'Infertility Makes You Invisible': Gender, Health and the Negotiation of Fertility in Northern Botswana

Contemporary demographic discourse and population policies in southern Africa tend to focus upon the positive value of low, and ever lowering, total fertility rates. In Botswana, statistics suggest a high rate of extramarital fertility and a rapidly increasing HIV infection rate. While these represent visible problems for demographers and policy makers, infertility ‐ a significant problem for many Batswana ‐ remains 'invisible' in much of demographic discourse. This paper suggests that while infertility may be an invisible demographic variable, it is particularly significant in the lives of the people of northern Botswana and it can be a useful lens through which to view cultural constructions of gender and health. For many women in Botswana, infertility, the apparent inability to bear children, is a serious social and physiological concern and one that is intricately tied to local perceptions of contraceptives and witchcraft, for example. In addition, with large scale migration by men to other areas of southern Africa, women find themselves confronted with various economic concerns and the necessity to negotiate childbearing in that context. It is argued that a more social and ethnographic understanding of the importance of fertility can lead to a better understanding of why some population policies are not particularly efficacious. This paper is based upon ethnographic fieldwork in northern Botswana and represents an attempt to synthesise anthropological and demographic approaches to the concept of fertility by examining the often overlooked variable of infertility.