Reproductive governance and the affective economy

Abstract

The governance of reproductive practices, processes, decision-making, experiences, desires, subjectivities, and bodies has received and continues to receive significant attention in feminist efforts to name and resist reproductive oppression. And over the last 30 years, articles published in Feminism & Psychology have made significant contributions to the visibilisation and critique of this form of oppression. In this Virtual Special Issue on Reproductive Governance and the Affective Economy, we apply repronormativity and affect to our reading of 20 articles published in Feminism & Psychology. Collectively, these articles provide a glimpse of the wide-ranging scope of reproductive regulation (including that which is re-produced by/within feminism itself), and the various work that repronormativity and affect do in this governance. The challenging of reproductive governance notwithstanding, we conclude by arguing that the centring and circulation of certain reproductive subjects and their experiences within feminist knowledge production is itself a part of and upholds repronormativity and forecloses the possibility of reproductive freedom for all.

On the Embodied Experience of Anti-abortion Laws and Regulations: The Gendered Burden of ‘Abortion Work’

“…Inspired by Ahmed, I make the spatial and temporal ‘orientation’ of activists’ bodies central to my analysis and think critically about how the bodies of women and people who may become pregnant are ‘directed’ and ‘take shape’ (Ahmed, 2006: 2). Thinking about how social structures create a ‘physical press’ which leaves an ‘impression’ on the surface of the body, I pay close attention to how Irish activists are ‘affected’ by systems of reproductive governance (Ahmed, 2006: 7; Mavuso and Chadwick, 2022).…”