{"product_id":"if-books-fail-try-beauty-an-ethnography-of-educated-womanhood-in-the-new-east-africa-9780190852146","title":"If Books Fail, Try Beauty: An Ethnography of Educated Womanhood in the New East Africa","description":"\u003cem\u003eIf Books Fail, Try Beauty: An Ethnography of Educated Womanhood in the New East Africa \u003c\/em\u003eexamines Kampala's university-based sexual economy wherein female students exchange sexual favors for money, grades, and luxury commodities. These practices increase young women's risk for infectious disease, pregnancy, and moral rebuke, yet many women engaged in \"transactional\" sex are adept students at Makerere University and members of East Africa's nascent middle class. Based on thirty-six months of ethnographic research, \u003cem\u003e If Books Fail \u003c\/em\u003ereveals that students participate in Makerere's sexual economy to pursue social advancement in a newly privatized education sector. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eThe book charts the passage and effects of Uganda's education restructuring from 2004 onwards and demonstrates how these reforms - in opposition to the government's gender equality aims - undermine female students' opportunities for success by reshaping the meaning of \"educated woman.\"\u003cem\u003e If Books Fail \u003c\/em\u003ebrings together formerly disparate conversations about education, sexuality, and state policy to offer a theorization of emerging forms of selfhood in the post colony.\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eAbout the Author\u003c\/b\u003e\u003cbr\u003e\u003cstrong\u003eBrooke Schwartz Bocast\u003c\/strong\u003e is an Assistant Professor of Anthropology at Montana State University. \u003cbr\u003eHer work has been published in City \u0026amp; Society, PoLAR: Political and Legal Anthropology Review, Anthropology and Humanism, and The Routledge Companion to Media Anthropology. She writes about East African culture and politics at the Council on Foreign Relations' Africa in Transition blog.\u003cbr\u003e","brand":"Oxford University Press","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":50534577930514,"sku":"9780190852146","price":32.99,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0831\/4771\/8930\/files\/img_9b02d4c1-b5fd-45d7-8ab5-cc21109445f8.jpg?v=1731428160","url":"https:\/\/surprise-castle.myshopify.com\/products\/if-books-fail-try-beauty-an-ethnography-of-educated-womanhood-in-the-new-east-africa-9780190852146","provider":"Surprise Castle","version":"1.0","type":"link"}