A World of Babies

Alma Gottlieb is Professor Emerita of Anthropology and Gender and Women's Studies at the University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign, and Visiting Scholar in Anthropology at Brown University. She conducted long-term fieldwork in Beng communities in Ivory Coast (1979–93) and now connects with young Beng people through social media. A full-length ethnography of Beng childrearing practices appeared as The Afterlife Is Where We Come From: The Culture of Infancy in West Africa (2004); she has also written the Beng-English Dictionary (with M. Lynne Murphy, 1995) and Under the Kapok Tree: Identity and Difference in Beng Thought (1992). With proceeds from two memoirs of their lives with the Beng – Parallel Worlds (1993) and Braided Worlds (2012) – Gottlieb and fiction writer Philip Graham co-founded the Beng Community Fund, a non-governmental organization that funds development projects in Beng villages. Judy DeLoache is the Kenan Professor of Psychology Emerita at the University of Virginia. She has published extensively on cognitive development in infants and young children. She has served as President of the Developmental Division of the American Psychological Association, and as President of the Cognitive Development Society. Dr DeLoache's research was funded by a Scientific MERIT Award from the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation. She is a Fellow of the National Academy of Arts and Sciences. In 2013, Dr DeLoache received the William James Award for Lifetime Distinguished Contributions to Psychological Science from the American Psychological Society, as well as the Distinguished Research Contributions Award from the Society for Research on Child Development.

'Gottlieb and DeLoache's first edition of A World of Babies earned the right to be called a classic of anthropology. Although one might expect the second volume … to be a simple update of the same studies, Gottlieb and DeLoache have instead done the unexpected - they present an entirely new volume with seven new studies of parenting practices. Taken together, these books set the example of how anthropology, when done well, can open minds to the possibility that there is more than one way to do just about anything, including parenting. I can think of no better way to become a more thoughtful, insightful, and therefore better parent than reading both editions of A World of Babies.' Meredith F. Small, Cornell University, and author of Our Babies, Ourselves

• 1. Introduction: raising a world of babies, parenting in the twenty-first century Alma Gottlieb and Judy S. DeLoache; 2. Never forget where you're from: raising Guinean Muslim babies in Portugal Michelle Johnson; 3. From cultural revolution to childcare revolution: conflicting advice on childrearing in contemporary China Erin Raffety; 4. A baby to tie you to place: childrearing advice from a Palestinian mother living under occupation Bree Akesson; 5. Childrearing in the New Country: advice for immigrant mothers in Israel Deborah Golden; 6. Luring your child into this life of troubled times: a Beng path for infant care in post-civil war Côte d'Ivoire Alma Gottlieb; 7. From Mogadishu to Minneapolis: raising Somali children in an age of displacement Sirad Shirdon; 8. Quechua or Spanish? Farm or school? New paths for Andean children in post-civil war Peru Kate Grim-Feinberg; 9. 'Equal children play best': raising independent children in a Nordic welfare state Mariah Schug.