ABSTRACT
This introduction presents an overview of key concepts discussed in the subsequent chapters of this book. The book sets the scene through a discussion of the theoretical debates of motherhood, kinship and reproduction. It introduces a set of ideas defining modern selves through middle-class discourses on love and marriage, which relate earlier anthropological studies of kinship with contemporary themes of conjugality, love and intimacy. The book focuses on the discourses surrounding medicalized childbirth as a middle-class privilege within a wider discussion of kinship and changing family roles, and discusses the transformation of childbearing through the move towards hospital birth and the adoption of Caesarean sections in relation to agency and ideas about modernity. It discusses ideas about global workplaces and the demands of private schooling are reshaping what it means to be a middle-class mother and grandmother is contextualized through a detailed analysis of the impact English-medium pre-schooling has on motherhood.
