ABSTRACT
In this chapter I will be concerned with the classification of newborns and its consequences in two distinct social settings. The first one refers to anthropological fieldwork I conducted in 1993-1998 in Biombo region in Guinea-Bissau.1 The second setting is Iceland where I conducted fieldwork on ethical questions concerning treatment and eventual end-of-life decisions for infants with a birth weight less than 1,000 g and the implications of their births on the daily lives of the families involved.2 I will examine how certain infants are classified as non-humans in Biombo region, GuineaBissau, and unviable in Iceland, as well as the consequences these classifications may have for the infants concerned.
