Grandmotherhood


Book Description

Darwinian theory holds that a successful life is measured in terms of reproduction. Bringing together work in anthropology, psychology, ethnography and the social sciences, this study explores the evolutionary purpose and possibilities of female post-generative life.




Anthropological Perspectives on Aging


Book Description

An in-depth and wide-ranging approach to the study of older adults in society Taking a holistic approach to the study of aging, this volume uses biological, archaeological, medical, and cultural perspectives to explore how older adults have functioned in societies around the globe and throughout human history. As the world’s population over 65 years of age continues to increase, this wide-ranging approach fills a growing need for both academics and service professionals in gerontology, geriatrics, and related fields. Case studies from the United States, Tibet, Turkey, China, Nigeria, and Mexico provide examples of the ways age-related changes are influenced by environmental, genetic, sociocultural, and political-economic variables. Taken together, they help explain how the experience of aging varies across time and space. These contributions from noted anthropological scholars examine evolutionary and biological understandings of human aging, the roles of elders in various societies, issues of gender and ageism, and the role of chronic illness and “successful aging” among older adults. This volume highlights how an anthropology of aging can illustrate how older adults adapt to shifting life circumstances and environments, including changes to the ways in which individuals and families care for them. The research in Anthropological Perspectives on Aging can also help researchers, students, and practitioners reach across disciplines to address age discrimination and help improve health outcomes throughout the life course.




Border Politics


Book Description

In the current historical moment borders have taken on heightened material and symbolic significance, shaping identities and the social and political landscape. “Borders”—defined broadly to include territorial dividing lines as well as sociocultural boundaries—have become increasingly salient sites of struggle over social belonging and cultural and material resources. How do contemporary activists navigate and challenge these borders? What meanings do they ascribe to different social, cultural and political boundaries, and how do these meanings shape the strategies in which they engage? Moreover, how do these social movements confront internal borders based on the differences that emerge within social change initiatives? Border Politics, edited by Nancy A. Naples and Jennifer Bickham Mendez, explores these important questions through eleven carefully selected case studies situated in geographic contexts around the globe. By conceptualizing struggles over identity, social belonging and exclusion as extensions of border politics, the authors capture the complex ways in which geographic, cultural, and symbolic dividing lines are blurred and transcended, but also fortified and redrawn. This volume notably places right-wing and social justice initiatives in the same analytical frame to identify patterns that span the political spectrum. Border Politics offers a lens through which to understand borders as sites of diverse struggles, as well as the strategies and practices used by diverse social movements in today’s globally interconnected world. Contributors: Phillip Ayoub, Renata Blumberg, Yvonne Braun, Moon Charania, Michael Dreiling, Jennifer Johnson, Jesse Klein, Andrej Kurnik, Sarah Maddison, Duncan McDuie-Ra, Jennifer Bickham Mendez, Nancy A. Naples, David Paternotte, Maple Razsa, Raphi Rechitsky, Kyle Rogers, Deana Rohlinger, Cristina Sanidad, Meera Sehgal, Tara Stamm, Michelle Téllez




In Women's Experience


Book Description

This essential companion to Volume I traces the entirety of women's lives. What does it mean to be a woman? What viewpoints, perceptions, and insights are unique to women? Contributors from a wide range of back grounds offer their understanding of life through the eyes of women, looking at diverse and topical issues such as competition among women, children in battered women's shelters, HIV, grandmothering, therapy, and self-discovery. An indispensable resource for women and men seeking a greater understanding of human experience.




Grandmothers on Guard


Book Description

For about a decade, one of the most influential forces in US anti-immigrant politics was the Minuteman Project. The armed volunteers made headlines patrolling the southern border. What drove their ethno-nationalist politics? Jennifer L. Johnson spent hundreds of hours observing and interviewing Minutemen, hoping to answer that question. She reached surprising conclusions. While the public face of border politics is hypermasculine—men in uniforms, fatigues, and suits—older women were central to the Minutemen. Women mobilized support and took part in border missions. These women compel us to look beyond ideological commitments and material benefits in seeking to understand the appeal of right-wing politics. Johnson argues that the women of the Minutemen were motivated in part by the gendered experience of aging in America. In a society that makes old women irrelevant, aging white women found their place through anti-immigrant activism, which wedded native politics to their concern for the safety of their families. Grandmothers on Guard emphasizes another side of nationalism: the yearning for inclusion. The nation the Minutemen imagined was not only a space of exclusion but also one in which these women could belong.




Research Handbook on the Sociology of the Family


Book Description

Exploring how family life has radically changed in recent decades, this comprehensive Research Handbook tracks the latest developments and trends in scholarly work on the family. With a particular focus on the European context, it addresses current debates and offers insights into key topics including: the division of housework, family forms and living arrangements, intergenerational relationships, partner choice, divorce and fertility behaviour.




The Grandmothers' Movement


Book Description

At the height of the African AIDS crisis older women mobilized across two continents and an ocean of difference to change the lives of innumerable African women confronting insecurity, violence, grief, and illness. In 2006 the Stephen Lewis Foundation launched its Grandmothers to Grandmothers Campaign, seeking to organize Canadians in solidarity with "Africa's grandmothers" - older caregivers who had lost their children to AIDS and were left to raise their grandchildren. Four years later, some 10,000 Canadians had joined the campaign. May Chazan's The Grandmothers' Movement explores the encounters, ideas, and circumstances that shaped this remarkable story of solidarity and struggle. Based on interviews, family trees, personal journals, and archival materials, Chazan provides the first analysis of the movement. Through personal reflections and powerful vignettes from nearly a decade of participation in grandmothers' lives in South Africa and Canada, she presents untold narratives and brings new humanity to the AIDS crisis in Africa. The Grandmothers' Movement tells a story of hope while challenging conventional understandings of the global AIDS response, solidarity, and old age. It is about the power of older women to alter their own lives through collective action and about the influence of transnational cooperation to effect positive global change.




Grandma Rules


Book Description

A response to all those grandmother books with flowers and puppies on the cover, Grandma Rules is a book for the hip, baby boomer grandma who realizes that after all the work she put into her own kids, she can take a break and have fun with her grandkids. A perfect gift for the greatest grandmothers you know, this book is laugh out loud funny while offering useful insights and tips on how to embrace the world’s greatest job.




Understanding Older Chicanas


Book Description

Focusing on an overlooked and understudied population, Understanding Older Chicanas examines older Chicanas' lives, status, and public policy needs. Chicana elderly tend to be poor, reflecting the economic position of Chicanos in American society; they also tend to be stereotyped as widows and grandmothers, reflecting the cultural values of Mexican American society. This work shows how Chicana elderly cope with this economic and cultural marginality and how they gain the personal and financial resources they require. Author Elisa Facio also relates how scholars and public policymakers have previously understood Chicana elderly, provides new data on the social meaning of Chicana old age, and points out the implications of that meaning for future policymakers. This perceptive volume is essential reading for those in academic and policy settings who are interested in issues regarding multicultural aging experiences, diversification, life-cycle phases, socialization, and women.




Unsettling Activisms


Book Description

How and why do “ordinary” women and nonbinary people engage in various forms of social-change work at different times in their lives? What does it mean for these people to age as activists? Unsettling Activisms brings together insights from academics and activists in an intergenerational conversation that addresses these questions. Drawing on diverse lived experiences, including contributions from leading feminist and age studies scholars, this volume investigates how powerful, interlocking forms of difference such as gender, class, race, ability, ethnicity, sexuality, and Indigeneity, shape the meaning and experience of both ageing and activism. This vital resource consists of eight analytic chapters and eight vibrant reflective pieces, alongside poignant poetry and photography. This collection is best suited for undergraduate and graduate courses in gender studies, activist and social movement studies, and age and ageing studies.