Abstract

Using an entirely new conceptual vocabulary through which to understand men’s experiences and expectations at the dawn of the twenty-first century, this path-breaking volume focuses on fatherhood around the globe, including transformations in fathering, fatherhood, and family life. It includes new work by anthropologists, sociologists, and cultural geographers, working in settings from Peru to India to Vietnam. Each chapter suggests that men are responding to globalization as fathers in creative and unprecedented ways, not only in the West, but also in numerous global locations.

Marcia C. Inhorn is the William K. Lanman Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University. She is (co)editor and author of numerous books on the subject of gender and masculinity, including The New Arab Man: Emergent Masculinities, Technologies, and Islam in the Middle East (Princeton University Press, 2012). Inhorn is also the founding editor of the Journal of Middle East Women’s Studies and co-editor of Berghahn’s “Fertility, Reproduction, and Sexuality” series.

“To understand and explain how fatherhood is conceptualized, defined, and practiced in other regions, many of the contributors introduce new vocabularies and novel theories over the course of the 16 chapters across eight distinct parts of this volume… The result is a timely contribution that illustrates vividly how fatherhood is socially and culturally constructed, altered, contested, and, ultimately, enacted and practiced.” · Choice

“The work is a welcome contribution to the study of men and reproduction, with special attention to changing identities and roles in an increasingly globalized world. It serves as a call for more research towards and stronger conceptual frameworks for understanding fatherhood.” · Journal of the Royal Anthropological Institute

“This intriguing [and comprehensive] collection of essays on the way men from different geographical settings and cultural contexts engage in fatherhood is intended to fill a gap in social science literature, where women have overwhelmingly been the focus of attention…[It] will be appreciated not only by kinship, gender and family studies scholars but also by anyone interested in contemporary ethnographic anthropology.” · Anthropological Notebooks

“Thanks to Globalized Fatherhood we now have a benchmark set of studies with which to further build the theory necessary to study men in relation to children and mothers, as well as a splendid collection of essays each of which reveals common, unique, and often surprising ways of being fathers today, that is fatherhood in all its contradictory and mutable variations.” · Global Public Health

“Globalized Fatherhood, with its 16 chapters and original research on fatherhood (and related topics) from more than 20 countries comes at an opportune time. This impressive volume,…  covers a lot of ground…[It] is an ambitious offering that hits the mark in most of its chapters, and advances the research in a field that is sadly lacking in it. May there be more volumes on the topic –by these authors, and many others.” · Gender & Development

“The book provides manifold empirical and ethnographic insights into the ways in which men around the globe think of and enact fatherhood and into how different historical, national, global, societal and cultural conditions shape men’s possibilities of becoming and being fathers. The book convincingly shows that fatherhood is closely related to family life, kinship concerns, marriage, parenthood, partnership, gender identity, sexuality and class.” · Tine Tjørnhøj-Thomsen, University of Southern Denmark

“The editors have done an excellent job of uniting an exciting collection of international contributions which collectively illuminate the concept of globalized fatherhood. The proposed ‘new vocabulary’ for discussing transformations in fatherhood and masculinity will be of interest to those working on men, gender, infertility, parenting and health in a wide range of disciplines.” · Nicky Hudson, De Montfort University

“A strikingly rich analysis of how fatherhood is culturally constructed and enacted across the world. It not only tells us about the intimate sphere of men’s lives as fathers and how they interact with their children, partners, hoped for and lost children, but also how studying fatherhood offers a fascinating window on broader social change across different societies.” · Maria Lohan, Queen’s University Belfast

Wendy Chavkin is Professor of Public Health and Obstetrics and Gynecology at the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City. Her most recent book is The Globalization of Motherhood: Deconstructions and Reconstructions of Biology and Care (Routledge, 2010). She is the co-founder of Global Doctors for Choice, an international network of physicians who advocate for reproductive health and rights.

José-Alberto Navarro is an MSc student at HEC Paris. His most recent work examines processes of fragmentation, objectification, and masculine body commodification within invisible and illicit economies created through social-networking applications. Navarro’s research focuses on exploring the intersections of economics, finance, gender, and anthropology.