IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/socmed/v254y2020ics0277953619307257.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Behind the measures of maternal and reproductive health: Ethnographic accounts of inventory and intervention

Author

Listed:
  • Brunson, Jan
  • Suh, Siri

Abstract

Ontologies of intervention in global health involve a voracious appetite for data - collection of data as evidence of what is intervention is needed, the establishment of metrics to organize and make sense of that data, further surveillance and measures to determine whether interventions were successful and targets were met, and, increasingly, predictions that determine whether interventions will provide good returns on investments. This part-special issue, an ethnographic interrogation of contemporary metrics and ontologies of intervention enacted in the global South, investigates “behind the measures” of maternal and reproductive health: the imperfect but pragmatic processes of quantification, inventory, and recording; how metrics are imbued with meaning, morality, and power; and how targets and indicators shape or drive individual and institutional behavior, as well as policy and program creation.

Suggested Citation

  • Brunson, Jan & Suh, Siri, 2020. "Behind the measures of maternal and reproductive health: Ethnographic accounts of inventory and intervention," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:socmed:v:254:y:2020:i:c:s0277953619307257
    DOI: 10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112730
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0277953619307257
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.socscimed.2019.112730?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. Jennifer Johnson‐Hanks, 2002. "On the Modernity of Traditional Contraception: Time and the Social Context of Fertility," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 28(2), pages 229-249, June.
    2. Storeng, Katerini Tagmatarchi & Murray, Susan F. & Akoum, Mélanie S. & Ouattara, Fatoumata & Filippi, Véronique, 2010. "Beyond body counts: A qualitative study of lives and loss in Burkina Faso after 'near-miss' obstetric complications," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(10), pages 1749-1756, November.
    3. Lane, Sandra D., 1994. "From population control to reproductive health: An emerging policy agenda," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 39(9), pages 1303-1314, November.
    4. Suh, Siri, 2014. "Rewriting abortion: Deploying medical records in jurisdictional negotiation over a forbidden practice in Senegal," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 108(C), pages 20-33.
    5. Susan Watkins, 1993. "If all we knew about women was what we read in Demography, what would we know?," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 30(4), pages 551-577, 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. Leigh Senderowicz & Nicole Maloney, 2022. "Supply‐Side Versus Demand‐Side Unmet Need: Implications for Family Planning Programs," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 48(3), pages 689-722, September.

    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. Jaffré, Yannick & Suh, Siri, 2016. "Where the lay and the technical meet: Using an anthropology of interfaces to explain persistent reproductive health disparities in West Africa," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 156(C), pages 175-183.
    2. Suh, Siri, 2015. "“Right tool,” wrong “job”: Manual vacuum aspiration, post-abortion care and transnational population politics in Senegal," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 135(C), pages 56-66.
    3. Melberg, Andrea & Diallo, Abdoulaye Hama & Storeng, Katerini T. & Tylleskär, Thorkild & Moland, Karen Marie, 2018. "Policy, paperwork and ‘postographs’: Global indicators and maternity care documentation in rural Burkina Faso," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 215(C), pages 28-35.
    4. Clarke, Damian & Mühlrad, Hanna, 2021. "Abortion laws and women’s health," Journal of Health Economics, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    5. Cogburn, Megan D., 2020. "Homebirth fines and health cards in rural Tanzania: On the push for numbers in maternal health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    6. Brunson, Jan, 2020. "Tool of economic development, metric of global health: Promoting planned families and economized life in Nepal," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 254(C).
    7. Gerda Neyer & Trude Lappegård & Daniele Vignoli, 2013. "Gender Equality and Fertility: Which Equality Matters?," European Journal of Population, Springer;European Association for Population Studies, vol. 29(3), pages 245-272, August.
    8. Sunil, T.S. & Rajaram, S. & Zottarelli, Lisa K., 2006. "Do individual and program factors matter in the utilization of maternal care services in rural India? A theoretical approach," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 62(8), pages 1943-1957, April.
    9. Lisa Ann Richey, 2008. "Global knowledge/local bodies: Family planning service providers’ interpretations of contraceptive knowledge(s)," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 18(17), pages 469-498.
    10. Amrita Chhachhi & Alaka M. Basu, 2014. "Demography for the Public: Literary Representations of Population Research and Policy," Development and Change, International Institute of Social Studies, vol. 45(5), pages 813-837, September.
    11. José Ignacio Nazif-Munoz & Rose Chabot, 2022. "Mapping and assessing sexual and reproductive health policy changes over time in Colombia: measuring their impact on pregnancy terminations," Palgrave Communications, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 9(1), pages 1-13, December.
    12. Richey, Lisa Ann, 2004. "From the Policies to the Clinics: The Reproductive Health Paradox in Post-Adjustment Health Care," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 32(6), pages 923-940, June.
    13. Frances Goldscheider, 1995. "Interpolating demography with families and households," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 32(3), pages 471-480, August.
    14. Alessandra Gribaldo & Maya D. Judd & David I. Kertzer, 2009. "An Imperfect Contraceptive Society: Fertility and Contraception in Italy," Population and Development Review, The Population Council, Inc., vol. 35(3), pages 551-584, September.
    15. Swidler, Ann & Watkins, Susan Cotts, 2009. ""Teach a Man to Fish": The Sustainability Doctrine and Its Social Consequences," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 37(7), pages 1182-1196, July.
    16. Hough, Carolyn A., 2010. "Loss in childbearing among Gambia's kanyalengs: Using a stratified reproduction framework to expand the scope of sexual and reproductive health," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 71(10), pages 1757-1763, November.
    17. Joyce P. Jacobsen, 2003. "Do Women and Non-economists Add Diversity to Research in Industrial Relations and Labor Economics?," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 29(4), pages 575-591, Fall.
    18. Sandra Krapf & Michaela Kreyenfeld & Katharina Wolf, 2016. "Gendered Authorship and Demographic Research: An Analysis of 50 Years of Demography," Demography, Springer;Population Association of America (PAA), vol. 53(4), pages 1169-1184, August.
    19. de Kok, B.C., 2019. "Between orchestrated and organic: Accountability for loss and the moral landscape of childbearing in Malawi," Social Science & Medicine, Elsevier, vol. 220(C), pages 441-449.
    20. Paul Rotering & Hilde Bras, 2019. "The age difference between spouses and reproduction in 19th century Sweden," Demographic Research, Max Planck Institute for Demographic Research, Rostock, Germany, vol. 41(37), pages 1059-1090.

    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:s0277953619307257. 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.