Maternal grief in cross-cultural context: Selective neglect, replaceable infants and lifesaving names

Abstract

Scheper-Hughes divides mothers onto “better off” vis-à-vis “poor” mothers stuck in “old” reproductive strategy with high fertility. Cultural construction of mother love allows the latter group to neglect their “worst bets” to death without grief. Based on the bio-evolutionary theory, Hrdy hints that “modern” Western mothers, guided by ethical behavior, care for unviable infants while mothers in “non-Western societies” might dispose them of due to innate responses. This article warns against such binary division of mothers. Ethnographic research indicates that notions of replaceable infants, fatalism, appreciation of infant vitality, and lifesaving names are examples of human responses to adverse circumstances.

Notes

1 Since the 1990s, I have been in continuous contact with Guinea-Bissau, and over the last 5 years, I have stayed in the Biombo Region for 10‒12 weeks annually.

2 See Stevenson (1985) and Gottlieb (2004).

3 See Denham (2017, pp. 160–177) for a detailed description of “spirit children” and their fate in Northern Ghana.

4 See Brinchmann and Nortvedt (2001) on vitality as a criterion for treatment decisions in neonatal care.

5 See also Mensah (2015).