Countless Blessings

Barbara M. Cooper is Professor of History and Department Chair at Rutgers University. She is author of Marriage in Maradi: Gender and Culture in a Hausa Society in Niger and Evangelical Christians in the Muslim Sahel, which was awarded the Herskovits Prize for the best book published in African studies.

"Few experiences are more potent than reproduction. Countless Blessings brilliantly unwinds the full import of this potency, tracing a history of demography, bodily peril, parental joy, and social, religious, and political meaning. Cooper's tremendous skill and creativity as a scholar enable us to see the political stakes of reproduction, even as they are grounded in the intimacies of embodied experience."—Julie Livingston, author of Self-Devouring Growth: A Planetary Parable as Told from Southern Africa"Barbara Cooper's insightful book explores a central paradox: why does Niger's extremely high fertility rate coexist with extraordinary anxiety about fertility in the country. Cooper traces this paradox through the long 20th century, from the introduction of colonial medicine and mission medicine to global health interventions today. In lucid prose, she analyzes how the absence of a health infrastructure, combined with a culture of shame surrounding illegitimacy and infertility have foreclosed solutions that might promote women's sexual and reproductive health. Countless Blessings is beautifully written, insightful, and full of empathy. A must read for anyone seeking to understand the damaging consequences of neglecting women's and infants health."—Johanna Schoen, author of Abortion after Roe"Barbara M. Cooper sketches out a long history of social practice and social values tied to fertility and childbirth in contemporary Niger. The story hinges on localized events and predicaments—expeditions, naming ceremonies, scandals, crises—as a way of illustrating larger sets of concerns and ideas."—Emily Burrill, author of States of Marriage

• AcknowledgementsGlossary of ethnonyms, acronyms and foreign termsIntroduction1. Environment, Seduction and Fertility2. Tensions in the Wake of Conquest: Gender and Reproduction after Abolition3. Personhood, Socialization and Shame4. Colonial Accounting5. Perils of Pregnancy and Childbirth 6. Producing Healthy Babies and Healthy Laborers7. Feminists, Islamists and Demographers8. Let's talk about Bastards9. Contemporary Sexuality and ChildbirthConclusion: Traveling Companions and Entrustments in Contemporary NigerWorks CitedIndex