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The Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group

 

 

at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Oxford University

The Fertility and Reproduction Studies Group (FRSG) is an interdisciplinary research body founded in 1998 at the Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology by Dr Soraya Tremayne and Professor David Parkin. Since its inception, FRSG has developed close links with the Medical Anthropology programme, and its regular Michaelmas Term seminar series is an integral part of the Medical Anthropology masters course at ISCA. The group provides lecture series to the University Institute of Reproductive Sciences (School of Obstetrics and Gynaecology), and holds specialist workshops on subjects including reproductive health, AIDS, anthropological demography, and New Reproductive Technologies. Its members carry out research in conjunction with the Wellcome Trust, the ESRC, the University of Oxford, the Australian Research Council and other major funding bodies. 

Since 2010, Dr Philip Kreager has been the group's director, and current senior members include Professor Laura Fortunato, Professor Elisabeth Hsu, Professor Stanley Ulijaszek, Dr. Alex Alvergne, Dr. Nadine Beckmann, Dr. Morgan Clarke, Dr. Konstantina Isidoros, Dr. Susie Kilshaw, Dr. Siân Pooley, Dr. Kaveri Qureshi, Dr. Elizabeth Rahman, Professor Alison Shaw, and Dr. Soraya Tremayne. 


FRSG's aim is to promote research and publication on the anthropology of fertility, reproduction and health, with emphasis on interdisciplinary methods. It addresses the changing dynamics of human reproduction and health from a cross-cultural perspective, with implications for policy and planning. Its work has combined anthropological, demographic, epidemiological, historical, and biomedical perspectives in understanding the institutions, networks, and meanings that structure reproductive and health behaviour in different cultures. 

FRSG is the first such group to be set up within an anthropology department in the UK, and has established itself as a focal point for inter-action between academics and practitioners in several fields. Examples of seminar themes addressed by the group include links between fertility and sexuality, anthropological demography, migration, cousin marriage, generational change, religion, reproductive ecology, identity, adoption, infant feeding and nutrition, ageing, infertility, and ethnobotany. Publication of several of these series, together with research monographs, appear in the group’s award winning book series.

The Fellows and Associates of FRSG have the pleasure of giving many thanks to Denise Juppé for the design and execution of this website. Photographs, unless otherwise stated, are from Fellows’ research, with added thanks for contributions from Elisabeth Schröder-Butterfill and Laurence LaLanne-Devlin.

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