A wide-ranging, comparative study of concepts of motherhood.

Introduction: colonial and postcolonial plots in histories of maternities and modernities Margaret Jolly; 1. Shaping reproduction: maternity in early twentieth-century Malaya Lenore Manderson; 2. Modernizing the Malay mother Maila Stivens; 3. 'Good wives and mothers' or 'dedicated workers'? Contradictions of domesticity in the 'mission of sisterhood', Travancore, south India Jane Haggis; 4. Maternity and the story of enlightenment in the colonies: Tamil coastal women, south India Kalpana Ram; 5. The dai and the doctor: discourses on women's reproductive health in rural Bangladesh Santi Rozario; 6. Other mothers: maternal 'insouciance' and the depopulation debate in Fiji and Vanuatu, 1890-1930 Margaret Jolly; 7. Just add water: remaking women through childbirth, Anganen, Southern Highlands, Papua New Guinea Leanne Merrett-Balkos; 8. From sisters to wives: changing contexts of maternity on Simbo, Western Solomon Islands Christine Dureau; Epilogue: maternal experience and feminist body politics: Asian and Pacific perspectives Kalpana Ram.