The Council on Anthropology and Reproduction is pleased to offer awards based on contribution to reproductive anthropology.

  • Book Award

    Now awarded every year, we alternate between single-author monographs and edited volumes. Originally, the CAR Book Award was every other year and only considered edited volumes.

    The Council on Anthropology & Reproduction (CAR) Award is one of very few awards given to edited volumes, yet it helped establish and foment topics of reproduction as central fields of anthropological inquiry. The Most Notable Recent Collection Award seeks to recognize and celebrate recent (published usually within 3 years of the nomination deadline) collections of anthropological works addressing: human reproduction, reproductive technologies, population policy, birth control and contraception, pregnancy, the study and application of genetics, childbirth, adoption, and the roles of parents, among others.

    We now also accept submissions for single-author monographs on the same range of topics as the edited volumes, evaluated following the same criteria. Please read this year’s call for nominations carefully to know if it is an edited volume or monograph year.

    Entries are evaluated on a variety of factors including: overall contribution to anthropology & reproduction, usefulness for teaching, current and historical value for both academic and advocacy work, the strength of the nomination letters, the quality and depth of analysis within the chapters, and the coherence of the volume as a whole.

    Nomination letters may be brief, but should explain the impact of the book on your own work, teaching, and students, and how you consider the work to be influential within the field.

    For 2023, we will be considering both monographs and edited volumes and will be awarding a prize in each category.

    To submit nomination letters or with any questions, please email committee co-chairs Julie Johnson-Searcy (jsearcy@butler.edu) and Angela Castañeda (acastaneda@depauw.edu)

    Deadline for nominations follows the SMA annual award cycle and is July 1st.

  • Paper Award: Graduate Student Paper

    Typically awarded every year.

    An award for the best graduate student paper on anthropology and reproduction, based on original research. Submissions from all subdisciplines of anthropology are encouraged. Papers are judged on ethnographic richness, anthropological methodology, linkage to the scholarship in anthropology and reproduction, effective use of theory and data, originality and creativity, organization, coherence of argument, and quality of writing.

    Deadline for Nomination is July 1, 2023. Award will be announced at the CAR and SMA business meetings at the American Anthropological Association meetings in November 2023.

    For more information and to submit your work, please email the Co-Chairs, Cecilia Van Hollen (cv372@georgetown.edu) and Megan Cogburn (megandcogburn@ufl.edu)

Past Book Award Recipients

  • Reproduction and Biopolitics: Ethnographies of Governance, “Irrationality” and Resistance.

    2016 Winner

    Edited by: Silivia De Zordo and Milena Marchesi.

    Published: Routledge 2015

    Routledge Taylor & Francis Group

  • Assisting Reproduction, Testing Genes: Global Encounters with the New Biotechnologies

    2012 Winner

    Edited By: Daphna Birenbaum-Carmeli and Marcia C. Inhorn

    Published: Berghahn Books 2009

    Berghagn Books Better World Books

  • Reproduction, Globalization, and the State: New Theoretical and Ethnographic Perspectives

    2012 Winner

    Edited By: Carole H. Browner and Carolyn F. Sargent

    Published: Duke University Press 2011

    Duke U. Press, Better World Books

  • Reconceiving the Second Sex: Men, Masculinity, and Reproduction

    2010 Winner

    Edited By: Marcia Inhorn, Tine Tjornhoj-Thomsen, Helene Goldberg, and Maruska La Cour Mosegaard

    Published: Berghahn Books 2009

    Berghagn Books Better World Books

  • Beyond the Body Proper: Reading the Anthropology of Material Life

    2008 Winner

    Edited By: Judith Farquar and Margaret Locke

    Published: Duke University Press 2007

    Duke University Press, Better World Books

  • Barren States: The Population Implosion in Europe

    2006 Winner

    Edited By: Carrie B. Douglass

    Published: Berg Publishers 2005 (Bloomsbury Press)

    Better World Books

  • Consuming Motherhood

    2005 Winner

    Edited By: Janelle S. Taylor, Linda L. Layne and Danielle F. Wozniak

    Published: Rutgers University Press 2oo4

    Rutgers University Press, Better World Books

  • Birthing the Pacific: Beyond Tradition and Modernity?

    2004 Winner

    Edited By: Vicki Lukere and Margaret Jolly

    Published: University of Hawaii Press 2002

    University of Hawaii Press, Better World Books

  • Childbirth and Authoritative Knowledge: Cross Cultural Perspectives

    2003 Winner

    Edited By: Robbie Davis-Floyd and Carolyn Sargent

    Published: University of California Press 1997

    University of California Press, Better World Books

  • Pragmatic Women and Body Politics

    2002 Winner

    Edited By: Margaret Lock and Patricia Alice Kaufert

    Published: Cambridge University Press 1998

    Cambridge University Press, Better World Books