The Dance of Nurture: Negotiating Infant Feeding - Paperback

by Penny Van Esterik (Author), O'Connor Richard a. (Author)

Breastfeeding and child feeding at the center of nurturing practices, yet the work of nurture has escaped the scrutiny of medical and social scientists. Anthropology offers a powerful biocultural approach that examines how custom and culture interact to support nurturing practices. Our framework shows how the unique constitutions of mothers and infants regulate each other. The Dance of Nurture integrates ethnography, biology and the political economy of infant feeding into a holistic framework guided by the metaphor of dance. It includes a critique of efforts to improve infant feeding practices globally by UN agencies and advocacy groups concerned with solving global nutrition and health problems.

Author Biography

Richard A. O'Connor is a graduate of William & Mary and received his PhD from Cornell. He spent nearly three decades studying Southeast Asia until his daughter's anorexia abruptly changed his career. Since her recovery in 1999, he has devoted his work in scholarship to studying eating disorders and breastfeeding as a medical anthropologist.