Big ideas: Feminist ethnographies of reproduction

Abstract

ABSTRACTThis review essay considers five recent books—three single‐authored ethnographies and two edited volumes—that present feminist ethnographic analyses of reproduction. I highlight the volumes' common themes and approaches and offer critical reflections on the current state of the anthropology of reproduction as exemplified in these works. I argue that feminist anthropologists pursuing ethnographic studies of reproduction have amply demonstrated what anthropologists in general have long sought to demonstrate: that to study ordinary people in their everyday lives is, indeed, to address “the big ideas”. In the process, these feminist anthropologists have also offered to our discipline an ambitious new vision of what a better world might look like and of how ethnographic research might help bring that world about.