Reproduction in the Contemporary World: Gender, Kinship, Governance and Technologies

1-2 Novembre 2024

Jolene Yiqiao Kong, IHEID

Arushi Sahay, IHEID Sachiyo Yagi, IHEID

Aditya Bharadwaj, IHEID

Maya Unnithan, University of Sussex

The aim of this workshop is to bring together emergent and critical scholarship on reproduction, encompassing various questions and understandings of reproductive processes and politics as shaping and being shaped gender relations, kinship structures, governance mechanisms, and technological practices. We undertake, and hope to further enmesh in this workshop, an intersectional, interactive and dynamic understanding of reproduction, aiming to put reproduction at the center of a comprehensive, social scientific analysis of the changing contemporary world. More specifically, this workshop intends to cover topics including (i) population politics and demographic anxieties, (ii) fertility patterns and decision-making, (iii) medicalisation of reproduction and fertility, (iv) contraceptive and new reproductive technologies, engaging with questions such as: (i) what kinds of emergent population and demographic processes are at play? (ii) how are women and families navigating fertility decisions? (ii) how can we understand the relationship between state, governance and reproductive bodies? (iv) what role does technology stand to play in fertility and reproductive futures? Preliminary program Day 1: 9:00am – 9:15am Welcome Note: Introducing the Workshop 9:15am – 10:30am Keynote Lecture (1) 10:30am – 12pm Session 1: Participant Presentations 12pm – 1:30pm Lunch 1:30pm – 3pm Session 2: Participant Presentations 3pm – 3:30pm Coffee Break 3:30pm – 5pm Session 3: Participant Presentations Day 2: 9:00am – 10:30am Session 4: Participant Presentations 10:30am – 1pm Keynote Lecture (2), followed by a closing discussion Target audience This workshop seeks as participants doctoral researchers working on any topic relating to reproduction, and to the questions outlined above. We invite ongoing research work, with no specific limitation on the geographical focus of the research. In fact, we would like to include research from varying geographical contexts so as to bring together a diverse body of research. In addition, we also invite researchers from across disciplines including anthropology, sociology, political science, history, economics, public policy, development studies, international relations, gender studies, and so on. The aim would be to have a rich, diverse, intersectional and interdisciplinary discussion around reproduction. We would organize the four envisioned sessions based on similar research topics, methodologies and theoretical approaches. The main focus would be to bring together ongoing reproduction research from doctoral students wishing to share, exchange and think through their works within a broader and shared context of contemporary reproduc

IHEID

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