Para onde foram os bebês? Em busca de uma antropologia de bebês (e de seus cuidadores)

Translated title of the contribution: Where have all the babies gone? Towards an Anthropology of infants (and their caretakers)

Alma Gottlieb

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

In much anthropological literature infants are frequently neglected as outside the scope of both the concept of culture and disciplinary methods. This article proposes six reasons for this exclusion of infants from anthropological discussion. These include the fieldworker's own memories and parental status, the problematic question of agency in infants and their presumed dependence on others, their routine attached to women, their seeming inability to communicate, their inconvenient propensity to leak from a variety of orifi ces, and their apparently low quotient of rationality. Yet investigation of how infants are conceived beyond the industrialized West can lead us to envision them far differently from how they are conceived in the West (including by anthropologists). Confronting such comparative data suggests the desirability of considering infants as both relevant and benefi cial to the anthropological endeavor.

Translated title of the contributionWhere have all the babies gone? Towards an Anthropology of infants (and their caretakers)
Original languagePortuguese
Pages (from-to)313-336
Number of pages24
JournalPsicologia USP
Volume20
Issue number3
DOIs
StatePublished - 2009

Keywords

  • Anthropology
  • Infants
  • Social theory
  • West Africa

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Psychology

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'Where have all the babies gone? Towards an Anthropology of infants (and their caretakers)'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this