Banking on Milk

An Ethnography of Donor Human Milk Relations

Fiona Dykes author Tanya Cassidy author

Format:Paperback

Publisher:Taylor & Francis Ltd

Published:30th Sep '21

Currently unavailable, and unfortunately no date known when it will be back

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Banking on Milk cover

Banking on Milk takes the reader on a journey through the everyday life of donor human milk banking across the United Kingdom (UK) and beyond, asking questions such as the following: Why do people decide to donate? How do parents of recipients hear about human milk? How does milk donation impact on lifestyle choices?

Chapters record the practical everyday reality of work in a milk bank by drawing on extensive ethnographic observations and sensitive interview data from donors, mothers of recipients and the staff of four different milk banks from across the UK, and visits to milk banks across Europe and North America. It discusses the ongoing pressures to do with supply, demand and distribution. An empirically informed "ethnography of the contemporary", where both biosociality and biopower abound, this book includes an exploration of how milk banks evolved from registering wet nurses with hospitals, showing how a regulatory culture of medical authority began to quantify and organize human milk as a commodity.

This book is a valuable read for all those with an interest in breastfeeding or organ and tissue donation from a range of fields, including midwifery, sociology, anthropology, geography, cultural studies and public health.

Banking on Milk is an informative and well-written scholarship in an area that has been under-studied internationally. The existing scholarship related to each topic covered in this book is well-researched and documented. As readers, we can better understand many of the issues surrounding human milk exchange today by engaging with this book. It is an important book for anyone interested in the history and sociocultural context of infant feeding or human milk science.” – Joan E. Dodgson, Journal of Human Lactation

ISBN: 9781032178059

Dimensions: unknown

Weight: 213g

148 pages