 
GEOFF CHILDS Associate Professor, Sociocultural Ph.D., Indiana University, 1998 314-935-9429 Publications Photos gchilds@wustl.edu |
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GEOFF CHILDS Associate Professor, Sociocultural Ph.D., Indiana University, 1998 314-935-9429 Publications Photos gchilds@wustl.edu |
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My research occupies the interdisciplinary space between anthropology and demography, and thereby involves the integration of qualitative and quantitative research approaches. Whereas demographers have developed statistical techniques that can provide a numerical summation of a population (e.g., birth and death rates, population growth or decline), anthropologists employ interpretive approaches to reveal the cultural context within which fundamental life events transpire. Demographic analysis can tell us what is happening; anthropological analysis can tell us what it all means in the eyes of the actors.
I have conducted research on three distinct Tibetan societies: a cluster of agro-pastoral communities in the highlands of Nepal (Nubri Valley, Gorkha District), a historical population in rural Tibet (Kyirong District), and refugee communities in Nepal and India. By focusing on societies having a common ethnic identity (Tibetan) but that exist under very different ecological, political, and socio-economic conditions, my broadest objective is to gain a perspective on how an extensive range of factors impact upon demographic behavior, and how demographic transformations are related to changing perceptions about marriage, child bearing, and ageing. In addition, I maintain an active interest in traditional Tibetan literature that is related (sometimes only peripherally) to demographic processes. Administrative documents, local histories, natal horoscopes, descriptions of sacred landscapes, and biographies of local lamas all tell us something about the cultural context within which demographic events take place.
In 2006 I am commencing a new project on aging in the Tibet Autonomous Region of China. The project seeks to reveal intergenerational negotiation strategies aimed at ensuring old-age care in a context of rapid socioeconomic development.
For more information see the overview of the department's research in sociocultural anthropology.
Introduction to Cultural Anthropology; Population and Society; Anthropology of Tibet and the Himalayas; Research Methods in Anthropology; Researching Fertility, Mortality, and Migration
Childs, Geoff.
2008. Tibetan Transitions: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives on Fertility, Family Planning, and Demographic Change. Leiden: Brill.
Goldstein, Melvyn C., Geoff Childs, and Puchung Wangdui.
2008. “Going for Income”: A Longitudinal Analysis of Change in Farming Tibet, 1997-98 to 2006-07. Asian Survey 48(3):514-534.
Childs, Geoff and Gareth Barkin.
2006. Reproducing Identity: Using Images to Promote Pronatalism and Endogamy among Tibetan Exiles in South Asia. Visual Anthropology Review 22(2):34-52.
Childs, Geoff.
2005 Tibetan Fertility Transitions in China and South Asia (with Melvyn C. Goldstein, Ben Jiao and Cynthia M. Beall). Population and Development Review 31(2):337-349.
2005 Methods, Meanings, and Representations in the Study of Past Tibetan Societies. Journal of the International Association for Tibetan Studies 1(1):1-13
2005 Namas (mna' ma) and Nyelus (nyal bu): Marriage, Fertility, and Illegitimacy in Tibetan Societies. In Tibetan Identity and Change: Along the Margins, ed. C. Klieger. Leiden: Brill.
2004 Tibetan Diary: From Birth to Death and Beyond in a Himalayan Valley of Nepal. Berkeley: University of California Press.
2004 Ethnographic and Demographic Analysis of Small Populations Using the Own-Children Method. Field Methods 16(4):379-395.
2003 Polyandry and Population Growth in a Historical Tibetan Society. The History of the Family 8(3):423-444.
2001 Demographic Dimensions of an Inter-Village Land Dispute in Nubri, Nepal. American Anthropologist 103(4):1096-1113.
2001 Old-Age Security, Religious Celibacy, and Aggregate Fertility in a Tibetan Population. Journal of Population Research 18(1):52-66.
