Alma Gottlieb
Professor of anthropology at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Abstract
Until recently, the field of child development has relied on many unexamined assumptions about the nature of infancy. These assumptions are all founded on research with White, middle-class, Euro-American children. In recent years, scholars have begun questioning the basis for these assumptions. What would a global approach to child development look like?
In this talk, cultural anthropologist Alma Gottlieb shares her research on infancy among the Beng people of Côte d’Ivoire, and places it in a broader context of research over the past two decades with many other communities around the globe.
Biography
Dr. Alma Gottlieb holds a Ph.D. in anthropology from the University of Virginia. The (co)author/(co)editor of nine books, Gottlieb began her publishing career with Blood Magic: The Anthropology of Menstruation, an award-winning collection that helped inaugurate a modern, feminist approach to menstruation cross-culturally, while her three more recent books about infancy—An Afterlife is where We Come from: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa, A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare for Seven Societies, and its successor, A World of Babies: Imagined Childcare for Eight Societies—contributed to the new groundswell of interest in cross-cultural approaches to child-rearing and childcare.
Gottlieb has held fellowships and grants from the Guggenheim Foundation, Social Science Research Council, and many other agencies. She has held teaching/research appointments at Princeton University, École des Hautes Études (Paris), Catholic University of Leuven, and elsewhere. A Professor Emerita at University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Gottlieb is currently a Visiting Scholar in Anthropology at Brown University, and a Visiting Professor of Anthropology at Minzu University (Beijing).
Gottlieb, A. (2000)."Where Have All the Babies Gone? Toward an Anthropology of Infants (and Their Caretakers)." Anthropological Quarterly, vol. 73, no. 3, p. 121-132.