1st Edition

Reproduction and Biopolitics Ethnographies of Governance, "Irrationality" and Resistance

Edited By Silvia De Zordo, Milena Marchesi Copyright 2015
132 Pages
by Routledge

132 Pages
by Routledge

144 Pages
by Routledge

The central theme of this volume is the notion of "irrational reproduction": the ways in which women’s and couples’ reproductive choices and practices are deemed "irrational" or "irresponsible" because they result in the "wrong number" of children. In a global context of declining fertility, population policies have shifted to a neoliberal register, which, despite local differences, includes both... Read more

1. Introduction. Ethnography and biopolitics: tracing ‘rationalities’ of reproduction across the north–south divide Elizabeth L. Krause and Silvia De Zordo  2. Irrational non-reproduction? The ‘dying nation’ and the postsocialist logics of declining motherhood in Poland Joanna Mishtal  3. Reproducing Italians: contested biopolitics in the age of ‘replacement anxiety’ Milena Marchesi  4. Islamic logics, reproductive rationalities: family planning in northern Pakistan Emma Varley  5. Programming the body, planning reproduction, governing life: the ‘(ir-) rationality’ of family planning and the embodiment of social inequalities in Salvador da Bahia (Brazil) Silvia De Zordo  6. The right to have a family: ‘legal trafficking of children’, adoption and birth control in Brazil Andrea Cardarello  7. Reproductive governance in Latin America Lynn M. Morgan and Elizabeth F.S. Roberts

Biography

Silvia De Zordo is a Postdoctoral Beatriu de Pinós Fellow at the University of Barcelona, Spain. She is a social anthropologist with over ten years of research experience on health, gender and reproduction in Latin America and Europe. Her current research focuses on abortion and conscientious objection in Europe



Milena Marchesi is a Visiting Lecturer at the University of Massachusetts, USA. She is a social anthropologist whose work focuses on reproduction, migration, gender and the family, and neoliberalism in Italy.