Ebook: Parenthood between Generations: Transforming Reproductive Cultures

Recent literature has identified modern “parenting” as an expert-led practice—one which begins with pre-pregnancy decisions, entails distinct types of intimate relationships, places intense burdens on mothers and increasingly on fathers too. Exploring within diverse historical and global contexts how men and women make—and break—relations between generations when becoming parents, this volume brings together innovative qualitative research by anthropologists, historians, and sociologists. The chapters focus tightly on inter-generational transmission and demonstrate its importance for understanding how people become parents and rear children.

Siân Pooley is a Tutorial Fellow in Modern British History at Magdalen College and an Associate Professor in the Faculty of History, University of Oxford. Her research explores the social and cultural history of Britain since 1850, especially through the experiences, relationships, and inequalities that mattered to children, men, and women. She is currently working on parenthood, children’s writing, and experiences of maltreatment in childhood.

Kaveri Qureshi is a Research Fellow at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, University of Oxford. She works on Pakistani and Indian diasporas as well as in Punjab. She has research interests in migration, gendered life courses, family life, and how people deal with transitions—from an episode of incapacitating illness, to the breakdown of a marriage, to becoming a mother for the first time.