Demography in the Age of the Postmodern

Abstract

Demography has developed into a remarkably coherent field and now stands as a firmly established discipline with strong ties to policy-making agencies. However, in recent years there has been increasing recognition within demography of the limits of existing theories and methods, particularly its absence of a strong critical tradition and its isolation from recent theoretical developments in other social sciences. In this study, Nancy Riley and James McCarthy use the lens of postmodernism to structure a critical analysis of the field of demography. Paying particular attention to the fundamental epistemologies and methodologies that currently underlie the field, they explore how postmodern perspectives might serve to energize the field and how demography could be enhanced by the introduction of insights from other social sciences. Drawing on examples of new kinds of research in demography and related fields, this is an important new book that seeks to reinvigorate the field of demography.

Global knowledge/local bodies: Family planning service providers’ interpretations of contraceptive knowledge(s)

“…As I have argued elsewhere (Richey 2008), modern family planning is intimately linked to the neoliberal project of "development." The genealogy of the global population discourse begins when population became a category in which states could begin to conceptualize and thus order their constituents (Foucault 1980;Riley and McCarthy 2003). Simultaneously, population evolved as an area that can be controlled through governance because human reproduction could be controlled by individual restraint.…”

Disciplining anthropological demography

“…gender studies) and physical science, and multi-and interdisciplinary research have become more common, although not necessarily more accepted or any easier to do well. The reasons for this increasing mixing of epistemology and method are manifold, and include globalisation (leading to easier and more frequent transfers of information and researchers), technological developments, and postmodernity (Riley & McCarthy 2003). We must also acknowledge the critical role of research funding in both reacting to and shaping this evolution.…”

“…This accounting approach spent much time dealing with bias in data and refining methods for 'correcting' data to render them closer to what was thought to be the reality (often represented by mathematical formulae). The definition of demography varies widely, but tends to be broad and emphasise interrelationships with other disciplines (for example, Stycos, 1987;Liu & Wang, 2005;Keyfitz, 1993;Riley & McCarthy, 2003). Demography can be typified as a discipline that has strong ties to policy-making (not least the interrelationship with family planning), clear boundaries to its areas of study (namely: fertility, mortality and migration) 10 , has a strong empirical tradition, and most importantly is typified by a positivist epistemology.…”

“…Demography can be typified as a discipline that has strong ties to policy-making (not least the interrelationship with family planning), clear boundaries to its areas of study (namely: fertility, mortality and migration) 10 , has a strong empirical tradition, and most importantly is typified by a positivist epistemology. Demography has been singled out as a discipline that has been slow to react to critiques of the positivist approach that have been debated in other social sciences for considerably longer (Riley & McCarthy, 2003). Within the discipline of demography today, there is less need to count and a much greater need to understand how and why demographic events happen, rather than how many and when.…”

“…What follows here owes much to the excellent overviews by Greenhalgh (1995), Riley & McCarthy (2003), Kertzer & Fricke (1997) and Basu & Aaby (1998), and does not seek to supplant them, nor to enter into the critiques of anthropology by demographers or those of demography by anthropologists. Rather, building upon the existing reviews, we shall focus on the ways in which demography and anthropology make claims about "their" knowledge.…”