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In the last forty years anthropologists have made major contributions to understanding the heterogeneity of reproductive trends and processes underlying them. Fertility transition, rather than the story of the triumphant spread of Western birth control rationality, reveals a diversity of reproductive means and ends continuing before, during, and after transition. This collection brings together anthropological case studies, placing them in a comparative framework of compositional demography and conjunctural action. The volume addresses major issues of inequality and distribution which shape population and social structures, and in which fertility trends and the formation and size of families are not decided solely or primarily by reproduction.
In this chapter, I address these questions in relation to the
Counting Souls Project1 through two frameworks described by
Kreager and Bochow in the introduction to this volume.

AbstractImproving knowledge about African historical demography is essential to addressing current population trends and achieving deeper understanding of social, economic, and political change in the past and present. I use census and parish register data from Tanganyika to address the origins of twentieth-century population growth, to describe how major changes in fertility and child mortality began in the 1940s, and to emphasise the significance of the large rise in fertility between the 1940s and 1970s. Through this work and my wider survey of parish registers in Malawi, Uganda, Tanzania, and Zambia, I consider the relationships between power, evidence, and meaning in these data sources. Alongside the macro gaps in Africa's population history are significant microsilences — lacunae in the sources and data which reflect the hegemonic structures within which they were produced. I suggest a moral demography approach to their analysis, borrowing from the reflexive and dialectic method found in studies of moral economy.

Abstract:
This paper explores the relationship between identity registration and the regulation of child labor in colonial Tanganyika. The lack of identity registration in colonial Africa rendered childhood a malleable concept that could be variously manipulated. In Tanganyika, children were employed in both industrial and agricultural settings, working for both kin and non-kin, including in large colonial concerns. The lack of age data precluded regulation of labor and sparked debate about how to identify a child. Different actors defined "childhood" to suit their own ends, leading to both the exploitation and the empowerment of the Tanganyikan child. The discussion is situated against wider consideration of the role of civil registration in enabling child protection.

Although school segregation has been illegal for nearly seven decades, it persists in a public education context increasingly impacted by market-based ideologies. Indeed, many present-day school integration policies are having to negotiate school choice while simultaneously trying to serve the public good. Through a critical policy analysis (CPA) of three policies in school districts with distinct histories of integration efforts, we examine these tensions by exploring how racial discourses are factors in contemporary school integration policies and how discourses of choice uphold or disrupt existing racial inequities. In our CPA, we pair Critical Discourse Analysis and interest divergence to better understand power behind and within discourse, and how discourses of race and school choice illustrate new but perhaps reminiscent shifts toward interest divergence. In doing so, we show how policies themselves cannot be disentangled from the rhetoric, power, accountability, and politics surrounding their development and implementation. ; Si bien la segregación escolar ha sido ilegal durante casi siete décadas, persiste en un contexto de educación pública cada vez más impactado por ideologías basadas en el mercado. De hecho, muchas políticas actuales de integración escolar deben negociar la elección de la escuela y, al mismo tiempo, intentar servir al bien público. A través de un análisis crítico de políticas (CPA) de tres políticas en distritos escolares con distintas historias de esfuerzos de integración, examinamos estas tensiones al explorar cómo los discursos raciales son factores en las políticas de integración escolar contemporáneas y cómo los discursos de elección defienden o interrumpen las desigualdades raciales existentes. En nuestro CPA, emparejamos el análisis crítico del discurso y la divergencia de intereses para comprender mejor el poder detrás y dentro del discurso, y cómo los discursos de elección de raza y escuela ilustran cambios nuevos pero quizás evocadores hacia la divergencia de intereses. Al ...

BACKGROUND: Reducing geographical inequalities in cancer survival in England was a key aim of the Calman-Hine Report (1995) and the NHS Cancer Plan (2000). This study assesses whether geographical inequalities changed following these policy developments by analysing the trend in 1-year relative survival in the 28 cancer networks of England. METHODS: Population-based age-standardised relative survival at 1 year is estimated for 1.4 million patients diagnosed with cancer of the oesophagus, stomach, colon, lung, breast (women) or cervix in England during 1991-2006 and followed up to 2007. Regional and deprivation-specific life tables are built to adjust survival estimates for differences in background mortality. Analysis is divided into three calendar periods: 1991-5, 1996-2000 and 2001-6. Funnel plots are used to assess geographical variation in survival over time. RESULTS: One-year relative survival improved for all cancers except cervical cancer. There was a wide geographical variation in survival with generally lower estimates in northern England. This north-south divide became less marked over time, although the overall number of cancer networks that were lower outliers compared with the England value remained stable. Breast cancer was the only cancer for which there was a marked reduction in geographical inequality in survival over time. CONCLUSION: Policy changes over the past two decades coincided with improved relative survival, without an increase in geographical variation. The north-south divide in relative survival became less pronounced over time but geographical inequalities persist. The reduction in geographical inequality in breast cancer survival may be followed by a similar trend for other cancers, provided government recommendations are implemented similarly.