Waithood

Marcia C. Inhorn is William K. Lanman, Jr. Professor of Anthropology and International Affairs at Yale University, where she is the Chair of the Council on Middle East Studies. A specialist on Middle East gender, religion, and reproductive health issues, she is the author of six award-winning books, including her most recent, America’s Arab Refugees: Vulnerability and Health on the Margins (Stanford, 2018).

“Using a wide range of qualitative and quantitative methods with participants from multiple countries, contributing authors find that there are multiple ways to understand the liminality implied by “waithood.”…This book could be used in courses on political science, women’s studies, sociology, and ethnic studies…Recommended” • Choice“This volume makes important interventions in research and ethnographic literature on marital, medical, and economic delays to self and social fulfilment…[It] will serve as an excellent resource for scholars of reproduction and kinship and is a necessary addition to any undergraduate curriculum on the study of time and temporality.” • Medical Anthropology Quarterly“This is a beautifully organized and very well edited volume… The chapters are rich both ethnographically and theoretically and as a whole this volume makes several unique and distinctive contributions to an interdisciplinary academic literature on kinship and reproduction”. • Lisa L. Wynn, President, Australian Anthropological Society

• List of FiguresIntroduction: Waithood: Gender, Education, and Global Delays in Marriage and ChildbearingNancy J. Smith-Hefner and Marcia C. InhornPart I: Waithood, Statehood, and the Struggle for DignityChapter 1. Youth, Economics, and the Politics of Waithood: The Struggle for Dignity in the Middle East and North AfricaDiane SingermanChapter 2. “Trusting is a Dicey Affair”: Muslim Youth, Gender Relations, and Future-Making in Southwestern UgandaDorothea E. SchulzChapter 3. Waiting at the Fada: Young Men, “Tea Circles,” and Delayed Adulthood in NigerAdeline MasquelierChapter 4. Emergent Waithood: Institutions and Marriage Delays among Mayan Women in GuatemalaNicole S. BerryPart II: Gender, Education, and the Aspiration for AutonomyChapter 5. Active Waithood: Youthmen, Fatherhood, and Men’s Educational Aspirations in Sierra LeoneKristen E. McLeanChapter 6. “Giving Oneself Time”: Marriage and Motherhood in Urban RwandaAalyia Feroz Ali SadruddinChapter 7. Tactics of Marriage Delay in China: Education, Rural-to-Urban Migration, and “Leftover Women”Zachary M. HowlettChapter 8. Too Educated to Marry? Muslim Women and Extended Singlehood in IndonesiaNancy J. Smith-HefnerPart III: Delayed Marriage and the Meanings of SinglehoodChapter 9. Conjugal Conundrums: Conversion and Marriage Delay in the Contemporary CaribbeanBrendan Jamal ThorntonChapter 10. Between Cynicism and Idealism: Voluntary Waithood in IranMehrdad BabadiChapter 11. Refusing to Settle: Migration among Single Professional Women in JordanFida AdelyChapter 12. Never-Married Women in India: Gendered Life Courses, Desires, and Identities in FluxSarah LambPart IV: Delayed Childbearing and the Quest for MotherhoodChapter 13. Blamed for Delay: French Norms and Practices of ART in the Context of Increasing Age-Related Female InfertilityManon VialleChapter 14. Waiting Too Long to Mother: Involuntary Childlessness and Assisted Reproduction in Contemporary SpainBeatriz San RománChapter 15. The Egg Freezing Revolution? Gender, Education, and Reproductive Waithood in AmericaMarcia C. InhornConclusion: Waithood in the Twenty-First CenturyMarcia C. Inhorn and Nancy J. Smith-HefnerIndex