Fistula Politics : : Birthing Injuries and the Quest for Continence in Niger / / Alison Heller.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Rutgers University Press Complete eBook-Package 2019
• VerfasserIn: Heller, Alison,
• MitwirkendeR: Manderson, Lenore,
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2018]; ©2019
• Year of Publication: 2018
• Language: English
• Series: Medical Anthropology
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (270 p.) :; 25 color and B-W photos
• Other title: Frontmatter --; CONTENTS --; Foreword --; List of Abbreviations --; Note on Terminology --; 1. Incontinence and Inequalities --; Part I: Living Incontinence --; Laraba's Story: Rejection, Resistance, Refusal --; 2. Fistula Stigma --; 3. Liminal Wives --; Part II: Clinical Encounters --; Six Beds, Sixty Minutes --; 4. The "Worst Place to Be a Mother" --; 5. The Indeterminable Wait --; Part III: The Marketplace of Victimhood --; Arantut's Story: The Other Extreme --; 6. Superlative Sufferers --; 7. Costs and Consequences --; 8. The Threshold of Continence --; Appendix --; Acknowledgments --; Notes --; Bibliography --; Index --; ABOUT THE AUTHOR
• Format: Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.
• ISBN: 9781978800403; 9783110653526
• DOI: 10.36019/9781978800403?locatt=mode:legacy
• Access: restricted access
• Hierarchical level: Monograph
• Statement of Responsibility: Alison Heller.

Obstetric fistula is a birthing injury caused by prolonged obstructed labor that results in urinary and fecal incontinence. It is nearly non-existent in the Global North. In contrast Niger, in West Africa, has one of the highest rates of fistula in the world. In Western humanitarian and media narratives, fistula is presented as deeply stigmatizing, resulting in divorce, abandonment by kin, exile from communities, depression and suicide. In Fistula Politics, Alison Heller illustrates the inaccuracy of these popular narratives and shows how they serve the interests not of the women so affected, but of humanitarian organizations, the media, and local clinics.