This thesis deals with the cultural and political underpinnings of female infanticide and sex selective abortion in contemporary South India. Based on a fifteen months' ethnographic fieldwork in western parts of Salem district in Tamil Nadu, I explore the ideas and practices around deaths of (un)born children - particularly in the context of issues of gender-selective child survival, use and control over new reproductive technologies for sex selection, fertility and reproduction. Elucidating further the ethnographic contexts of state and non-state (primarily NGO) interventions in these deaths, the thesis examines the new forms of governance on issues that affect contemporary Tamil women. I discuss three different discourses by the government, by NGOs, and by the communities on the meaning and context of these deaths including the ways in which these meanings and ideas are reconceptualised and re-configured into a changing social and cultural context of birth. My thesis, therefore, contributes to the anthropology of reproduction. The underlying questions of the thesis are: Why has female infanticide, which was claimed to be effectively controlled in nineteenth century colonial India, appeared in post-colonial (South) India - in the form of both sex selective abortion and female infanticide - in communities and regions where it was previously claimed to be unknown? What effects could these social practices have on contemporary women' s positions and their developments and vice-versa? In answering these questions. the thesis makes a significant departure from previous anthropological studies on female infanticide in India in that it does not solely look into one single unit (village/s in this case), but uses a multi-sited approach, covering a wider geographical area, i.e parts of Salem, Dharmapuri, and Erode districts of Tamil Nadu. The thesis also shifts from the purely demographic approach to female infanticide in that it does not generate a new data set on felmale infanticide. Rather, it engages with the institutional responses and their rhetoric on female infanticide and sex selective abortion.

The main task of this thesis is to elucidate the historical and symbolic contexts of female and male initiation rituals among the Mandinka as well as linkages to matricentric or mother focused religious ideologies. The main argument of this thesis is that female and male initiation rituals correspond with ancient Mande creation mythology. I argue that, in Mande cosmology, excision and circumcision are "hidden" iconographic representations that refer to the creation and transformation of the world from androgynous nature to sexually differentiated culture marked by cross-sex relations of power. Female and male initiation rituals are re-enactments of this cosmology, particularly the third phase of creation, which concerns the symbolic reproduction of culture and the social world: female elders transform female initiates into "male" "seeds" and male elders transform male initiates into "female" "vaginas". In marriage, female elders represent the "Phallus" that transplant the "male" "seed" as "bride" or "foetus" through the groom's "vagina" and into the agnatic "Womb" which the male elders represent. I argue further that when women assert excision as "tradition" and "culture" they are claiming the power of their "grandmothers", or female elders, in passing on prehistoric "matriarchal" religious ideologies that buttress women's key roles in ritual, as well as their socioeconomic and symbolic value as producers of "rice" and reproducers of humans. Chapters one to four of this thesis set the ethnographic and theoretical stage for the analysis of ritual and mythical symbols. Chapters five to seven unravel dominant initiation ritual symbols and their parallels with creation myths and conquer/settlement narratives. This thesis concludes that female and male initiation assert the interdependence and complementarity of both "matriarchy" and "patriarchy" centred on the ideological axis of mother and son, which was in the past embodied by the "circumcision" queen (ngansimbaa) and the "warrior" king (mansoo) or the custodians of "tradition" and land respectively.

This thesis investigates the contested and cultural meanings of female genital cutting (FGC) among the Tukuloor women of Senegal, West Africa. The thesis shows that the cultural interpretations of FGC from a local perspective in Senegal apply a complex set of rationale and explanations rather different from those from Western discourses and assumptions that circulate about the practice. Dominant Western perceptions of female genital cutting and African women are juxtaposed with African women's perceptions of themselves, their bodies and the multiple meanings of FGC in the cultural context of rural Senegal.

During the last 9 years I have completed 2300 confinement cases in general practice in a working class district in Edinburgh. During this period I resolved to keep a correct record of every case in a book kept for the purpose and written in every instance immediately after the birth has taken place and while the facts were fresh in my memory. The object then of the thesis is to 1. Contrast it with analysis of other records 2. To give a faithful account as to the manner and success with which I did my work 3. To make suggestions which such an experience may indicate.

Cette thèse analyse l’évolution des imaginaires de la grossesse depuis 40 ans ainsi que certaines de ses incidences sociales.La science embryologiste avait installé depuis le 19ième siècle une tradition de représentation réaliste du foetus humain. Au cours de la 2ième moitié du 20ième, les choses semblent changer. En 1970, les photos de Lennart Nilsson notamment ont coloré, autonomisé, esthétisé et humanisé le foetus. En France, le ‟foetus anatomique” s’est vu par ailleurs retiré des muséums, son image s’absente du ‟Larousse médical illustré” et des manuels de sciences naturelles. Quant au foetus présent dans l’art contemporain, il est surdimensionné ou dégoûtant : ce qui ressemble donc le plus à un ‟vrai” foetus se déréalise. L’haptonomie et certaines technologies autour de la grossesse vont accentuer ces modifications de l’image du foetus au profit des imaginaires parentaux.Les effets sociaux de cette idéalisation foetale sont variés. L’humanisation du ‟beau foetus” enlaidissant l’anomalie, la hantise maternelle du ‟monstre foetal” est d’avantage intériorisée et trouble le travail en médecine foetale. Leur refus de l’anomalie devenant plus implicite, médecins et parents adoptent un langage euphémisé. Mais même l’image du foetus avorté s’humanise. Elle devient émouvante. Quand un foetus est condamné, il faudra donc le réparer, concrètement et symboliquement. Les soignants qui invitent les parents à voir le foetus après sa mort vont le présenter comme un bébé dormant, réparé de ses malformations. Certaines mères, surtout quand elles envisagent une nouvelle grossesse, le représentent alors comme un ange, cet ange devenu omniprésent sur les forums Internet.Ce dispositif questionne les sociétés contemporaines : les spécialistes de médecine foetale se retrouvent aujourd’hui confrontés à certains parents refusant la naissance d’un enfant atteint de malformations sans gravité. Au miroir de leur bébé surgit un indicible : l’horreur d’un foetus porteur d’anomalie. L’esthétisation ne rend-elle pas les imaginaires de l’anomalie d’autant plus puissants qu’ils n’ont plus d’espace, autre que le for intérieur, pour se déployer ? / This thesis analyses the evolution of imagination of the pregnancy for forty years as well as some of its social incidences.The science embryologist had installed since the 19 th century a realist tradition of presentation of the human foetus. During half of the 20 th, things seem to change. In 1970, the photographs of Lennart Nilsson in particular coloured, empowered, aestheticized and humanized the foetus. In France, the ‟anatomical foetus” saw itself besides out-of- the way of the museums, its image absent in in the ‟illustrated medical Larousse” and the textbooks of natural sciences. As for the foetus present in the contempory art, it is oversized or disgusting : what looks like mots of ‟real” foetus derealises. The haptonomy and certain technologies around the pregnancy are going to stress these modifications of the image of the foetus for the benefit of parental imagination.The social effects of the foetal idealization are varied. The humanisation of the ‟beautiful foetus” making ugly anomaly, the maternal obsession of the ‟foetal monster” is more interiorized and discorders work in foetal medicine. Their refusal of anomaly becoming more implicit, doctors and parents adopt an euphemized language. But, even the image of the aborted foetus fallen through humanizes. It becomes moving. When a foetus is condemned, it will thus have to be repaired concretely and symbolically. The nursing who invite the relatives to see the foetus after his death will present him as a sleeping baby, repaired by his deformations. Certain mother especially when they envisage a new pregnancy, represent him then as an angel, this angel become omnipresent on the Internet forums.This dispositf questions the contemporary societies : the specialists of foetal medicine are faced with certain parents refusing the birth of a child affected by deformations without gravity. In the miror of their baby appears an unspeakable : the horror of an expanding foetus of anomaly. Does not the esthetisation make the imagination of the anomaly all the more powerful as they do not have more space other than the heart of hearts to spread ?