Seizing the Means of Reproduction: Entaglements of Feminism, Health, and Technoscience

Murphy, Michelle

ISBN 10: 0822353369 / ISBN 13: 9780822353362

Published by Duke University Press, 2012

About this Item

Crisp, clean pages except for a prior owner's name on the first (half-title) page; square, uncreased spine; soft cover shows small spots of wear at corners, but is overall clean and well-kept. viii, 259pp. incl. index.

Seller Inventory # 00086274

Bibliographic Details

• Title: Seizing the Means of Reproduction: Entaglements of Feminism, Health, and Technoscience
• Publisher: Duke University Press
• Publication Date: 2012
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0822353369
• ISBN 13: 9780822353362
• Binding: Paperback
• Condition: Very Good+
• Seller catalogs:
  • Medicine & Health
  • Women's Studies

About this title

Synopsis

In Seizing the Means of Reproduction, M. Murphy's initial focus on the alternative health practices developed by radical feminists in the United States during the 1970s and 1980s opens into a sophisticated analysis of the transnational entanglements of American empire, population control, neoliberalism, and late-twentieth-century feminisms. Murphy concentrates on the technoscientific means—the technologies, practices, protocols, and processes—developed by feminist health activists. They argue that by politicizing the technical details of reproductive health, alternative feminist practices aimed at empowering women were also integral to late-twentieth-century biopolitics.

Murphy traces the transnational circulation of cheap, do-it-yourself health interventions, highlighting the uneasy links between economic logics, new forms of racialized governance, U.S. imperialism, family planning, and the rise of NGOs. In the twenty-first century, feminist health projects have followed complex and discomforting itineraries. The practices and ideologies of alternative health projects have found their way into World Bank guidelines, state policies, and commodified research. While the particular moment of U.S. feminism in the shadow of Cold War and postcolonialism has passed, its dynamics continue to inform the ways that health is governed and politicized today.

About the Author

M. Murphy is Associate Professor of Women and Gender Studies and of History at the University of Toronto. They are the author of the Sick Building Syndrome and the Problem of Uncertainty, also published by Duke University Press.