Tired of Weeping: Mother Love, Child Death, and Poverty in Guinea-Bissau

Notes

Introduction 1. For example, the Feminist Spiritual Movement in North America and Western Europe celebrates an essentialist view of womanhood (Sered 1994). According to their view, as mothers, women are assumed to “understand love, relationship, and spirituality in ways that men do not”(77). See Butler (1992) for a critique of Kristeva and Alsop, Fitzsimons, and Lennon (2002) for a summary of essentialist feminism. 2. The psychologists Keith Oatley and Jennifer M. Jenkins recognize Darwin as one of the founders of the psychology of emotions as he felt that “our emotions have a primitive quality. They are links to our past, both to the past of our species and to our own individual history. They are not fully under voluntary control”(1996:5). 3. In similar vein, Scheper-Hughes (1987c) argues, “maternal thinking and practices are socially produced rather than determined by a psychological script or innate and universal emotions”(188). 4. Scheper-Hughes borrows the concept of maternal thinking from Sara Ruddick (1980). Maternal thinking includes emotional, practical, and intellectual aspects of mothers’ concerns for their children. While I recognize the utility of this concept, I don’t use it for two reasons. First, it connotes an essentialist view of maternal emotional involvement. Secondly, I find it productive to treat the emotional, practical, and intellectual aspects of the concept separately. 5. The anthropologist Susan Greenhalgh argues that most demographic theories of fertility decline are expressions of “Eurocentric diffusionism,” often with “an implicit belief in the historical superiority or priority of Europe over the rest of the world” (1995:10). Scheper-Hughes (1992:401–2) reminds the reader about similarities between contemporary Brazil and earlier periods in Europe and the United States. She refers to the “pre-demographic transition, reproductive strategy” of Alto mothers. 6. Linda Pollock (1983:22) shows how historians who use secondary sources, such as religious scripts, expert recommendations, paintings, fictional literature, travelers’ accounts, newspaper reports, and legislation, describe the situation of 171 Notes children in more negative terms than those who use primary sources such as diaries , memoirs, and letters. Pollock uses adult diaries, child diaries, and autobiographies in her study of parent-child relations from 1500 to 1900. She finds parentchild relationships to be less formal and more affective and stable over time than do historians who rely mainly on secondary sources (262–71). 7. In the 1980s and 1990s historians began to reevaluate the common assumption that historically parents were indifferent to their children’s well-being and survival ; parents, particularly mothers, are now seen as mainly loving toward their children, and if negligent care is identified it is explained in terms of lack of better alternatives for parents (Cunningham 1995, Pollock 1983). 8. The advocates of the neglect thesis are not unequivocal on the level of mothers’consciousness in neglecting their infants to death. Scheper-Hughes argues, “obviously these selective neglect practices are not fully conscious or intentional maneuvers. Consciousness constantly shifts back and forth between allowed and disallowed levels of awareness”(1992:390). 9. See also the writings of the anthropologists Claire Monod Cassidy (1987) and Susan C. Scrimshaw (1978, 1984) who argue that neglectful care is a survival strategy of the poor. 10. The Human Development Index (HDI) is a statistical manipulation of various indicators such as national income, health statistics, literacy rates, and so on. See UNDP (2001:239 –40) for definitions of the Human Development Index. 11. Country Reports, http://www.countryreports.org/content/guineb.htm (accessed April 7, 2003). 12. According to the U.S. Department of State Annual Report on International Religious Freedom (1999), the Guinean constitution provides for freedom of religion . The varied religious communities have friendly relations and religious diversity is generally tolerated within the society. 13. The Kriol word prassa is derived from the Portuguese word praça, which means fortress, marketplace, or square. In INEP (National Institute of Studies and Research) (1991) a distinction between urbanized and rural population is emphasized. 14. The term Biombo is often used in daily language for the Ondame sector, which consists of the Biombo kingdom (see map 2, page 11). 15. To my knowledge there are no official statistics on the religious affiliation of Biombo’s population. In the region, an estimated 8 percent of the inhabitants belong to ethnic groups other than the Papel and Balanta (Djatá 1998). Therefore, in terms of religion, those who adhere to African religions are by far the largest group, while Christians (Catholics and Protestants) and Muslims...