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ReproSoc

Reproductive Sociology Research Group
 

Reproductive Justice in a (Post-)COVID World: Transnational Protest and Resistance

 

The conference takes place on April 18-19 2023Any questions or queries in relation to this conference can be directed to Dr. Aideen O’Shaughnessy on Twitter @aioshaug or via email: aideen4193@gmail.com

 

Launched in 2021 at the University of Cambridge, the Reproductive Justice Research Network is an interdisciplinary and transnational platform dedicated to research, activism, and practice in relation to reproductive justice, within a global perspective. In the past academic year (2021-2022), RJRN hosted very successful events including lectures, seminars and roundtables. The network’s YouTube Channel, Twitter, and Facebook pages were also launched in an effort to promote the works of invited speakers and to disseminate the network’s activities in order to engage with a broader public audience. In 2022-2023, RJRN will host another exciting line-up of academics, activists, and practitioners as part of its annual seminar series. Confirmed speakers for Michaelmas Term include Mwenza Blell (Newcastle University), Lina-Maria Murillo (University of Iowa), and Sunhye Kim (Ewha Woman’s University) who will present their works on a range of topics including Reproduction and the Nordic Welfare State, Population Control, US Imperialism and Borderlands, and the Role of Reproductive Justice in the Korean Abortion Rights Movement.

 

In the upcoming year, the Reproductive Justice Research Network will also host its first annual conference titled: ‘Reproductive Justice in a (Post-)COVID World: Transnational Protest and Resistance’ funded by the British Academy and supported by SRI-Reproduction, ReproSoc, The British Sociological Association, The University of Lincoln, and hosted in Gonville & Caius College at the University of Cambridge. Current research has illustrated how the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated structural inequalities, specifically reproductive injustices, across the globe. Instances of gender-based violence have risen dramatically; women and marginalised groups are increasingly burdened with complex forms of care work and (re)productive labour in their homes and communities; whilst growing economic inequalities and public health failures means that pregnant and gestating people struggle to access the reproductive and sexual healthcare they require.

 

As global health systems, public policy, and political protests methods are rapidly and continually transformed in response to COVID-19, this conference will create space for a collective rethinking of reproductive politics in a ‘post-’pandemic world. Providing a multidisciplinary and transnational forum for the dissemination and discussion of contemporary research in relation to reproductive (in)justices, this conference broaches several important questions including how should we reconceptualise reproductive justice, in our (‘post-’) COVID world? What new forms of reproductive injustice has the COVID-19 pandemic manifested? And how does the study of contemporary reproductive activism, during and after the global pandemic, shed new light on our understandings of power, protest, and resistance, specifically in relation to reproductive health and rights?

 

This conference aims to bring together queer, transnational, intersectional, decolonial and antiracist approaches to answer these questions, and others. This two-day conference is scheduled for April 20th to 21st, 2023, at the University of Cambridge and will take a hybrid online and in-person format. We welcome contributions from activists, practitioners and scholars working on reproductive health, rights and injustice, from the social sciences, medical sciences, humanities, and from professional, community and grassroots organisations and groups. Contributions may address, but should not be limited to, any of the following areas and questions:

 

  • Pandemic Abortion Care and Access
  • Racism and Reproductive Health
  • LGBTQI* perspectives during COVID
  • Classism and Care Work during COVID-19
  • Activism and Embodied Vulnerabilities
  • Environmental Racism and RJ
  • Eugenics and its Legacies
  • Population Control
  • Obstetric Violence
  • Reproductive Labour
  • Disability Studies

Please send abstracts of no more than 250 words, along with an author biography to Dr. R Sanchez Rivera via email rs871@cam.ac.uk. Deadline for abstract submissions is November 1st, 2022. Any questions or queries in relation to this conference can be directed to Dr. Aideen O’Shaughnessy on Twitter @aioshaug or via email: aideen4193@gmail.com. Please follow RJRN on Twitter and Facebook.

See below for further events organised by the Reproductive Justice Network.