"Yearning and Refusal: Hadiza Moussa's Ethnography of Infertility and Contraception in Niamey, Niger"
Dr. Alice Kang
Monday, December 13, 12p CT
Where: https://kansas.zoom.us/j/96838068967
Synopsis: While female infertility in the Global North is increasingly being recognized as a public problem, struggles by African women to conceive are strikingly overlooked by international organizations and national governments that favor instead population control. At the same time, many women seek to limit their fertility, at least temporarily, and find themselves negotiating with a wide range of people and institutions, each with their own assumptions and priorities. More common than publicly recognized, inhospitable medical personnel and social norms limiting access to contraception sometimes leave women with no choice but to induce abortion. The problems faced by those with fertility conditions are particularly profound in the Republic of Niger, where producing children is central to being considered a woman, a wife, and a person. Drawing on rare first-hand observations in health centers and in-depth interviews with people who have tried and not been able to become pregnant, Hadiza Moussa provides an unparalleled examination of the emotional and social consequences of both yearning for children and refusing to bear them, and the ways women in an African city use their agency to maneuver through a patriarchal medical system and society. Tragically, Moussa passed away a year after the publication of her book in French. Alice Kang and Barbara Cooper have been editing and abridging Moussa's book for an English-speaking readership. Kang will discuss Moussa's theory, method, and findings as well as the questions that have arisen in the editing process.
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