IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v254y2020ics0277953619305283.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Numbering others: Religious demography, identity, and fertility management experiences in contemporary India

Author

Listed:
  • Singh, Holly Donahue

Abstract

Demographers have carefully analyzed intersecting aspects of identity beyond religious category that influence fertility patterns in India, such as region, access to wealth, sex ratios, and gender dynamics (Padmanabhan, 2015). Drawing on interviews and participant-observation conducted during 15 months of field research on infertility in Lucknow, Uttar Pradesh, north India, between 2005-07 and 2016–17, this study shows how nuances of demographic change categorized by religion, such as changes in fertility and mortality rates, ripple through public discourse and imagination less powerfully than overall shifts in population percentages. This paper connects media and political discourse about religion, demography, and fertility in large-scale reports, such as the 2011 Census of India and the Sachar Committee Report on status of Muslims in India (Sachar et al., 2006), to the health care services and advice provided to Muslim women and children. While the Sachar Report drew attention to economic and social disadvantage among Muslims, political discourse in response to the 2011 Census continues a trend of labeling disparities in fertility rates across religious categories as a social problem. Such discourse renders individual fertility and infertility experiences invisible and reinforces longstanding negative representations of Muslims' fertility, with important implications for health, identity, and ultimately, governance (Sangamoorthy and Benton, 2012). Ethnographic data from health outreach efforts led by and serving Muslim women in Lucknow demonstrate the diversity of Muslim women's positions relative to health and fertility services as well as the intersections of various aspects of identity with fertility management experiences. By bringing these perspectives together, the paper shows how ethnographic work matters for making sense of quantitative population data. The political uses of large-scale quantitative data demonstrate how social science analysis can be used both to create “Others” and argue for neo-eugenics, and to bolster arguments for resources and reform that benefit the disadvantaged.

Suggested Citation

  • Singh, Holly Donahue, 2020. "Numbering others: Religious demography, identity, and fertility management experiences in contemporary India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:254:y:2020:i:c:s0277953619305283
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112534
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953619305283
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112534?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rajindar Sachar & Saiyid Hamid & T.K. Oommen & M.A. Basith & Rakesh Basant & Akhtar Majeed & Abusaleh Shariff, 2006. "Social, Economic and Educational Status of the Muslim Community of India," Development Economics Working Papers 22136, East Asian Bureau of Economic Research.
    2. Jeffery, Patricia & Jeffery, Roger, 2010. "Only when the boat has started sinking: A maternal death in rural north India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(10), pages 1711-1718, November.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Nandagiri, Rishita, 2021. "What’s so troubling about ‘voluntary’ family planning anyway? A feminist perspective," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 112535, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Sabina Alkire & Suman Seth, 2013. "Selecting a Targeting Method to Identify BPL Households in India," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 112(2), pages 417-446, June.
    2. Singh, Ashish, 2010. "Inequality of opportunity in India," MPRA Paper 32971, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Kshitij Chaudhary, 2015. "The effect of political decentralisation and affirmative action on Multidimensional Poverty Index: evidence from Indian States," Journal of Social and Economic Development, Springer;Institute for Social and Economic Change, vol. 17(1), pages 27-49, April.
    4. Chinmayi Srikanth & Shubhasis Dey, 2023. "Identity and multigenerational persistence," WIDER Working Paper Series wp-2023-81, World Institute for Development Economic Research (UNU-WIDER).
    5. Sapovadia, Vrajlal, 2016. "Migration as Subtle Catalyst: Institution Building in India," MPRA Paper 68850, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. M. Niaz Asadullah & Uma Kambhampati & Florencia Lopez Boo, 2014. "Social divisions in school participation and attainment in India: 1983–2004," Cambridge Journal of Economics, Cambridge Political Economy Society, vol. 38(4), pages 869-893.
    7. Vani Kant Borooah, 2016. "Gender Disparities in Health Outcomes of Elderly Persons in India," Journal of South Asian Development, , vol. 11(3), pages 328-359, December.
    8. Jeffery, Patricia & Jeffery, Roger, 2010. "Only when the boat has started sinking: A maternal death in rural north India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(10), pages 1711-1718, November.
    9. Lopes, Adrian A., 2014. "Civil unrest and the poaching of rhinos in the Kaziranga National Park, India," Ecological Economics, Elsevier, vol. 103(C), pages 20-28.
    10. Anjali Adukia & Marcella Alsan & Kim Babiarz & Jeremy D Goldhaber-Fiebert & Lea Prince, 2021. "Religion and Sanitation Practices," The World Bank Economic Review, World Bank, vol. 35(2), pages 287-302.
    11. Coffey, Diane, 2014. "Costs and consequences of a cash transfer for hospital births in a rural district of Uttar Pradesh, India," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 114(C), pages 89-96.
    12. William Joe & B Subha Sri & Jyotsna Sharma & Y Manasa Shanta & Suresh Sharma, 2015. "Strategies for Safe Motherhood in Tamil Nadu: A Note," Working Papers id:7585, eSocialSciences.
    13. Sonia Bhalotra & Christine Valente & Arthur van Soest, 2008. "Religion and Childhood Death in India," The Centre for Market and Public Organisation 08/185, The Centre for Market and Public Organisation, University of Bristol, UK.
    14. Gille, Véronique, 2018. "Applying for social programs in India: Roles of local politics and caste networks in affirmative action," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(2), pages 436-456.
    15. Diane Coffey, 2019. "The association between neonatal death and facility birth in regions of India," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 40(16), pages 417-430.
    16. Elizabeth Brainerd & Nidhiya Menon, 2015. "Religion and Health in Early Childhood: Evidence from South Asia," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 41(3), pages 439-463, September.
    17. Halder, Jhuma, 2016. "Educational outcome: Identifying social factors in South 24 parganas district of West Bengal," Working Papers 360, Institute for Social and Economic Change, Bangalore.
    18. Brinda Viswanathan, 2014. "Variations in Women’s Heights across Social and Religious Groups Among Indian States," Social Indicators Research: An International and Interdisciplinary Journal for Quality-of-Life Measurement, Springer, vol. 119(2), pages 1149-1169, November.
    19. Javier Escobal & Eva Flores, 2009. "Maternal Migration and Child Well-being in Peru(Migración materna y bienestar infantil en el Perú)," Documentos de Trabajo (Niños del Milenio-GRADE) ninosm56, Niños del Milenio (Young Lives).
    20. Powell-Jackson, Timothy & Mazumdar, Sumit & Mills, Anne, 2015. "Financial incentives in health: New evidence from India's Janani Suraksha Yojana," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(C), pages 154-169.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:254:y:2020:i:c:s0277953619305283. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/journaldescription.cws_home/315/description#description .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.