven of them dying in the acute phase, whereas the other seventeen developed peripheral neuropathy. The mortality rate among males was 6.6 times higher than that among females. Our findings suggest that the high risk of death associated with male pubertal seclusion results from the use of some native plants in infusions or ointments in the rite's purification process.     

Anatomy dissections and student experience at Irish universities, c.1900s-1960s

Utilising the unique source of articles, poems, stories and cartoons from student magazines from all of the Irish universities, in addition to the memoirs of Irish doctors, and the accounts of correspondents, this paper will discuss the Irish student’s experience of anatomy in the early twentieth century. For many medical students, anatomy dissections were seen as a rite of passage, while one student at Queen’s College Belfast claimed that ‘the dissecting-room is to the student a club, a smoke room, common room research room—one in all.’ However, the dissecting rooms of Irish medical schools were often rife with bawdy conversation, sexual undertones and black humour. Recognising this, following the admission of women to Irish medical schools from the 1880s, university authorities constructed separate dissecting rooms for the women students, and part of this paper will investigate why this separation occurred.I will examine the Irish dissecting room as a centre of learning and integral part of student experience in the period. The paper will suggest that the black humour and pranks that were commonplace within the context of the dissecting room acted as a means for students to reconcile their fears and anxiety about dissecting.     

Gestation as mothering

Some commentators maintain that gestational surrogates are not ‘mothers’ in a way capable of grounding a claim to motherhood. These commentators find that the practices that constitute motherhood do not extend to gestational surrogates. We argue that gestational surrogates should be construed as mothers of the children they bear, even if they fully intend to surrender those children at birth to the care of others. These women stand in a certain relationship to the expected children: they live in changed moral circumstances by reason of their pregnancy, and they engage in the practices said to define motherhood in the post-birth context. By contrast, ovum donors and embryo donors are not similarly ‘mothers’ because they do not find themselves involved in these circumstances. Not all women involved in three-parent in vitro fertilization qualify as mothers either. Given this analysis of mothering, we note that transmen who gestate children are engaged in mothering activity even if they otherwise function as a father to those children. By itself, this defence of the maternity of gestational surrogates does not confer moral title to the children they bear; gestation would not by itself override the contractual arrangements gestational surrogates have made regarding the disposition of their children. This interpretation of gestational surrogates as mothers does, however, undercut cultural understandings of these women as mere ‘vessels’, devoid of entitlement to respect as persons and parents. We also consider the meaning of mothering for ‘brain-dead’ women kept alive to give birth and for the prospect of extracorporeal gestation.     

Covariates of age at first birth in Guyana: a hazards model analysis

Analysis of data from the Guyana Fertility Survey on the trends and covariates of age at 1st birth among various birth cohorts of women ever in union indicates that an early entry into union is associated with young age at 1st birth and higher number of children born. Multivariate analysis showed that women with higher education, urban residence, and entry into 1st birth compared to others, and that young women are delaying their 1st birth for longer durations than older women. Work status of women before 1st birth and the starting age of union seem to be the 2 major contributory factors for age at 1st birth. Noticeably, the role of education has changed and is now more significant among younger cohorts than among older ones for 1st birth timing.     

The injustice of unsafe motherhood

This paper presents an overview of the dimensions of unsafe motherhood, contrasting data from economically developed countries with some from developing countries. It addresses many common factors that shape unsafe motherhood, identifying medical, health system and societal causes, including women's powerlessness over their reproductive lives in particular as a feature of their dependent status in general. Drawing on perceptions of Jonathan Mann, it focuses on public health dimensions of maternity risks, and equates the role of bioethics in conscientious medical care to that of human rights in public health care. The microethics of medical care translate into the macroethics of public health, but the transition compels some compromise of personal autonomy, a key feature of Western bioethics, in favour of societal analysis. Religiously-based morality is seen to have shaped laws that contribute to unsafe motherhood. Now reformed in former colonizing countries of Europe, many such laws remain in effect in countries that emerged from colonial domination. UN conferences have defined the concept of 'reproductive health' as one that supports women's reproductive self-determination, but restrictive abortion laws and practices epitomize the unjust constraints to which many women remain subject, resulting in their unsafe motherhood. Pregnant women can be legally compelled to give the resources of their bodies to the support of others, while fathers are not legally compellable to provide, for instance, bone-marrow or blood donations for their children's survival. Women's unjust legal, political, economic and social powerlessness explains much unsafe motherhood and maternal mortality and morbidity.     

Ritual Opening and Individual Transformation: Rites of Passage at Esalen

Ritual manipulation of emotion can result in "psychic opening," a state in which the individual's defenses are suddenly lowered. An individual in this state is vulnerable and suggestible, and major shifts in his psychic configurations can occur. When ritualized psychic opening exists as a part of a cultural event-pattern for the purpose of inducing psychobehavioral transformation in individuals, the process can be considered as a type of rite of passage. An encounter/Gestalt workshop at Esalen Institute is discussed as an example of this process. The data show that the group setting itself has many liminal characteristics .     

Prevalence and predictors of “nesting”: Solutions to adaptive challenges faced during pregnancy

Throughout human evolutionary history, women have faced significant adaptive challenges during pregnancy. Natural selection may therefore have favored psychological mechanisms to help women prepare for birth and motherhood. Previous researchers have conceptualized such mechanisms as comprising a form of “nesting,” consisting of selectivity in one's social relationships and motivations to prepare a safe and clean environment, both of which may have been beneficial in the context of childbirth and childrearing. The current study aimed to replicate and extend previous evidence for nesting (Anderson & Rutherford, 2013). Consistent with prior work, results suggest that pregnant women (n = 91) engaged in more nesting than non-pregnant women (n = 102), and that degree of nesting increased across weeks of gestation. Among pregnant women, high levels of germ aversion and having relatively high socioeconomic status were both associated with heightened nesting. A number of other theoretically relevant variables (e.g., progesterone, oxidative stress, sociosexual orientation) displayed null associations with nesting. Findings strengthen support for the hypothesis that nesting is a pervasive phenomenon among pregnant women and provide new insight into predictors of nesting.     

Concepts of Spiritual Nourishment in the Andes And Europe: Rosaries in Cross-Cultural Contexts

This article explores visual imagery connected with the Christian rosary and its connotations of spiritual nourishment in European art and Andean ritual practices. Early eighteenth-century religious art inspired by a vision received by Isidoro of Seville, a Capuchin friar, presented the Virgin Mary as the Divine Shepherdess with her flock of Christians, depicted as sheep with roses in their mouths. This imagery resonates in the flowering ceremony practised by Aymara pastoralists in Isluga, Chile. The floreo serves as a rite of passage for herd animals, its intention being to enhance their fertility by making them 'flower'. However the congruence between the visual codes produced by Europeans and Andeans conveys related but different social and moral messages. Whereas sheep can represent human beings in Christian art, they cannot stand in for human beings in Isluga, since Isluga people recognize that both human and herd animals require spiritual nourishment.     

Early marriage and early motherhood in Nepal

This paper examines age patterns of first marriage and motherhood and covariates of early marriage, delayed consummation of marriage and early motherhood in Nepal using data from the 2000 Nepal Adolescent and Young Adult Survey (NAYA). Both unmarried and married male and female youths (age 14-22) were included in the survey. The analysis is based on 2800 urban youths and 5075 rural youths with complete information on the variables examined. Proportional hazard models are used to estimate covariates of early marriage and early motherhood, and logistic regression models are used to estimate covariates of delayed consummation of marriage. The results show that early marriage and early motherhood are quite common among Nepalese women, especially in rural areas. Early marriage is much less common among men. Delayed consummation of marriage is common among very young brides, especially in rural areas. The main covariates associated with early marriage and early motherhood are respondent's education, region of residence and ethnicity. The main covariates of delayed consummation of marriage are age at first marriage, region of residence and ethnicity. The study highlights the need to focus on less educated female youths in the Terai region in order to reduce the reproductive and child health risks associated with early marriage and early childbearing.     

Postponing or rejecting parenthood? Results of a survey among female academic professionals

The current surge in childlessness is often seen as an alternative lifestyle amidst growing pluralism and individualism. The results of this study indicate that several subgroups of childless women need to be differentiated: those who actively decide to forgo children in favour of other life pursuits and those who merely defer the decision. Both have accumulated a high degree of human capital in their education or career-building paths. Thus, the increase of a woman's time invested in education or career formation takes its toll on the time available for childrearing. A survey performed among female academics (N = 193) brought to light that among childless women, many merely mean to postpone motherhood until their career prospects are established. Differences between those who outwardly reject motherhood and those who defer the decision can be seen in a variety of job- and career-related aspects. However, due to misconceptions about fertility, many of those who merely intended to postpone children may inevitably end up 'involuntarily childless'. As this trend is most likely to increase in the near future, the resolution of this conflict will be an important milestone in the development of modern industrialized countries. As can be seen from this survey, financial benefits will not induce women to enter into motherhood. Rather, societal and infrastructural changes have to be brought about in order to induce women to enter into motherhood.