Provides a dramatic investigation of the dynamics of reproduction. This title explores the complexity of contemporary sexual politics around the globe. Using reproduction as an entry point in the study of social life and placing it at the center of social theory, it examines how cultures are produced, contested, and transformed.

PREFACE 1. Introduction: Conceiving the New World Order Faye D. Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp ONE • THE POLITICS OF BIRTH/CONTROL 2. A Surfeit of Bodies: Population and the Rationality of the State in Post-Mao China Ann Anagnost 3· Modern Bodies, Modern Minds: Midwifery and Reproductive Change in an African American Community Gertrude]. Fraser 4· Irniktakpunga!: Sex Determination and the Inuit Struggle for Birthing Rights in Northern Canada John D. O'Neil and Patricia Leyland Kaufert TWO • STRATIFIED REPRODUCTION 5· "Like a Mother to Them": Stratified Reproduction and West Indian Childcare Workers and Employers in New York Shellee Colen 6. On the Outside Looking In: The Politics of Lesbian Motherhood Ellen Lewin 7· Households Headed by Women: The Politics of Race, Class, and Gender Leith Mullings 8. Early Childbearing: What Is the Problem and Who Owns It? Martha C. Ward THREE • RETHINKING DEMOGRAPHY, BIOLOGY, AND SOCIAL POLICY g. Deadly Reproduction among Egyptian Women: Maternal Mortality and the Medicalization of Population Control Soheir A. Morsy 10. Coitus Interruptus and Family Respectability in Catholic Europe: A Sicilian Case Study Peter Schneider and Jane Schneider 11. Women's Reproductive Practices and Biomedicine: Cultural Conflicts and Transformations in Nigeria Tala Olu Pearce FOUR • DISASTROUS CIRCUMSTANCES AND REPRODUCTIVE CONSEQUENCES 12. National Honor and Practical Kinship: Unwanted Women and Children Veena Das 13. Political Demography: The Banning of Abortion in Ceausescu's Romania Gail Kligman 14. From Reproduction to HIV: Blurring Categories, Shifting Positions Emily Martin 15. Physical and Cultural Reproduction in a Post-Chernobyl Norwegian Sami Community Sharon Stephens FIVE • WHAT'S SO NEW ABOUT THE NEW REPRODUCTIVE TECHNOLOGIES? 16. Public Servants, Professionals, and Feminists: The Politics of Contraceptive Research in Brazil Carmen Barroso and Sonia Correa 17. The Normalization of Prenatal Diagnostic Screening Carole H. Browner and Nancy Ann Press 18. Postmodern Procreation: A Cultural Account of Assisted Reproduction Sarah Franklin 19. Displacing Knowledge: Technology and the Consequences for Kinship Marilyn Strathern SIX • WHAT'S POLITICAL ABOUT REPRODUCTION? 20. Interrogating the Concept of Reproduction in the Eighteenth Century Ludmillajordanova 21. The Body as Property: A Feminist Re-vision Rosalind Pollack Petchesky 22. Reassessing Reproduction in Social Theory Annette B. Weiner 23. Misreading Darwin on Reproduction: Reductionism in Evolutionary Theory Adrienne L. Zihlman NOTES ON CONTRIBUTORS

"Conceiving the New World Order promises to explore the consequences of making reproduction central to social theory in general, and it delivers on its promise abundantly. The feminist vision here is large, theoretically incisive, detailed, empirically deep, and politically inspiring. I will use these essays in teaching and research, but most of all in striving to inhabit the New World Order as a post-natal, born-again feminist."—Donna Haraway, University of California, Santa Cruz"A stunning collection that shifts the anthropology of reproduction onto the terrain of power, where it belongs. Conceiving the New World Order not only redefines reproduction by linking the body to the body politic but also shows the value of careful historical, social, and cultural analysis of the connection between the local and the global. It has much to teach anyone who wants to know how pregnancy, parenting, birth control, population policies, demography, and the new reproductive technologies shape and are shaped by women and the world."—Lila Abu-Lughod, author of Writing Women's Worlds: Bedouin Stories