The Mother-Infant Nexus in Anthropology: Small Beginnings, Significant Outcomes

Over the past 20 years there has been increased research traction in the anthropology of childhood. However, infancy, the pregnant body and motherhood continue to be marginalised. This book will focus on the mother-infant relationship and the variable constructions of this dyad across cultures, including conceptualisations of the pregnant body, the beginnings of life, and implications for health.

This is particularly topical because there is a burgeoning awareness within anthropology regarding the centrality of mother-infant interactions for understanding the evolution of our species, infant and maternal health and care strategies, epigenetic change, and biological and social development.

This book will bring together cultural and biological anthropologists and archaeologists to examine the infant-maternal interface in past societies. It will showcase innovative theoretical and methodological approaches towards understanding societal constructions of foetal, infant and maternal bodies. It will emphasise their interconnectivity and will explore the broader significance of the mother/infant nexus for overall population well-being.


Author: Rebecca Gowland
Publisher: Springer
Published: 11/15/2019
Pages: 284
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.32lbs
Size: 9.21h x 6.14w x 0.69d
ISBN: 9783030273927

About the Author

Rebecca Gowland is an Associate Professor in Human Bioarchaeology at the Department of Archaeology, Durham University. Her research focuses on the inter-relationship between the body and society in the past and she is particularly interested in the life course and age as an aspect of social identity. She has co-edited the Social Archaeology of Funerary Remains (2006, Oxbow) and Care in the Past: An Interdisciplinary Perspective (in press, Oxbow), and has co-authored Human Identity and Identification (2013, CUP). In addition, she has published widely in peer-reviewed journals on methodological and theoretical approaches to the study of skeletal remains. Rebecca teaches bioarchaeology, with a particular emphasis on palaeopathology, to undergraduate and postgraduate students

Siân Halcrow is an Associate Professor in Bioarchaeology at the University of Otago, with a research focus on infant and child stress and disease in the past and social aspects of childhood. She manages the skeletal analyses on several international archaeological projects in Thailand, Laos, Cambodia, China and Chile. Dr Halcrow's research is funded through sources including the NZ Royal Society Marsden fund, University of Otago Research Grants, and Fulbright NZ. She is also a Partner Investigator on Australian Council Research Grants. She has published widely on infant and child bioarchaeology, and teaches undergraduate health science and biological anthropology courses, and a postgraduate bioarchaeological course.​