Emma Louise Backe Profile picture
Jul 14, 2022 10 tweets 5 min read Read on X
So excited to see the spotlight on Dr Khiara Bridges and her anthropological work on reproduction, how reproductive justice must always be intersectional. Here is a thread of other ethnographies on reproduction, race & gender I would recommend 🧵
Coercive reproductive policies have historically been used as a tool of imperial power to forcibly sterilize communities of color, often in the name of “public health sanitation.”
These policies are predominantly targeted at women of color. This has led to the use of unsafe contraceptives in poor communities of color, medical racism, and the unethical experimentation on people of color in the name of maternal and child health and “protection.”
Even when Roe v Wade was in effect, discrimination against people of color disproportionately impacts pregnancy outcomes and maternal health outcomes negatively, leading to a highly radicalized crisis of maternal mortality in the US.
Even the social security systems like welfare which are supposed to help families with children, and to support survivors who might become pregnant, these systems are also highly exclusionary, instead often perpetrating violence and reinforcing inequity.
And yet one of the largest prison populations are women, many of whom are already mothers, or serve their time while pregnant. They have have to deliver in shackles. Or they find that they get more maternal and child health support behind bars, as a prisoner. Think on that.
We can also consider the role of women as the informal caregivers for family members who are incarcerated, and the important mobilization of mothers and other kin networks who take on the racism and violence embedded in the prison industrial complex.
The US has a tendency to use “bad mothers” or “risky pregnancy” as a way to monitor, police and incarcerate women who have been failed by the state and unable to access alternative means of survival or support. And yet pronatalism is central to US models of exceptionalism.
This is not a comprehensive list though. Please feel free to add and share some of your favorites and recommendations too #anthrotwitter #anthropologyofreproduction
Also for a more queer, radical take on family, reproduction and feminist politics, consider Full Surrogacy Now

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More from @EmmaLouiseBacke

Aug 2
White, Western ideas of womanhood are inherently colonial. What do we mean by this? A thread on how gender and race were co-constructed to further imperial conceptualizations of the human. Image
As part of the colonial project, occupying powers like the British imported archetypes of what a man or a woman was. These were reinforced by ideologies of religion (Christian domesticity) and biology (that gender roles were somehow inherent and “natural”).
This strategy served to displace women from positions of power under the project of colonialism. Oyèrónkẹ́ Oyěwùmí explores how this played out in Nigeria through The Invention of Women (as summarized by Alok Menon).
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Read 15 tweets
Aug 16, 2023
I am loathe to watch the #DeppVHeard documentary on Netflix but as a researcher and practitioner on intimate partner violence, especially in criminal Justice and the law, how IPV is represented in media is so crucial in shaping survivor justice.
First few minutes and it’s clear that they are far more interested in the sensationalism of the trial. Focusing on Depp fans and YouTuber coverage. So clear decision NOT TO FRAME around the ethics of engaging with IPV, how to sensitively represent survivors. 🚩🚩🚩
The first testimony we get is from Depp's lawyer, which comes after frantic support from Depp's fans. We are told that Heard's op-ed "forever changed Depp's reputation." Though this framing might seem "objective," after being told that no "Heard fans" are present at the trial...
Read 25 tweets

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