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Conceiving the New World Order The Global Politics of Reproduction, edited by Faye D. Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1995. 450 pp. $45.00 cloth. ISBN: 0-520-08914-6. $17.95 paper. ISBN: 0-520-08913-8.
Conceiving the New World Order sets out to transform traditional anthropological analysis of reproduction and to make reproduction central to social theory. Editors Faye Ginsburg and Rayna Rapp use the concept of stratified reproduction-"the power relations by which some categories of people are empowered to nurture and reproduce, while others are disempowered" (p. 3)-as the anthology's unifying theme. These power relations are not simply located within one particular culture or place, as traditional anthropological research has emphasized, but instead cross many social and geographical boundaries, especially in the present era of globalization.
One of the anthropology's main strengths is the richness of its 23 case studies: Each is well grounded in historical and cultural detail. Although a certain postmodern selfconsciousness detracts from some of the readings, in general they are accessible. A short review cannot do justice to the breadth of the book, which covers the terrain of birthing, reproductive technologies, the reproductive consequences of crisis situations, and social theory and policy.
The book contains a number of interesting articles on the politics...