A Colonial Lexicon: Of Birth Ritual, Medicalization, and Mobility in the Congo
A Colonial Lexicon is the first historical investigation of how childbirth became medicalized in Africa. Rejecting the “colonial encounter” paradigm pervasive in current studies, Nancy Rose Hunt elegantly weaves together stories about autopsies and bicycles, obstetric surgery and male initiation, to reveal how concerns about strange new objects and procedures fashioned the hybrid social world of colonialism and its aftermath in Mobutu’s Zaire.\ Relying on archival research in England and...
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Colonial relations in Zaire viewed through the attempts of missionaries to impose European midwifery and birthing practices.
IllustrationsAbbreviationsAcknowledgmentsIntroduction11Crocodiles and Wealth272Doctors and Airplanes803Dining and Surgery1174Nurses and Bicycles1595Babies and Forceps1966Colonial Maternities2377Debris281Departures320Notes331Glossary413Bibliography417Index447
\ From the Publisher“ ‘Birth’ is more than the begetting of children and Nancy Rose Hunt’s ‘colonial lexicon’ is much more than a history of medicalized childbearing in the formerly Belgian Congo in colonial and post-colonial times. . . . With erudition and wit Hunt challenges conventional models—be they feminist, obstetric, colonial, missionary, or health-bureaucratic—about what it means to medicalize childbearing.”—Barbara Duden, Universität Hannover\ “A highly original study. This book links medical work with maternity work in the context of arguments about gender relations and about feminist perspectives on writing history.”—Gillian Feeley-Harnik, author of A Green Estate: Restoring Independence in Madagascar\ \ \
