Matters of Life and Longing—Female Sterilisation in Northeast Brazil

Basing her analysis on fieldwork conducted during 1997 and 1998 in a bairro popular just outside the city of Recife, Brazil, Dalsgaard (anthropology, U. of Aarhus, Denmark) explores the social meaning of fertility and birth control among women who have chosen tubal ligation as a method of birth control. Within the context of her interviewees' own life-worlds, she argues, the choice for sterilization should be seen as a search for recognition denied by inferior status. For the women, it is more than birth control, it is a hope for control in one's own life, although as Dalsgaard notes, "it does not alter problematic relationships." Distributed in the US by ISBS. Annotation c2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)