Taking chances, making choices: the tactical dimensions of "reproductive strategies" in southwestern Nigeria.

Reproductive outcomes may be less a result of consciously pursued "reproductive strategies" than of other choices, and are subject to the influence not only of other individuals, but also of caprice and circumstance. Drawing on ethnographic research in southwestern Nigeria, I argue that to understand the outcomes of reproduction in terms of reproductive strategies and reproductive choices is to profoundly misunderstand the contingencies with which women and men contend as they seek to manage the circumstances in which they find themselves. Through a series of case studies that illustrate some of these circumstances, I explore questions of choice and contingency in having and bringing up children.