reading • Scheper-Hughes, N. ([1989] 2006): Mother’s Love: Death without Weeping. In: Spradley, James P. & McCurdy, David W. (Eds.): Conformity & conflict: Readings in cultural anthropology. 14th ed. Upper Saddle River, N.J: Pearson, 156-162.
guiding questions
• What is an angel child?
• What factors are causing high child morbidity in the environment described?
• What is the relation between high child morbidity and mothers‘ love (kinship system) there?
• What meaning is ascribed to and social mechanisms relate to childs‘ death in the study?
• In summary: what causes the phenomenon of common childs‘ death and what this phenomenon further causes in the environment under study?
discussion questions
• Explain, how the power, social system, culture, and nature are entangled on the example of this case.
• Relate the paper to the Douglas‘, Bourdieu‘s and Murphy‘s/ Merleau-Ponty‘s approach to the body.
•i.e. apply the theory of social body, habitus, and embodiment on the example analyzed by Scheper-Hughes