Quest for Conception: Gender, Infertility and Egyptian Medical Traditions / Edition 1

by Marcia C. Inhorn

Overview

In Quest for Conception, Marcia C. Inhorn portrays the poignant struggles of poor, urban Egyptian women and their attempts to overcome infertility. The author draws upon fifteen months of fieldwork in urban Egypt to present moving stories of infertile Muslim women whose tumultuous medical pilgrimages have yet to produce the desired pregnancies. Inhorn examines the devastating impact of infertility on the lives of these women, who are threatened with divorce by their husbands, harassed by their husbands' families, and ostracized by neighbors.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780812215281
Publisher:	University of Pennsylvania Press, Inc.
Publication date:	08/01/1994
Edition description:	New Edition
Pages:	472
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 8.90(h) x 1.30(d)
Lexile:	1520L (what's this?)

Table of Contents

	List of Illustrations	ix
	List of Abbreviations	xi
	Acknowledgments	xiii
	Notes on Transliteration	xvii
	Preface: Hind's Story	xix
Part 1	Problem, Place, and Procreative Theory
Chapter 1.	The Infertility Problem in Egypt	3
Chapter 2.	Ancient Alexandria and Its Modern Poor	39
Chapter 3.	Past and Present in Theories of Procreation	49
Part 2	Ethnogynecology
Chapter 4.	Healers, Herbalists, and Holy Ones	81
Chapter 5.	Kabsa and Threatened Fertility	111
Chapter 6.	From Humidity to Sorcery	158
Chapter 7.	Divinity, Profanity, and Pilgrimage	206
Part 3	Biogynecology
Chapter 8.	Biomedical Bodies	241
Chapter 9.	Untherapeutic Therapeutics	286
Chapter 10.	The Injection of Spermatic Animals	318
Chapter 11.	Babies of the Tubes	334
Chapter 12.	Futures for the Infertile	345
Appendix 1.	Fieldwork	357
Appendix 2.	Informants	371
	Notes	379
	Glossary of Arabic Terms	395
	References	401
	Index	429

Editorial Reviews

"A remarkable synthesis of ethnography about infertile Egyptian women's attempts to have children, history of the development of Egyptian medical ideas and practices from ancient times, and contemporary political and economic analysis."

Lingua Franca

"Inhorn invokes in her vivid description of her informants' dilemmas and convincing analysis of their explanations of their infertility a combination of variables; gender issues are interwoven with political domination, colonial history, indigenous religious beliefs, economic problems such as poverty and deprivation, state policies regarding family planning and a whole series of interrelated areas."

Middle Eastern Studies

"Inhorn invokes in her vivid description of her informants' dilemmas and convincing analysis of their explanations of their infertility a combination of variables; gender issues are interwoven with political domination, colonial history, indigenous religious beliefs, economic problems such as poverty and deprivation, state policies regarding family planning and a whole series of interrelated areas."— Middle Eastern Studies

"A remarkable synthesis of ethnography about infertile Egyptian women's attempts to have children, history of the development of Egyptian medical ideas and practices from ancient times, and contemporary political and economic analysis."— Lingua Franca

From the Publisher