Fistula Politics

Birthing Injuries and the Quest for Continence in Niger

Alison Heller (Autor)

Buch | Hardcover

270 Seiten

2018
Rutgers University Press (Verlag)
978-1-9788-0037-3 (ISBN)

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Obstetric fistula is a birth injury caused by prolonged obstructed labour that results in urinary and fecal incontinence. In Western humanitarian and media narratives, fistula is presented as deeply stigmatizing. Alison Heller illustrates these popular narratives only serve the interests of humanitarian organisations, the media, and local clinics.

Obstetric fistula is a birthing injury caused by prolonged obstructed labor that results in urinary and fecal incontinence. It is nearly non-existent in the Global North. In contrast Niger, in West Africa, has one of the highest rates of fistula in the world. In Western humanitarian and media narratives, fistula is presented as deeply stigmatizing, resulting in divorce, abandonment by kin, exile from communities, depression and suicide. In Fistula Politics, Alison Heller illustrates the inaccuracy of these popular narratives and shows how they serve the interests not of the women so affected, but of humanitarian organizations, the media, and local clinics.

Alison Heller is an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Maryland in College Park.

Contents

Note on Terminology

List of Abbreviations

Foreword

1          Chapter 1: Incontinence and Inequalities

44                    Part I   Living Incontinence

45        Laraba’s Story

53        Chapter 2: Fistula Stigma

96        Chapter 3: Liminal Wives

143                  Part II Clinical Encounters

144      Six Beds, Sixty Minutes

153      Chapter 4: The “Worst Place to be a Mother”

193      Chapter 5: The Indeterminable Wait

234                  Part III            The Marketplace of Victimhood

235      Arantut’s Story

241      Chapter 6: Superlative Sufferers

271      Chapter 7: Costs and Consequences

299      Chapter 8: The Threshold of Continence

Appendix

Acknowledgments

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Erscheinungsdatum	09.10.2018
Zusatzinfo	25 color and B-W photos
Verlagsort	New Brunswick NJ
Sprache	englisch
Maße	152 x 229 mm
Themenwelt	Studium ► Querschnittsbereiche ► Prävention / Gesundheitsförderung
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Ethnologie
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Allgemeines / Lexika
	Sozialwissenschaften ► Soziologie ► Spezielle Soziologien
ISBN-10	1-9788-0037-1 / 1978800371
ISBN-13	978-1-9788-0037-3 / 9781978800373
Zustand	Neuware