Chapter 1: A Theory and its Application: Véronique Petit: Chapter 2: A Theory for developing countries: Yves Charbit and Véronique Petit.- Chapter 3: Responding to Poverty in Rural Guinea: Aurélie Godard-Marceau, Barbara Meffe and Véronique Petit.- Chapter 4: Socioeconomic Strategies and Ethnic Dynamics in Maritime Guinea: Véronique Petit and Aurélie Godard-Marceau.- Chapter 5: Education Confronted by Rural Poverty: Alhassane Balde.- Chapter 6: The Motorsmof Change in Seismic Risk Management Policy in Turkey: The Multidimensional Nature of Response: Nazan Cömert-Baechler.- Chapter 7: Sociodemographic Pressure on Land in Madagascar: Mustapha Omrane.- Chapter 8: Female Genitale Mutilations and Population Policy in Djibouti : Véronique Petit.- Chapter 9: The Policy of Reducing Provincial Inequalities in New Caledonia: Laure Hadj.- Chapter 10: Individuals, Family and Development Policy in Reunion: Franck Temporal.- Chapter 11: The Failure of Family Planning in the Urban Housing Estates of Mauritius: Sarah Hillcoat-Nalletamby.- Chapter 12: The Ambiguïty and Complexity of the Responses of Young People on the Risk of HIV/AIDS in Cameroon: Lucas Tchetgnia.- Chapter 13: From Research to Action: Yves Charbit and Véronique Petit.
After graduating in social anthropology and demography, Véronique Petit became a Professor of demography at the University Paris Descartes. She belongs to the Centre Population and Development. Specialized in demography of developing countries, especially in Sub-Saharan Africa. Her research works concerned mainly two fields research: reproductive health (contraception, female genital mutilations, population policies) and international migrations (remittances, return migrations, mental health of migrants). She is the chief editor of the major francophone revue on international migrations, the Revue Européenne des Migrations Internationales. She also contributes to promote the new field of anthropological demography. She had already published with Springer a book about the stake of interdisciplinarity in social sciences: Counting Population. Understanding societies (2013).
This book addresses major population and development issues: fertility and reproductive health, migrations, gender, education, poverty and inequalities. To that aim it revisits and considerably enlarges Kingsley Davis’ 1963 theory of change and response, using interdisciplinary methodologies. On the basis of four decades of field research (1985-2015), it questions the rationality of the actors, how culture shapes socio-demographic behaviours, in a context of modernity and globalisation. More specifically, it casts new light on the interactions of individuals, families, networks and local communities with the State and its population policy.