Abstract
The aim of this session is to scrutinize reproduction in the Nordic region. In the past decade, new concerns have been raised about declining fertility rates, aging populations and unpredictable migration patterns, generating much concern from different stakeholders, especially in regards to the future of the Nordic welfare state and nation. For example, in the New Year’s Address of the Norwegian Prime Minister 2019, Norwegian women were explicitly encouraged to have more babies to keep the welfare state afloat. Similar concerns are voiced in other Nordic countries. At the same time, however, from the point of view of global ecological sustainability and other living beings, human population growth is problematic, instigating new discussions about future population control and reproductive (environmental) justice. The existing and emerging reproductive technologies and the expanding fertility industry and markets also mark the reproductive landscape of recent decades. The same decades have seen the revitalized and multiple rights discourses about gender, sexual and ethnic minorities, whose relationships to the technologies are complex and varying, sometimes marked by exclusion and discrimination, even in the Nordic context.
We invite papers that reflect on the tensions, potentials and injustices concerning particularly reproduction, family formation and kinship in the Nordic countries. We welcome empirical and theoretical papers shaping ideas about the present and the past as well as the future. What are the potentials to reclaim the reproductive futures?
Papers could address, but are not limited to, the following reproductive issues in the Nordic region:
- Population control, welfare state “sustainability” and reproductive lives
- Gender, sexuality and reproductive justice
- Race, nation and the ideas of Nordic homogeneity and egalitarianism
- Reproductive technologies, family relations and kinship
- Non-human reproduction and the environment
- Reproductive labour and markets
- Reproductive science and healthcare
Organizers
Ingvill Stuvøy is an associate professor in sociology at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. Stuvøy holds an MA in Sociology from Copenhagen University and a PhD in Sociology from NTNU, and her research interests include assisted reproduction, reproductive technologies, economization and welfare state biopolitics. i
Kristin Engh Førde is a postdoctoral fellow at the Centre for Gender research, University of Oslo. Førde holds an MA in Social Anthropology and a PhD in Medical Anthropology. Her research interests include gender and feminism, (assisted) reproduction, reproductive motivations, relationalities and moralitites.
Guro Korsnes Kristensen is professor in Gender, Equality and Diversity Studies at the Department of Interdisciplinary Studies, the Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU), Trondheim, Norway. She holds an MA in Social Anthropology and a PhD in Gender Studies, and her research areas are reproduction and family planning, gender equality, immigration and integration.
Anna Sofie Bach is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Culture and Learning, University of Aalborg, Denmark. She holds a MA and a PhD in Sociology from the University of Copenhagen. Her works is situated in the cross section between gender studies, family sociology, medical sociology and feminist STS with a special interest in reproduction and reproductive technologies. From December 2021, she is the PI of the research project ReproCitizen – Responsible Reproductive Citizenship in Denmark in the 21st Century, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.
Michala Hvidt Breengaard is a postdoctoral researcher at the Department of Sociology, University of Copenhagen (UCPH). University of Copenhagen (UCPH). Her research centres on the intersections of gender, diversity, sustainability and climate. She has particularly worked with perspectives of gender and diversity in smart transportation. Moreover, she holds a PhD in Sociology (UCPH) on the subject of motherhood - focused on the Chinese onechild policy. From December 2021, she is part of the research project ReproCitizen – Responsible Reproductive Citizenship in Denmark in the 21st Century, funded by the Independent Research Fund Denmark.
Riikka Homanen is an Academy research fellow in gender studies at Tampere University, Finland. She holds a MA in sociology and a PhD in gender studies from the University of Tampere. She has a Title of Docent in sociology from the University of Lapland. Her research has been concerned with reproduction, reproductive technology and social relations, such as kin, class, gender and race/ethnicity. More recently, she has focused on the global markets and industry of reproduction. She is the Principal Investigator for the Kone Foundation funded project Technology, Ethics and Reproduction: Controversy in the Era of Normalisation (2019-2023) and the co-founder and leader of the Finnish Reproductive Studies Network (FiResNet) together with Dr Mianna Meskus. In the network they were awarded a Finnish Cultural Foundation Argumenta funding for Reproductive Futures project (2019-2021).