Son Preference: Sex Selection, Gender and Culture in South Asia

by Navtej K. Purewal

Overview

The preference for male children transcends many societies and cultures, making it an issue of local and global dimensions. While son preference is not a new phenomenon and has existed historically in many parts of Asia, its contemporary expressions illustrate the gendered outcomes of social power relations as they interact and intersect with culture, economy and technologies. Son Preference brings together key debates on the subject of son preference by assessing existing work in the field and providing new insights through primary research. The book covers a broad range of social science discussions and draws upon textual and ethnographic material from India. Son Preference will be useful to students, scholars, activists and anyone interested in the issues surrounding gender inequity, sex selection and skewed sex ratios.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781845204686
Publisher:	Taylor & Francis
Publication date:	04/01/2010
Pages:	160
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.10(h) x 0.40(d)

About the Author

Navtej K. Purewal is Lecturer in Sociology, School of Social Sciences, University of Manchester

Table of Contents

Preface ix

Acknowledgements xv

Introduction 1

1 Mapping Knowledges of Son Preference 9

2 Son Preference in the Colonial and Postcolonial 23

3 'Figuring out' Son Preference 47

4 Anti-Female Foeticide: Between Activism and Orthodoxy 67

5 Narratives of Reproductive Choice and Culture in the Diaspora 93

6 Girl Talk: Cultural Change and Challenge through the Eyes of Young Women in Contemporary Punjab 108

Conclusion by way of Epilogue 117

Bibliography 121

Index 137

Editorial Reviews

An accessible and stimulating book for students, academics, and anyone interested in this highly sensitive and contentious issue, Son Preference provides a valuable addition to anthropological and sociological analyses and proposes new directions for ethnographic research.” —Sunil Khanna, Oregon State University

From the Publisher

An accessible and stimulating book for students, academics, and anyone interested in this highly sensitive and contentious issue, Son Preference provides a valuable addition to anthropological and sociological analyses and proposes new directions for ethnographic research.

Oregon State University Sunil Khanna

An accessible and stimulating book for students, academics, and anyone interested in this highly sensitive and contentious issue, Son Preference provides a valuable addition to anthropological and sociological analyses and proposes new directions for ethnographic research.

Oregon State University Dr Sunil Khanna