Collier/Parson 9312633 The researcher will investigate whether and how the recent expansion of women's social and economic opportunities, the implementation of pro-natalist policies, and the availability of new pre-natal technologies in urban Greece are prompting people to rethink ideas about gender, kinship, and individualism. Through ethnographic interviewing, participant-observation, and archival research in Thessaloniki, the study will investigate how urban Greeks form ideas about biological reproduction and methods of family planning at the same time these ideas are used by Greeks to negotiate the production of social status through personal achievement. The research will collect data on family planning rhetoric and practice as an index of such changes. Reproductive ideas and practices will be explored in political-economic context. Consideration will also be given to way in which reproduction is implicated in the ongoing construction of the Greek nation-state. Through interpretation of women's reproductive histories in the broader context of their life experiences, the study will seek an understanding of contemporary Greek abortion practices at the historical intersection of 1) "traditional" and "modern" ideas about motherhood, procreation, and sexuality; 2) legal and economic constraints on family planning and parenting; and 3) new contraceptive and prenatal technologies. The dissertation resulting from this research will extend the insights of feminists studies of reproduction i by investigating how "traditional" Greek reproductive understandings are defined and valued against Westernizing influence s. *** _ ! ! ! F y y ( Times New Roman Symbol & Arial u u u " h e e e m j collier paxson abstract abstract collier paxson abstract thesis Raymond Hames Raymond Hames
