CfP: Topic Collection: Race, Sexual and Reproductive Health: Histories, Inequalities, Futures

In recent years, recurrent attacks on sexual and reproductive health (SRH) rights have dominated the news. At the same time, there has been growing recognition amongst scholars of the persistent inequalities in access to SRH services and the disparities in SRH outcomes shaped by ‘race’ ethnicity, (dis)ability, and class. 

This topic collection reflects on the longer histories of these inequalities. It explores how racialised differences and hierarchies in SRH developed in different local, national and transnational settings over the course of the twentieth century. It also reflects on archival silences and absences that complicate the task of narrating these histories. Contributions from service providers and activists allow the topic collection to reflect on the current state of the field and suggest possible future directions in policy. 

The contributions build on a rich scholarship on racialisation, ethnicity, and reproductive politics ranging from the micro to the global. Several historians have explored reproductive politics in imperial contexts and the global colonial encounters of gender, race, and sexuality. Other recent studies have taken an international and transnational perspective on the history of birth control and reproductive rights, highlighting the key roles played by international organisations in infamous campaigns for planned parenthood in developing countries, as well as the significance of international activists in setting out the basis for SRH rights as human rights. Despite all of this fruitful research, the difficult subject of racism in the colonial and post-colonial context of SRH services requires significantly more attention. The topic collection will present work by established and emerging scholars, activists and SRH practitioners. We invite contributions around four key themes:

• Reproductive governance and the ways institutions and authorities have racialised SRH and the impact of these processes on global majority individuals;
• Activism of global majority groups who sought to improve their SRH and deployed strategies of resistance and resilience in hostile and unequal environments;
• Transnational circulation of SRH activism and contraceptive technologies, emphasizing the porous nature of borders at a time when borders in the geopolitical north were being reinforced and fortified against a perceived “excess” of immigration from specific countries, many of them former colonies;
• Challenges and opportunities in working in the field of SRH and studying SRH and ‘race’ in historical perspectives. We welcome reflections on service providers and activists, particularly on what is required to improve the situation for racialised SRH workers and service users.