IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v39y1994i4p463-474.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Plundered kitchens and empty wombs: Fear of infertility in the Cameroonian Grassfields

Author

Listed:
  • Feldman-Savelsberg, Pamela

Abstract

In Bangangté, a Bamiléké kingdom in the Grassfields of Cameroon, local understandings of reproductive illness contrast with standard demographic indicators of high fertility in this region. Bangangté are preoccupied with threats to reproductive health. This article explores the culinary metaphors of building kitchens, choosing, measuring, and mixing ingredients, and slow and skillful cooking in Bangangté notions of procreation and infertility. The violent imagery of plundered kitchens, cannibalistic witchcraft, and theft permeates Bangangté women's accounts of infertility and child loss. The analysis suggests that infertility anxiety in Bangangté reflects women's feelings of vulnerability in the context of rural female poverty and the gender-specific consequences of political change in Cameroon.

Suggested Citation

  • Feldman-Savelsberg, Pamela, 1994. "Plundered kitchens and empty wombs: Fear of infertility in the Cameroonian Grassfields," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 463-474, August.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:39:y:1994:i:4:p:463-474
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/0277-9536(94)90090-6
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Pourette, Dolorès & Pierlovisi, Carole & Randriantsara, Ranjatiana & Rakotomanana, Elliot & Mattern, Chiarella, 2018. "Avoiding a "big" baby: Local perceptions and social responses toward childbirth-related complications in Menabe, Madagascar," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 218(C), pages 52-61.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:39:y:1994:i:4:p:463-474. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.