A crisis of births - Elizabeth Krause

When reproduction becomes a political issue, where do you stand? A CRISIS OF BIRTHS: POPULATION POLITICS AND FAMILY MAKING IN ITALY tells the fascinating story of Italian families in the 1990s, when Italy had the lowest birthrate of any nation in the world. You’ll gain an in-depth understanding of why Italy’s birthrate has fallen so low and what this means for Italians as individuals and Italy as a society and how reproduction has become politicized. Personal dialogues with ordinary people ranging from sweater-makers to counts, and aging bachelors to doting mothers reveal how a silent revolution against patriarchy reshapes social and sexual morality to create new imperatives for family making.

Elizabeth Betsy Krause practiced journalism in Missouri and Oregon before obtaining her MA degree (Oregon State University) in applied anthropology and her Ph.D. degree (The University of Arizona) in cultural anthropology. She has conducted fieldwork in Micronesia, Italy, Oregon, and Arizona. Her numerous articles have appeared in a range of publications, including Human Organization, Journal of Historical Anthropology, Transforming Anthropology, Cultural Anthropology, Journal of Modern Italian Studies as well as Newsday. She has contributed chapters to several (forthcoming) edited books, including Women’s Issues in Europe, Translation and/as Ethnographic Practice, and Barren States: The Population Implosion in Europe. She is currently Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.