Yearning and Refusal An Ethnography of Female Fertility Management in Niamey, Niger

Women's fertility in Africa has been a major concern for demographers, global health organizations, and Western governments. While demographic growth in Africa has become a prominent issue, the problem of infertility has been largely neglected in favor of quantitative work on contraceptive uptake. The problems of those facing infertility are particularly profound in the Republic of Niger, where producing children is central to the identity of a woman, a wife, and a person.

Yearning and Refusal uncovers the reproductive issues among women and couples in the Republic of Niger that are overlooked, underestimated, or hidden. Drawing upon interviews, participant observation, and her intimate knowledge of Nigerien society, Hadiza Moussa lifts the veil on unspoken topics, examining through empirical research what societal leaders, politicians, and public health specialists ignore: the lived realities of women struggling with failed fertility. Focusing on the Nigerien capital of Niamey, Moussa sets out the existential experience of failed fertility and the physical, emotional, and social implications for women who do not produce children, either biologically or voluntarily. Through frank and broad-ranging interviews, Moussa shows in their own words how women strive for reproductive control in a country at the heart of the population growth debate.

Now translated in English, Yearning and Refusal examines the emotional and social consequences of yearning for children and refusing to bear them, and the ways women navigate a patriarchal medical system and society.

Hadiza Moussa was an assistant professor of anthropology and sociology at Abdou Moumouni University. She received her PhD in Anthropology from the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales (EHESS) in 2008. Her book was published in 2012 in French as Entre absence et refus d'enfant: Socio-anthropologie de la gestion de la fécondité féminine à Niamey, Niger (L'Harmattan/La Sahélienne). As a member of the Laboratoire d'Études et de Recherches sur les Dynamiques Sociales et le Développement Local (LASDEL), Hadiza Moussa researched public health delivery, sexual health, decentralization and development, and women, power, and local politics. She passed away in 2013.

Alice J. Kang is an associate professor of political science and ethnic studies at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and scholar of women, gender, and politics in Africa.

Barbara M. Cooper is a professor of African history and gender at Rutgers University; her research focuses on the former French colonies of the Sahel, particularly Niger.

Natalie Kammerer is a French-English translator with a Masters in French Literature from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln.

Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan is an emeritus professor of the Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique and a professor at the École des Hautes Études en Sciences Sociales and Abdou Moumouni University.

Editors' Introduction
Barbara M. Cooper and Alice J. Kang

Preface for the English Translation
Jean-Pierre Olivier de Sardan

Acronyms
Acknowledgements

Introduction

Part I. The Problem of Infertility
1. The Infertile Body
2. Managing Infertility
3. Varieties of Infertility
4. The Emotional Weight of Childlessness

Part II. Tensions in the Clinic
5. Confronting the Biomedical Sphere

Part III. Knowing and Negotiating Contraception
6. Contraception Outside of the Clinic
7. Negotiating Biomedical Contraception
8. The Realities of Abortion

Conclusion

Bibliography
Index