Sex in Development

“The editors . . . have succeeded in assembling a set of articles that do much more than tell readers what’s up with sex here and there. . . . They offer discussions that frame sex in the context of modernization, development, globalization, family planning, and, most notably, ethics and morality.” - Ellen Lewin, American Ethnologist

“This book is both timely and necessary and can serve as an essential text for Development, Sexuality, and Gender Studies. The book will also be very useful in Anthropology, Public Health, and Reproductive Health courses.” - Ruby Greene, International Journal of Health Planning Management

“This book should appeal to those working in development and cross-cultural contexts. Those in the sexual and reproductive health field will find it particularly relevant, but those working on other aspects of public health may benefit from exposure to this anthropological approach.” - Emma Kowal, Australian and New Zealand Journal of Public Health

“This is an excellent book for those engaged in designing and implementing programs that promote family planning and safe sex.” - Susan Cotts Watkins, Studies in Family Planning

"[S]timulating." - Ines Smyth, Development in Practice

“This important and timely book makes a case for thinking in new directions about sexuality in relation to the ‘scientization’ of development policies. It will become an important reference work for future scholarship in anthropology, public health, and gender and sexuality studies, and, one would hope, in development studies.” - Rayna Rapp, coeditor of Conceiving the New World Order: The Global Politics of Reproduction

“[A] refreshing perspective. . . . The authors, and especially Adams and Pigg in their introduction, skillfully examine the facticity of scientific understandings of the body and sex typical of development projects, uncovering ways in which certain discourses, like science, come to be different and often more powerful than others in practice. . . . Through all of the contributions, we see sex in development as a global process but one that takes on many different guises.” - Robert C. Philen, American Anthropologist

“[A] series of rich and detailed ethnographic studies carried out by anthropologists over the past 10 years in Asia, Africa and Europe. . . . [T]his collection makes an important contribution to fledgling debates on sexuality and development in a global context.” - Carolyn H. Williams, Feminist Review

“[A]n excellent anthropological intervention into development studies that deserves a broad interdisciplinary feminist audience. . . . Indeed, each of the chapters in this anthology is an excellent ethnographic case study exploring the situated dynamics of sex and development programs (Adams and Pigg, 21). Assembled together, and organized around clearly articulated common themes, they make this book a truly important one. The book has remarkable geographic and conceptual scope, and the conversation it stages among sexuality studies, science studies, and critical development work is exceptionally innovative. In short, the collection deserves to have broad and lasting impact on the
field.” - Kate Bedford, Signs

“The book makes a case for thinking in new directions about sexuality in relation to the ‘scientization’ of development policies. It's an important reference work for scholarship in anthropology, public health, and gender and sexuality studies, and in development studies.” - Frauensolidarität

“This book charts territory that has so far been little explored in gender and development literature, namely the interrelationships between totalizing, ‘scientifically neutral’ concepts of sex and sexuality and local constructs of sex and gender in developing societies.” - Sylvia Chant, Progress in Development Studies

“This volume is an interesting read for social scientists, social historians, and health care workers. By bringing such richly documented case studies together, it inspires researchers who study sexuality to reflect upon how exactly sexuality is constituted in their time and place…. [T]his volume is a must.” - Anna C. M. Tijsseling, Archives of Sexual Behavior

"This collection adopts a sophisticated ethnographic and historical perspective. . . . [I]t will be invaluable to those with an interest in health policy or development as well as anthropology." - Sophie Day, TLS