2003 Annual Reports
Basker Prize Committee Report
Chair: Catherine Panter-Brick
The Eileen Basker Prize rewards excellence in research on gender and health.
We received 4 nominations for the 2003 competition. They were judged by Committee members C. Panter-Brick (Chair), V Dominguez, L Leidy Sievert.
This year’s winner is Caroline H. Bledsoe for her book Contingent Lives: Fertility, Time, and Aging in West Africa (2002), University of Chicago Press. Dr. Bledsoe wishes to share the prize with Fatoumatta Banja, who made significant contributions to the book.
This book will make heads turn in the fields of both demography and anthropology. It presents a cultural understanding of reproduction, health and aging that is radically different from Western orthodox models of natural fertility regimes. For poor, rural women in the Gambia, reproduction and ageing are not linear course events, but contingent on the health, toil and struggles of a woman’s life. The book is a powerful critique of Western scientific conceptualisations and a model of interdisciplinary innovation.
The cash award is $1000. Virginia Dominguez generously donated $500 of this money.