The Afterlife Is Where We Come From [Hardcover]

Alma Gottlieb (Author)

Book Description

ISBN-10: 0226305015 | ISBN-13: 978-0226305011 | Publication Date: January 1, 2004 | Edition: 1

When a new baby arrives among the Beng people of West Africa, they see it not as being born, but as being reincarnated after a rich life in a previous world. Far from being a tabula rasa, a Beng infant is thought to begin its life filled with spiritual knowledge. How do these beliefs affect the way the Beng rear their children?

In this unique and engaging ethnography of babies, Alma Gottlieb explores how religious ideology affects every aspect of Beng childrearing practices—from bathing infants to protecting them from disease to teaching them how to crawl and walk—and how widespread poverty limits these practices. A mother of two, Gottlieb includes moving discussions of how her experiences among the Beng changed the way she saw her own parenting. Throughout the book she also draws telling comparisons between Beng and Euro-American parenting, bringing home just how deeply culture matters to the way we all rear our children.

All parents and anyone interested in the place of culture in the lives of infants, and vice versa, will enjoy The Afterlife Is Where We Come From.

"This wonderfully reflective text should provide the impetus for formulating research possibilities about infancy and toddlerhood for this century." — Caren J. Frost, Medical Anthropology Quarterly

 

“Alma Gottlieb’s careful and thought-provoking account of infancy sheds spectacular light upon a much neglected topic. . . . [It] makes a strong case for the central place of babies in anthropological accounts of religion.  Gottlieb’s remarkably rich account, delivered after a long and reflective period of gestation, deserves a wide audience across a range of disciplines.”—Anthony Simpson, Critique of Anthropology

 

(20050325)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"The Afterlife Is Where We Come From is filled with richly layered (and often moving) material on the daily lives of Beng people, especially on what they say about babies and how what they say informs their day-to-day practice in caring for infants. . . . The breadth of [Gottlieb''s] knowledge is admirable and the book is engagingly written and bound to be widely read by the public at large as well as by anthropologists."

(Christina Toren Anthropological Quarterly 20060511)

"The Afterlife Is Where We Come From is a sophisticated, insightful and compelling analysis of infants, infant care, and Beng Religious ideology. . . . Gottlieb''s approach to the study of infants is systematic, comprehensive, and satisfying. The resulting analysis is beautifully organized and provides a model for all of us seeking to explicate complexity without reductionism. . . . This book will be a welcome addition to the growing number of courses on the anthropology of children and youth, as well, as to anthropologists teaching or researching the life cycle, family, African ethnology, and religion. It has the added attraction of being highly readable by both scholar and undergraduate."

(Lisa Mitchell The Canadian Review of Sociology and Anthropology )

"This text would be extremely informative for undergraduate and graduate students. . . . This wonderfully reflective text should provide the impetus for formulating research possibilities about infancy and toddlerhood for this century." -- Caren J. Frost, Medical Anthropology Quarterly

(Caren J. Frost Medical Anthropology )

“Alma Gottlieb’s careful and thought-provoking account of infancy sheds spectacular light upon a much neglected topic. . . . [It] makes a strong case for the central place of babies in anthropological accounts of religion.  Gottlieb’s remarkably rich account, delivered after a long and reflective period of gestation, deserves a wide audience across a range of disciplines.”—Anthony Simpson, Critique of Anthropology

(Anthony Stimpson Critique of Anthropology )

"[Afterlife] contributes to the field of anthropological research on children at many levels, revealing above all that children can be imagined by adults in ways that differ markedly from Western popular, religious, and scientific models alike."

(Nicolas Argenti Current Anthropology )

From the Inside Flap

When a new baby arrives among the Beng people of West Africa, they see it not as being born, but as being reincarnated after a rich life in a previous world. Far from being a tabula rasa, a Beng infant is thought to begin its life filled with spiritual knowledge. How do these beliefs affect the way the Beng rear their children?

In this unique and engaging ethnography of babies, Alma Gottlieb explores how religious ideology affects every aspect of Beng childrearing practices—from bathing infants to protecting them from disease to teaching them how to crawl and walk—and how widespread poverty limits these practices. A mother of two, Gottlieb includes moving discussions of how her experiences among the Beng changed the way she saw her own parenting. Throughout the book she also draws telling comparisons between Beng and Euro-American parenting, bringing home just how deeply culture matters to the way we all rear our children.

All parents and anyone interested in the place of culture in the lives of infants, and vice versa, will enjoy The Afterlife Is Where We Come From.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 427 pages
• Publisher: University Of Chicago Press; 1 edition (January 1, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0226305015
• ISBN-13: 978-0226305011
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #6,001,486 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Alma Gottlieb is a cultural anthropologist. She earned her BA from Sarah Lawrence College in anthropology and French (1975), and her MA (1978) and PhD (1983) in cultural anthropology from the University of Virginia. Among other works, she is the author of The Afterlife Is Where We Come from: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa (2004), and Under the Kapok Tree: Identity and Difference in Beng Thought (1992); the co-author (with Philip Graham) of Parallel Worlds: An Anthropologist and a Writer Encounter Africa (1993--winner of the Victor Turner Award/Society for Humanistic Anthropology); and the co-editor of Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation (1988--winner of the Most Enduring Edited Collection Award/Council for the Anthropology of Reproduction) and A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare Guides for Seven Societies (2000).

Since 1983, Gottlieb has taught anthropology, women's studies, and African studies at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign; she has also been a visiting professor and researcher at the Catholic University of Leuven (Belgium), the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (Paris), the Instituto Superior de Ciências Sociais e Políticas (Lisbon), the National University of Côte d'Ivoire (Abidjan), Lewis and Clark College (Portland), and elsewhere. Her major field research has been among the Beng people of Côte d'Ivoire and, more recently, among Cape Verdeans with Jewish heritage (on and off the islands). A past president of the Society for Humanistic Anthropology, her research has been funded by the Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Humanities, Social Science Research Council, Wenner-Gren Foundation, and other agencies.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Very interesting book., September 21, 2010

A Kid's Review

This review is from: The Afterlife Is Where We Come From (Paperback)

I had to purchase this book for a college course & it is excellent! Easy to read and understand. A little detailed with a lot of references and facts, but that is why it is used for school. Even if it was not for a class I would have purchased it.