Where have all the babies gone? Toward an anthropology of infants (and their caretakers)

In much anthropological literature infants are frequently neglected as outs ide the scope of both the concept of culture and disciplinary methods. This article proposes six reasons for this exclusion of infants from anthropolo gical discussion. These include the fieldworker's own memories and parental status, the problematic question of agency in infants and their presumed d ependence on others, their routine attachment to women, their seeming inabi lity to communicate, their inconvenient propensity to leak from a variety o f orifices, and their apparently low quotient of rationality Pet investigat ion of how infants are conceived of beyond the industrialized West can lead us to envision them far differently from how they are conceived in the Wes t (including by anthropologists). Confronting such comparative data suggest s the desirability of considering infants as both relevant and beneficial t o the anthropological endeavor.