Drawing on fieldwork conducted in Rabat, Morocco, this ethnography analyzes the relationship between neoliberal development policies, women’s reproductive practices, and popular understandings of Islam. In the 1990s, Morocco shifted its attention from economic to human development, as economic reforms in the preceding decades ultimately did not address social issues such as access to healthcare and education and poverty. Development programs like the National Initiative for Human Development seek to create modern citizens who are responsible, self-sustaining, and will make choices that better their well being. Hughes Rinker considers the implications that the reorientation from primarily economic to social development has on reproductive healthcare. Drawing on observations in health clinics; interviews with patients, medical staff, and at government and development agencies; and a document analysis, she demonstrates how women appropriate the medical practices and spaces of intervention aimed at creating modern citizens to form new religious identities, novel ideas of motherhood, and interpretations of neoliberal citizenship based on Islamic beliefs. Women’s interpretations of Islam are not incompatible with the state’s agenda for modernization, but rather serve as rationale for women to accept modern reproductive practices, such as contraception and pregnancy tests. However, even though female patients appropriate medical practices, they reinscribe development tropes that suggest they participate in modernization through their reproductive bodies and mothering instead of their productive labor. Hughes Rinker complicates neoliberalism as she shows it is unproductive to have a set conceptualization of neoliberal citizens, and more productive to examine the practices and discourses that create such citizens.

This book examines how the cultural context influences the way in which young single women approach courtship, and issues of sexuality and reproductive health.

This book is one of the many Islamic publications distributed by Mustafa Organization throughout the world in different languages with the aim of conveying the message of Islam to the people of the world. Mustafa Organization is a registered Organization that operates and is sustained through collaborative efforts of volunteers in many countries around the world, and it welcomes your involvement and support. Its objectives are numerous, yet its main goal is to spread the truth about the Islamic faith in general and the Shi`a School of Thought in particular due to the latter being misrepresented, misunderstood and its tenets often assaulted by many ignorant folks, Muslims and non-Muslims. Organization's purpose is to facilitate the dissemination of knowledge through a global medium, the Internet, to locations where such resources are not commonly or easily accessible or are resented, resisted and fought!

This ethnography is a study of the roles Moroccan women play in the country's current development policy. In 2005, Morocco launched a new development initiative that shifts focus from economic growth to human development, specifically changing individuals' attitudes and how they think about themselves as citizens. The government acknowledges women have been a "forgotten element" in Moroccan development since the country achieved independence from France in 1956, and now recognizes how crucial they are within the modernization process. However, women are mainly included through their reproductive bodies instead of their productive labor and are given the responsibility of controlling the fertility rate and population growth for the country. Given this situation, this ethnography seeks to answer three questions: What are the reproductive subjects Morocco is trying to create through development? What are the childbearing and childrearing practices associated with these subjects? And, how do women interpret these practices and how do they shape how they see their roles as citizens? Based upon eighteen months of ethnographic research in and around the capital city of Rabat, using participant-observation, formal and informal interviews, and a visual and textual analysis of various materials, I argue that my female participants appropriate modern reproductive practices - contraception, ultrasounds, and gynecological exams - to suit their everyday lifestyles. While the goals they hold concerning modernization overlap those of the government, development organizations, and medical providers (smaller families, educated children, a healthier population, and better employment opportunities), the processes to reach these objectives differ between the various parties. Here, drawing on information primarily collected in three health clinics that offered reproductive health services and selected female patients' homes, I explicate these overlaps and discrepancies to argue that Moroccan women see modern childbearing and childrearing practices as helping them become better Muslims and mothers (or future mothers), whereas the larger institutions see such practices as liberating women and aiding them take control over their lives and bodies. In reality, as they appropriate modern reproductive practices, Moroccan women are participating in the development agenda in a way that prescribes them as citizens through their ability to give birth and nurture children.

This collection brings together recent innovative work in applied and practicing anthropology. Organised around the theme of unexpectedness, it examines some of the novel spaces, topics, and methods that anthropologists are involved with. The volume emphasises non-traditional settings and demonstrates the important role of anthropology in addressing some of the pressing issues facing society today. The contributors offer detailed ethnographic examples from their own research and work that give students valuable insight and advice. Drawn mainly from the United States, the case studies illustrate the diverse arenas in which anthropologists operate, from law and finance to education and health care. Simultaneous consideration is given to practical applications, theoretical reflections, and professional experiences.

This book explores the experiences of Muslims in the United States as they interact with the health care system during serious illness and end-of-life care. It shifts "actively dying" from a medical phrase used to describe patients who are expected to pass away soon or who exhibit signs of impending death, to a theoretical framework to analyze how end-of-life care, particularly within a hospital, shapes the ways that patients, families, and providers understand Islam and think of themselves as Muslim. Using the dying body as the main object of analysis, the volume shows that religious identities of Muslim patients, loved ones, and caregivers are not only created when living, but also through the physical process of dying and through death. Based on ethnographic and qualitative research carried out mainly in the Washington, D.C. region, this volume will be of interest to scholars in anthropology, sociology, public health, gerontology, and religious studies.

Following the story of one middle class family as they work, eat, love, and grow, Everyday Life in Global Morocco provides a moving and engaging exploration of how world issues impact lives. Rachel Newcomb shows how larger issues like gentrification, changing diets, and nontraditional approaches to marriage and fertility are changing what the everyday looks and feels like in Morocco. Newcomb's close engagement with the Benjelloun family presents a broad range of responses to the multifaceted effects of globalization. The lived experience of the modern family is placed in contrast with the traditional expectation of how this family should operate. This juxtaposition encourages new ways of thinking about how modern the notion of globalization really is.

This book discusses the common principles of morality and ethics derived from divinely endowed intuitive reason through the creation of al-fitr' a (nature) and human intellect (al-‘aql). Biomedical topics are presented and ethical issues related to topics such as genetic testing, assisted reproduction and organ transplantation are discussed. Whereas these natural sources are God’s special gifts to human beings, God’s revelation as given to the prophets is the supernatural source of divine guidance through which human communities have been guided at all times through history. The second part of the book concentrates on the objectives of Islamic religious practice – the maqa' sid – which include: Preservation of Faith, Preservation of Life, Preservation of Mind (intellect and reason), Preservation of Progeny (al-nasl) and Preservation of Property. Lastly, the third part of the book discusses selected topical issues, including abortion, assisted reproduction devices, genetics, organ transplantation, brain death and end-of-life aspects. For each topic, the current medical evidence is followed by a detailed discussion of the ethical issues involved.