Dear Colleague,

Advance notice of an event later this year - mark it in your diary!
Please cross-post this announcement as appropriate.

Please send any enquiries direct to Professor David Arnold on [log in to unmask]



POPULATION, BIRTH CONTROL AND REPRODUCTIVE HEALTH
IN LATE COLONIAL INDIA

18-19 November 1999
at the School of Oriental and African Studies,
London

The Centre for the History and Culture of Medicine at SOAS is
organizing a two-day international conference on Population,
Birth-Control and Reproductive Health in Late Colonial India. The
meeting, which is being made possible through financial support from
the British Academy and the Wellcome Trust, as well as from the
School, will be held at SOAS on Thursday 18th November and Friday
19th November 1999.

The past few years have seen the beginning of a lively academic
interest in the history of population, birth-control and
reproductive health in 19th- and early 20th- century South Asia.
Much of this work remains on-going and unpublished and the conference
will bring together a number of scholars currently working on these
issues, which clearly have considerable contemporary as well as
historical relevance. The conference will focus on the debates, changing
perceptions and practices that occurred around these issues from the
1880s, and more especially after 1920 with the growing awareness of
population growth in India. These debates involved not only the
colonial medical establishment and civil service, but also Indian
physicians, politicians, economists and social reformers, as well as
Western advocates of birth-control like Marie Stopes. Population
growth and the prospects for improved health for women
and children were thus issues that spanned a remarkably wide political
 and cultural spectrum and shed fascinating light on the nature of medical
ideas,
institutions and their social impact in late South Asia.

A provisional list of presenters and papers includes:
Sanjam Ahluwalia (Cincinnati), 'Gandhi and Birth Control';
Anandhi S. (Madras), 'The Early Birth-Control Movement in Tamilnadu';
David Arnold (SOAS), 'Official Attitudes to Population and Women's
Health';
Indira Chowdhury (Calcutta), 'Marie Stopes and "the Indian Woman"';
Supriya Guha (Calcutta), 'Purdah and Women's Health in Colonial
Bengal';
Charu Gupta (SOAS), 'Shifting Debates on Widow Remariage in UP,
1890s-1930s';
Sarah Hodges (Chicago), '"Over-population" in Early 20th-Century
India';
Maneesha Lal (Madison), 'Medical Research and Reproductive Health';
Anshu Malhotra (Delhi), 'The Management of Women's Reproductive Health
in 20th-Century India';
Barbara Ramusack (Cincinnati), 'Maternal Mortality, Birth-Control and
Medical Education in South India, 1910-47';
Cecilia Van Hollen, 'Training Indian Midwives'.

The conference is being organized by David Arnold and Sarah Hodges.
Anyone interested in participating or attending should contact David
Arnold either by e-mail ([log in to unmask]), or by post (Department of
History, School of Oriental and African Studies, Thornhaugh Street,
Russell Square, London WC1H 0XG).

Christopher Cullen
Department of History
School of Oriental and African Studies
London WC1H 0XG
tel +44 171 637 2388


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