tive of Jane Stevenson Day and a summary chapter by ... Rogers, Josephine Etowa, and Joan Evans contribute ... Brenda F. McGadney-Douglass, Nana.
Cattell, Maria G. and Marjorie M. Schweitzer, eds. Women in Anthropology: Autobiographical Narratives and Social History. Walnut Creek, Calif.: Left Coast Press, 2006. 256 pp. Lavell-Harvard, D. Memee, and Jeannette Corbiere Lavell, eds. “Until Our Hearts are on the Ground”: Aboriginal Mothering, Oppression, Resistance and Rebirth. Toronto, Ont.: Demeter Press, 2006. 250 pp. Anthropology, as represented in these edited volumes, is a dynamic field with immense social relevance, providing both the tools to research the human experience and the perspective to appreciate what we learn about ourselves in the process. Both works present the personal, sometimes painful, experiences of individual women in a way that transcends personal experience and informs readers about general conditions that affect the way we lead our lives. Both employ anthropological perspective of these experiences to enrich the reader’s understanding of the patterning illustrated in our own behavior. In both, the association of womanhood and motherhood is a central theme. Women in Anthropology: Autobiographical Narratives and Social History grew out of personal conversations among women who had returned to school in mid-life to seek PhD degrees in anthropology. Each of the seventeen personal narratives follows the broad pattern of exploring each woman’s personal history before becoming an anthropologist, the reasons each went back to school in mid-life, her choice of discipline, her decision to pursue a doctorate, the challenges and support met along the way, her understanding of what
it means to become an anthropologist, the contributions she has made to the field, her feeling on being a role model, and her accounting of personal rewards from the journey. As with many narratives of women’s lives, the emphasis is on the circuitous journey taken and the process of becoming. What makes this collection of narratives distinctive is that as anthropologists, both individually and collectively, the authors frame their experiences in anthropological terms. Many emphasize the importance of early life experiences encountering or being “the other.” Most recognize how social expectations that they fill the roles of wife and mother impacted their own decision-making as young women. All gained personal satisfaction from the successful pursuit of a professional degree, regardless of the degree of their success attaining a traditional academic position after graduation. The introductory chapters place the project that gave rise to this book in its social and historical context, state the goals of the project, summarize the personal narratives, and contextualize the gender roles these women experienced. Together these chapters make explicit the goal of telling the personal stories of women who chose anthropology as their second career and overcame whatever obstacles presented themselves in completing a personal academic journey. At the same time, the introductory chapters acknowledge that these aren’t the only interesting stories of becoming anthropologists, and they place their subjects’ collective experience in the context of changing gender roles throughout the midtwentieth century. Individual narratives are arranged into six sections based on the dominant themes emphasized by the authors.
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“Possessed by Anthropology” contains the narrative of Judy Rosenthal, which is infused with the sense of being an anthropologist in spirit before knowing there was an academic field of anthropology to explore. The narratives of Eunice Felter Boyer, Marilyn Preheim Rose, Cath Oberholtzer, and Dorothy M. Castille, all of whom emphasize the courage and self-confidence required to pursue a life course against prevailing social currents, comprise the second section, “Changing Roles, Challenging Stereotypes: Women’s Roles in Twentieth-Century America.” Both the constraints imposed on and the support offered to women by family are the focus of the narratives of Louana M. Lackey, Molly G. Schuchat, Elllen C. Rhoads Holmes, and Esther Skirboll in “The Web of Lives: Family Involvements, Career Interactions.” The fourth themed group of narratives, “Being the Other: Encounters with Difference,” addresses both inspiration derived from the recognition of self as other and hurdles to career development related to being perceived as other through the stories of Ruby Rohrlich, Elizabeth (Teddy) Dressel Hoobler, M. Jean Harris, and Barbara Olsen. With the fifth collection of narratives, those of Marjoire M. Schweitzer, Maria Gleaton Cattell, and Jacqueline Walden, the focus shifts from becoming anthropologists to “Being an Anthropologist, Living Anthropological Lives.” The final section uses the narrative of Jane Stevenson Day and a summary chapter by Marjorie M. Schweitzer to focus on “Legacies for Future Generations.” Reading this collection of narrative autobiographies has affected me in several ways. First, many of the stories depict the lives of strong, courageous women pursuing dreams that are not entirely understood by those around them. The 248
emotional struggle is not hidden from readers, creating an intensely personal connection with the authors. As a younger woman who went straight through college and graduate school and has not invested in starting a family along the way, I have a newfound admiration for those who have made different decisions in their lives. Second, given that the modal PhD in anthropology has shifted from a young male to an older female over the last several decades, understanding the motivation and goals of these older females in anthropology has given me a better understanding of the history and current trajectory of the field as a whole. Finally, as a teacher of Anthropology of Gender with an interest in the utility of evolutionary ecology for explaining many human behaviors, I am fascinated by the anthropological and personal synthesis of this collection of women anthropologists (all but one of whom are also mothers) who introduce their stories by identifying “enculturation and socialization as the defining factors in the creation of gender roles” (46) and conclude with a recognition that the questions still facing women pursuing careers are: “whether or not to have children, when to have children, and how to accommodate raising children along with the pursuit of a career” (251). Although the impact of mothering is only one of many themes in the stories of older women anthropologists, it is the dominant theme of “Until our Hearts are On the Ground”: Aboriginal Mothering, Oppression, Resistance and Rebirth. This edited volume covers a wide range of topics, all focused on the social injustice of policies that have alienated and continue to alienate aboriginal women from the most basic practices of motherhood— giving birth and raising children. Contriboo k r e vie ws
butions range from revolutionary calls to action for aboriginal mothers to defy the imposed systems of medicine and law that deny the importance of cultural traditions and the role of the mother, to careful scholarly treatments of the history of social policies impacting aboriginal mothering, comparative studies of colonial impacts on mothering around the world, and literary explorations of the depiction of aboriginal mothers in literature and film. The text begins with a scholarly discussion of the definition of “aboriginal mothering,” given the variation in perceptions of words such as “aboriginal” and “Indian” and the recognition that a woman does not have to be a biological mother in order to participate in “mothering.” Following the editors’ revolutionary call to reclaim the traditional powers of women in aboriginal Canadian cultures in the introduction, contributions are arranged into four sections. Kim Anderson, Leanne Simpson, and the team of Joanne WhittyRogers, Josephine Etowa, and Joan Evans contribute powerful selections on childbirth as experienced by aboriginal mothers in “From the Womb: Becoming an Aboriginal Mother.” These selections focus on the way imposed systems of medicine have made the natural process of childbirth seem unnatural and rendered traditionally powerful women powerless. “Conceptions and Practices of Aboriginal Mothering” presents five separate perspectives on the meaning of motherhood for different aboriginal peoples from Canada and Ghana, including the lessons about mothering being taught in traditional parenting skills programs. The emphasis in these chapters by Renee Elizabeth Mzinegizhigokwe Bedard, Jan Noel, Joaane Arnott, Brenda F. McGadney-Douglass, Nana Araba Apt and Richard L. Douglas, and
Belinda Wheeler is on the traditional role of women, mothers, aunties and grandmothers, as those who pass traditional knowledge and values on to the next generation. The section titled “‘Big Mother’: The Role of the State in the Performance of Mothering” explores the impact of policies that devalue aboriginal culture on the women responsible for raising aboriginal children in Canada (Randi Cull and Margo Greenwood and Sarah de Leeuw), the multigenerational impact of residential schools on aboriginal families (Rosalyn Ing), and the extreme stress faced by aboriginal mothers who must struggle to maintain personal identity and parenting rights through the courts (D. Memee Lavell-Harvard and Jeannette Corbiere Lavell, and Cheryl Gosselin). Finally, “Literary Representations of Aboriginal Mothering” from Australia and North America are explored in contributions from Debra Bruch, Roxanne Harde, and Hilary Emmett. Themes developed include the personal and systemic impact of oppressive policies, the meanings assigned to mothering, and the difficulty of reconstituting a society once it is interrupted. Both of these works are powerful collections that focus on specific demographic subsets of populations that have been differentially impacted by the values of the dominant society. Both contain a compelling mix of lessons in social history and personal narratives. Both focus specifically on the lives of women and the importance of mothering to the experience of women. I am glad to have read each of them and can see many ways to use some or all of each book in courses such as Anthropology of Gender, in mentoring young students facing their future and older students returning to pursue their interests, in understanding my col-
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leagues, and in teaching the relevance of anthropology to solving problems faced by many people in the contemporary world. However, neither the personal obstacles to academic success nor the impact of medical and legal systems on individual lives are limited to the subsets of older women or aboriginal mothers. What could we learn from a comparison of these narratives with those of young male PhD anthropologists or physicists? What could we learn from a study focused on aboriginal fathering? As an anthropologist, the greatest value of these works is not that they are about women’s lives, but that by being tightly focused on one subset of experiences, they would allow controlled comparison with other, as yet unpublished, collections of narratives exploring similar themes from another perspective. Either of these books could find a home in a feminist classroom. Although Women in Anthropology might be particularly relevant in anthropology classes or in teaching contexts where there were many older students, it contains case material clearly relevant to family, work, and gen-
der-themed courses in women’s studies, sociology, history, or American studies. Balancing career and family is a dominant theme, and there is considerable attention to the social and historical context of these women’s lives. The contributions in “Until Our Hearts Are On the Ground” emphasize such a diversity of themes that some or all would be easily incorporated in courses in Native American studies, women’s studies, sociology, history, Canadian studies, or political science. Many contributions would be valuable additions to courses taken by future legal or medical professionals. Finally, there are a few selections that would be at home in film or literature courses focused on women, aboriginal peoples, or social injustice. In sum, depending on personal or professional interests, either one or both of these books has a lot to offer to an audience that extends far beyond older women anthropologists, aboriginal mothers, or feminist scholars.
Folbre, Nancy, and Michael Bittman, eds. Family Time: The Social Organization of Care. London and New York: Routledge, 2004. 242 pp.
alternatives are lacking, women still devote the lion’s share of time to family care, typically diminishing their involvement in paid work and the quality of leisure they enjoy. Although the amount of absolute time parents in Western societies spend with their children may have decreased, given the increased labor force participation of women, the “faceto-face” quality time with children has increased, giving the lie to the notion that the employment of women has resulted in the neglect of children. Both mothers and fathers spend significant amounts of activity time with their children, but women
Time devoted to the care of children and elders is not simply a matter of individual choice or even family negotiation, but of social policy. So say Nancy Folbre, MacArthur fellow (1998–2003) and University of Massachusetts economics professor; Michael Bittman, senior research fellow at the University of New South Wales; and their international group of collaborators in Family Time. Where state-supported 250
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