Carolin
Schurr

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Carolin Schurr is professor of Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. She is the principal investigator of the SNSF project "Reproductive Geopolitics" project. MORE

Laura
Perler

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Laura Perler is a postdoctoral researcher in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. In her research she investigates inequalities in relation to reproductive technologies and the Swiss asylum system.  MORE

Nora
Komposch

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Nora Komposch is a PhD student and assistant in Social and Cultural Geography at the University of Bern. She researches about migrant workers in Spain's strawberry industry. MORE

Mirko
Winkel

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Mirko Winkel is the coordinator of the mLAB. The artist and curator teaches at the University of Bern and other places with the aim of synthesizing art with scientific research and socio-political concerns.

Yolinliztli
Pérez-Hernández

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Yolinliztli Pérez-Hernández is a PostDoc in Social and Cultural Geography. She researches the experiences of sterilization (tubal ligation and hysterectomy) of low-income, rural, peasant, and indigenous Mexican women as part of national family planning and global birth control policies in developing countries. MORE  

Milena
Wegelin

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Milena Wegelin is a social anthropologist and research associate at the Department of Perinatal and Maternal Health of the Bern University of Applied Sciences. Sie is collaborating with Laura Perler in her subproject “Governing and Contesting In/fertility within the Swiss Asylum Context”

Susanne
Schultz

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Susanne Schultz is lecturer at the Department of Sociology at the Goethe University Frankfurt a.M. She is a visiting researcher who collaborates with the team of the project „Reproductive Geopolitics“ with a SNSF Scientific Exchange Grant in 2023. MORE

Veronika
Siegl

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Veronika Siegl, holding a PostDoctoral position in Social and Cultural Geography, is a social anthropologist and gender researcher. Her research focuses on ethics, inequality and self-determination in the context of reproductive medicine.   MORE

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Reproductive Justice
Susanne Schultz
multiscalarity
Transnationality

Reproductive Justice: A Feminist Concept in Motion

Susanne Schultz

Scientific Exchange Program (SNF)

The project revolves around the concept of reproductive justice, as it was introduced by Black feminists in the US in the 1990s and ‘travels’ transnationally ever since. In the context of a global upsurge in counter-hegemonic feminism, far more is associated with the concept than demands for individual bodily self-determination. Rather, questions about the appreciation and devaluation of certain groups of pregnant women, women giving birth and children come into focus – it’s about stigmatization, dehumanization, inclusion and exclusion in the context of (not) having children.

In exchange with the Bern research team, guest researcher Susanne Schultz will work primarily on two major issues: On the one hand, she will deal conceptually with how social conflicts surrounding abortion, contraception, pregnancy, birth and parenthood can be understood as multiscalar. To what extent do local, regional, national and transnational actors and power relations play a role? How are these levels intertwined and which state-theoretical approaches are analytically helpful here? On the other hand, it will be examined how the intersectional concept critical of power relations “travels”, i.e. how it is appropriated, reinterpreted, expanded or narrowed and diluted in different social movements and transnational research contexts. The collaborative work takes place within the framework of the Lectures Series and a Journal Reading Club as well as in spontaneous formats of exchange between different researchers and activists. With a focus on feminisms in Abya Yala (Latin America) and Europe, Susanne Schultz will also work with the Bern team on an empirical research program on these questions.