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Population, Gender and Politics: Demographic Change in Rural North India. Roger Jeffery and Patricia Jeffery. New York: Cambridge University Press, 1997. 278 pp.
This book, based upon extensive fieldwork in two villages in northern India, is an excellent synthesis of both anthropological and demographic questions and methods and adds greatly to anthropological literature of South Asia and the demography of developing countries. Situated in the Bijnor District in the northern Indian state of Uttar Pradesh, this rich ethnographic and demographic study examines the varying fertility and mortality rates and sociopolitical situations of the Jat in Nangal and the Sheikhs of Qaziwala. Highlighting previous research in this geographic region in addition to outlining in detail the history of violence and political unrest in the region during and after the Emergency, Roger and Patricia Jeffery argue that much of population policies and demographic programs remain fixed upon controlling numbers and fertility rates. In contrast, the authors suggest a broader, contextual approach to these demographic questions, arguing that access to resources and inequities in power and status, as they have been historically and politically defined, are most significant. Moving away from a perspective that essentializes individuals based upon gender or religion, this study illustrates through complementary ethnographic and demographic data how differences in fertility rates in the Uttar Pradesh are results of myriad cultural and historical meanings of power and that the very meanings of schooling and empowerment, long held to be standard demographic variables, are equally as varied, complex, and situational.
Throughout the book, the authors are grounded in a discussion of rationality and the culture versus agency debates raised in contemporary anthropological demography literature. They point out that in any discussion of children, the value of children, and high fertility, it cannot be simply assumed that individuals are acting solely in accordance with one set of rational ideas or beliefs-rather, the authors elicit, through extensive interviews included in the text, how...