SCIE242 -A | Women's Health

Women's health in the Middle East is powerfully shaped by political imperatives and dominant ideologies of health. Here, Irene Maffi delineates the influence of colonialism, nation building in postcolonial states, and international development agencies. She examines the social, cultural and political institutions that manage childbirth in Jordan today, through interviews with key figures-midwives, physicians, pregnant women and mothers-and an exploration of the main institutional settings, from clinics to hospitals, doctor's offices, NGOs and government departments. With a thorough analysis of birth practices, the history of health governance under the colonial state and missionaries, and the institutionalization of health practice and practitioners in independent Jordan, this book will be indispensable for all those concerned with women, health, development, and the state in the Middle East.

In popular debates about reproductive and sexual rights, formal religions, especially Islam, are seen as barriers providing institutional and ideological resistance to women's realization of reproductive and social autonomy. This book challenges this simplified view of Islam. Based on original fieldwork in Eastern Indonesia, the book explores the complex factors that affect how young Indonesian women form their sexual subjectivities, discusses the cultural and historical conditions under which single Muslim women repress or express their sexuality, and examines how the cultural context, including other factors besides Islam, simultaneously influence the ways in which young single women approach courtship, and issues of sexuality and reproductive health. It demonstrates that Islam is neither alone in trying to control female sexuality, nor entirely successful in doing so.