Sustainability and Social Justice
A Feminist Exploration of ‘Populationism’: Engaging Contemporary Forms of Population Control
Document Type
Article
Abstract
Following the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 in Cairo, which prompted a discursive shift from population control to reproductive health and rights in international development, policy experts and scholars have relegated population control to the realm of history. This presents a unique challenge to feminist critics who seek to identify manifestations of population control in the present. In this article, we consider the potential of ‘populationism’ as terminology that may assist in clarifying varied new manifestations of population control. We explicate three interrelated populationist strategies that focus on optimizing numbers (demo), spaces (geo), and life itself (bio). Through our elaboration of these three populationisms and their interaction, we seek to inspire feminist, intersectional responses to the pernicious social, economic and environmental problems that technocratic populationist interventions obscure.
Publication Title
Gender, Place and Culture
Publication Date
3-3-2020
Volume
27
Issue
3
First Page
333
Last Page
350
ISSN
0966-369X
DOI
10.1080/0966369X.2018.1553859
Keywords
biopopulationism, demopopulationism, geopopulationism, population control, populationism
Repository Citation
Bhatia, Rajani; Sasser, Jade; Ojeda, Diana; Hendrixson, Anne; Nadimpally, Sarojini; and Foley, Ellen, "A Feminist Exploration of ‘Populationism’: Engaging Contemporary Forms of Population Control" (2020). Sustainability and Social Justice. 258.
https://commons.clarku.edu/faculty_idce/258