Reproductive Subjects and Shifting Global Health Policy Discourses
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 2229255 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Candace Johnson (0000-0003-2369-794X, University of Guelph, corresponding author) |
| Year | 2023 |
| Volume | 48 |
| Issue | 2 |
| Pages | 455-478 |
| Publication date | 2023-01-01 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Signs: Journal of Women in Culture and Society (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 0097-9740 • E-ISSN: 1545-6943 |
| Publisher | University of Chicago Press (PUBLISHER • US) |
| DOI | 10.1086/722896 |
| OpenAlex | W4322707325 |
| Language | EN |
| Citations received | 3 |
| References cited | 21 |
The shift in global health policy from an emphasis on maternal, newborn, and child health (MNCH) to sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) marks a significant victory for many reasons. For feminists, this addresses concerns over the essentialist and pronatalist biases of the maternal frame, and it emancipates women beyond their socioculturally prescribed roles as mothers. Moreover, the shift to a focus on sexual and reproductive health and rights broadens commitments to health services like abortion access, services to address gender-based violence, and support for LGBTQ youth, and to potential beneficiaries beyond pregnant and parturient women. In this article, however, I argue that while this shift in policy focus represents an overdue discursive victory, there are more complex implications for both policies and the individuals that they affect. I suggest a more deliberate approach to the construction of unified, inclusive, reproductive subjects that can be situated in particular contexts and experiences. I also consider the ways in which a unified reproductive subject can combine the maternal with multiple (racialized, LGBTQ, variably abled) subjectivities in order to create possibilities for points of feminist (standpoint) inquiry, grounded normative analysis, and improved understanding of global reproductive justice that are fundamentally antiessentialist and capable of revealing situated knowledges
Abortion · Economic Justice · Essentialism · Human sexuality · Normative · Political science · Politics · Population · Pregnancy · Reproductive health · Reproductive rights · Sexual and reproductive health and rights · Situated · Sociology · Victory · Demographic Trends and Gender Preferences · Gender Studies · International Human Rights and Reproductive Law · Law · Reproductive Health and Technologies
Pregnant Embodiment
"Comment on Hekman's "Truth and Method
Reproductive Justice
Protecting Soldiers and Mothers
The Feminist Standpoint Revisited and Other Essays
Transnational Feminist Crossings
Socially engaged research across borders
Discourses of motherhood and women’s health
Standpoint Theories
The Image World of Maternal Mortality
International Norm Dynamics and Political Change
Responsibility, affective solidarity and transnational maternal feminism
Safe motherhood, unsafe abortion
The language of "sexual minorities" and the politics of identity
Situated Knowledges
Women's Rights Are Human Rights
| Unique citing works | 3 |
|---|---|
| Citations per year | 3 |
| Citation span | 2025 - 2026 (2) |
| Citation velocity | current |
| Highly cited | No |
| Citation types | Neutral: 3 |