Reproducing margins: situating the anthropology of fertility and migration in Geneva, Switzerland

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  • March 21, 2019
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  • West, Lindsey Marie
    • Affiliation: College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Anthropology
Abstract
  • Populations are not neatly contained in geographic or national areas, and the experiences of transnational populations are elided by traditional demographic practice. Fertility is an ever more contested topic in Europe in part because of ambiguity over the significance of population statistics and anxiety over who is counted as part of the nation. I argue that biopolitical anxieties in contemporary European political discourses conceptualize invasive migration and low fertility as dual problems facing national populations. This paper explores these concepts through a review of the anthropological literature on stratified reproduction and boundary maintenance in European contexts. I use this review to situate my own research in Geneva Switzerland, which brings these two paradigms together in an inquiry into displaced women's family planning practices. Examining the experiences of migrant persons making reproductive decisions in Switzerland on the margins of legitimacy allows me to explore how boundaries are mapped onto bodies and what the consequences are for individuals, families, populations, and nations.
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  • In Copyright
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  • Rivkin-Fish, Michele
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  • Open access
Date uploaded
  • October 11, 2010

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