It’s cold
By Laura Burke - 11th October 2019
The idea that high fertility drives environmental destruction has been around since Malthus. In my field-site there was a different narrative: the environment, and in particular the cold weather, drove high fertility. ‘We have more children here….because it’s cold’ people giggled to me.
Fieldnote 5/08/2018
Large families, cold weather. How can we explain this joke: rai malarin, meaning ‘its cold’ or ‘cold land’, given as a justification for the larger family size in rural, particularly mountains areas? The implication of this joke is that the weather, being much colder, forces people to stay inside, in bed, under the blankets, meaning people have more sex. Am I understanding this joke correctly, or are there more nuances to it?
As I retreated under my bed covers one rainy afternoon I acknowledged how the cold crept into my body... my monthly mountain drives down to sea level felt like crawling into a warmly drawn bath. The connection to the cold weather and fertility, through what I acknowledged as part joke, part trope, perplexed me. It was so pervasive.
I heard this trope discussed seriously by medical professionals, it was whispered at the back of development report events on fertility, health, and economy in rural areas. I heard it at the presentation of census data where it was recommended that national high fertility rates be reduced: ‘Of course, the climate has an impact in mountainous areas. It's cold up there!’
Fieldnote: 5/04/2019
It's so cold that I feel it in my bones. This isn't the extreme cold of anything near zero, but a damp cold that makes you feel sluggishly tired and retreat under your bed covers. It isn't a fresh cold...but the type that wakes you up with a slight headache, like you have been sleeping close to the ground. Sometimes the cold in the mountains has to be lived to be believed, particularly by people who have not ventured up out of the hot capital.
I sometimes thought of ‘rai malarin’ ‘it's cold’ as a stigma directed at rural families. To some of my participants it was a joke, people in rural areas just didn’t know how to control their sexual impulses or their pregnancies. More sympathetic people said the cold weather accompanied people’s lack understanding of family planning, a pro-natal patriarchal society, or a strong desire for children to replace a generation lost in the independence struggle.
As I adapted to the mountain weather world, I felt the cold more and more. Like others, I began to fight for the attention of small children I could pull on to my lap, to keep me warm as we crouched by the kitchen fire. ‘We do joke about it being cold’, several people told me, ‘but if you look at the census data, where are the fertility rates higher? In the cold places’.
These comments stuck with me as I listened to the screeches of people showering with cold buckets of water each morning. In their sharp intakes of breaths, I felt the cold.
Laura is a PhD candidate in Social Anthropology in the Department of Anthropology and Conservation at the University of Kent. She has recently returned from conducting ethnographic fieldwork, investigating how people envision and create the next generation in post-conflict Timor-Leste. She is particularly interested in discussions related to reproductive freedoms and population ethics, and is currently exploring the entanglements between fertility, nature, and population in her writing.