The anthropologists Tanya Cassidy and Abdullahi El Tom have edited this work which originated from a workshop at the 2010 European Association of Social Anthropologists (EASA) conference held at the National University of Ireland, Maynooth (NUIM), which is the institutional affiliation of the two editors of the book. The volume encompasses a preface and introduction by the two editors, the latter preceded by a foreword by Penny Van Esterik, in addition to twelve chapters which discuss variations in breastfeeding practices cross-culturally from such areas as Brazil, West Africa, Darfur, Ireland, Italy, France, Britain, and the USA. The volume also contains endnotes, a rich bibliography, and an index, in addition to a short presentation of the various contributors.
The foreword, “What Flows Through Us: Rethinking Breastfeeding as Product and Process,” by Penny Van Esterik, who did not attend the workshop, goes straight into the key issue of the book, namely, breastmilk (or, as she writes, “human milk,” a term some prefer to use instead of breastmilk) as a product, and the importance of considering both the producer and the consumer of this medicine and commodity, to be processes shared and traded, a topic which is nevertheless not unproblematic in the modern global world due to religious and cultural issues. She discusses the ongoing debate on whether “breast is best,” which is not a new debate despite breastfeeding in reality being a personal exchange between mother and child.
The introduction by the two editors starts with a quote from Margaret Mead’s discussion based on her fieldwork on Samoa nearly one hundred years ago, stating that babies are nursed, and if the mother does not have milk, a wet nurse is sought. Linking her statement to our own age, and historically, we learn that through history mother’s own milk had been considered the ideal nutrition for infants (2). On the other hand, and although this knowledge has been shared among women in traditional societies, only lately has medicine followed up by discovering important “new properties” of human milk, the “liquid gold” (xx). They especially discuss the history associated with conflicts surrounding colostrum, which earlier was denounced by medicine (as well as within various cultures), while it is now being regarded as the perfect food and medicine. A theme which is found throughout this ethnographic journey, which starts in Brazil, is the topic of human milk banks, an area in which that country is the leading agent.
The essays are presented according to four topics, and under the first, Making Meaning of Mothers Own Milk, chapter 1, Alanna Rudzik’s “The Embodied Experience of Breastfeeding and the Product/Process Dichotomy in São Paulo, Brazil,” offers a discussion of mothers, process, and product while examining the embodied experiences of her female informants (aged between 16 and 27), and their varied experiences of the breastfeeding process, some being positive and others the opposite. The discussion of the maternal meanings of mother’s own milk thereafter leads us to a comparative essay between France and the U.K. in chapter 4, Charlotte Faircloth’s “Between ‘le Corps ‘Maternel’ et le Corps ‘Érotique’”: Exploring Women’s Experience of Breastfeeding and Expressing in the U.K. and France,” includes a discussion inter alia of Simone de Beauvoir’s negative view on breastfeeding. Important in the practical process of breastfeeding is that while France has a well-organized and heavily subsidized childcare system, England has better paid leave so mothers may stay with their infants and be able to breastfeed them. France has a long history of employing wet-nursing, partly due to the dual view of the female body as maternal and sexualized (a topic also present in contemporary social media, re, mens’ reactions when a young mother is breastfeeding her child in public), and in chapter 5, Gervaise Debucquet’s and Valérie Adt’s “The Naturalist Discourse Surrounding Breastfeeding among French Mothers,” we also learn that French breastfeeding women see maternal milk in terms of food education, while bottle-feeding mothers might frame their view around knowledge and science.
The topic, Emotion, Risk and Identity Issues with Other Mother’s Milk, leads us to Muslim women in European and African societies via Ireland. The topic of using other mothers’ breastmilk is here termed “lactation surrogacy” by Tanya Cassidy in chapter 3, “Historical Ethnography and the Meanings of Human Milk in Ireland.” This term includes traditional wet-nursing, systems of milk kinship and fostering relationships of infants historically, modern medicalized versions of human milk banking, cross-nursing between family and friends, and also more recently internet-based informal milk sharing. I especially liked chapter 7, “Religion, Wet-nursing, and Laying the Ground for Breastmilk Banking in Darfur, Sudan,” authored by El Tom, in which he starts the essay with his personal testimony concerning his family’s relationship with Mohamed, a boy who had been breastfed by his mother, and thereby was unable to marry any of his “foster sisters.” Human character is conveyed through channels such as heredity, genes, and breastmilk. His abundant source material of relevant Qur’an verses constitutes a gold mine for comparisons with historical sources from the Mediterranean region. The cultural perception that milk is endowed with the power of connecting people among Muslim societies is also illustrated in chapter 6, Rossella Cevese’s “‘Who Knows if One Day, in the Future, They Will Get Married…?’: Breastmilk, Migration, and Milk Banking in Italy,” with a case study of immigrant Moroccan women in Italy who refuse to share milk with unknown mothers, thereby illustrating an aspect of wet-nursing that is crucial for the success of milk banking.
The topic of Health Considerations and “Humanized” Milk goes into the contemporary global problem associated with breastfeeding, concerning the maternal transmission of HIV/AIDS through lactation. The most extreme case is Sweden, where it is declared criminal for HIV mothers to breastfeed their infants. In chapter 9, “‘Impersonal Perspectives’ on Public Health Guidelines on Infant Feeding and HIV in Malawi,” Anne Matthews discusses the discrepancy in the WHO recommendation that “infected women breastfeed their infants exclusively for the first six months of life, unless replacement feeding is acceptable, feasible, affordable, sustainable and safe for their infants before that time,” in societies where women do not have that possibility.
Under the last topic, Building Bridges with Breastmilk, Sunita Reddy et al. in chapter 10, “Breastfeeding and Bonding: Issues and Dilemmas in Surrogacy” go into the complications met in international reproductive surrogacy, in which the contentious issues associated with breastmilk are linked to concerns regarding bonding, maternal mental health, and global bodily exploitation. Chapter 2, Aunchalee Palmquist’s “Demedicalizing Breastmilk: The Discourses, Practices and Identities of Informal Milk Sharing,” and chapter 11, Katherine Carroll’s “Breastmilk Donation as Care Work,” discuss the establishment of donor human milk banks and the recent internet-based human milk sharing groups, the latter often being a response to problems women meet in connection with the formal procedures of the milk banks.
All in all, this study of lived experiences by breastfeeding mothers, surrogate mothers, and others underlines that breastmilk comes with its own baggage. The woman-specific topic, breastfeeding, defines motherhood, femininity, class, and status, and creates kinship, affinal, and enmity relationships. I have learned much from this work and commend it highly.
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[Review length: 1193 words • Review posted on April 6, 2016]