Organizer: Centre for Women’s Development Studies, An autonomous research institute supported by the Indian Council of Social Science Research (ICSSR) 25 Bhai Vir Singh Marg, Gole Market, New Delhi in collaboration with Lotika Sarkar Memorial Fund
About the Conference
- When: 6th-7th February 2025
- The deadline for abstract submission is 30th September 2024
- Travel costs for outstation participants and local conveyance costs for local participants shall be reimbursed on an actual basis
Call for Papers
This conference welcomes contributions from scholars, activists, community organisations, groups and practitioners working on reproductive health, injustices, policy, rights, and ethics.
The submissions we receive will shape the specific sub-themes of the conference. We particularly welcome and support proposals from historically marginalized communities, women and researchers working in/with underrepresented regions.
Concept Note
Reproductive justice (RJ) is a critical feminist framework provided by Black feminist activists and scholars in resistance seeking reproductive freedom in the 1990s in the United States. Over the years, this framework has been used globally to work on reproductive issues in policy, programming, governance, and scholarship.1 This has enabled us to highlight issues around stratified reproduction and reproductive governance. RJ is an important step to counter oppression based on race, ethnicity, caste, class, sexuality, and religion and at the same time, look at the privileges of others and look beyond the legal and political rights perspective. The three core values of reproductive justice are the right to have a child, the right not to have a child, and the right to parent a child or children in safe and healthy environments.
RJ incorporates intersectionality as a framework where overlapping systems of power dictate women’s reproductive lives and engagement with the state and non-state actors. This calls to understand how reproductive injustice is underpinned and works among the marginalised who are within marginalised groups. On the one hand, the ongoing reproductive struggles in India continue to make the state-provided healthcare services more accessible and strengthen their services. On the other hand, they continue to be shaped by the eugenic ways of governing the population, reproductive violence (discrimination, abuses), and be part of the larger medico-industrial complex. At the same time, the global policy environment and national governments in different countries are unreceptive towards women’s general and reproductive and sexual health issues, promote restrictive policies and narrow the scope of gender justice. With the ongoing neoliberal framework for the health sector in India, not only is there increasing privatisation of health care and services, but at the same time, policies are narrowing the range of reproductive services for women, medicalisation and targeted incentivisation of reproductive healthcare services. This target is directed again at the most marginalised who are located within the interlocked system of oppression.
Family planning, sexual health services, and long-acting reversible contraceptives in India, often supported by organisations with strong links to donors in the Global North, remain entangled in a history of colonialism, casteism and population control. Another aspect of health care is digital technology (telemedicine, e-contraception through online delivery, period tracking applications), which bears risks of consent and anonymity for SRHR service provisioning. This Conference will engage with the experiences of vulnerable women, particularly those from the marginalised population. How have they been harmed (physical/mental trauma) and made to fear the system? How are women silenced, and what are the different ways of oppressing women while accessing reproductive healthcare? What are the ways to work, confront, and face the challenges in order to overcome and claim reproductive safety, dignity, and justice?
This conference welcomes contributions from scholars, activists, community organisations, groups and practitioners working on reproductive health, injustices, policy, rights, and ethics. Potential areas of exploration include, but are not limited to, any of the following areas:
- Violence, Inequalities and Intersection
- Reproductive Injustice during COVID Time
- Population Control Policies, Eugenics, Choices and Abuses
- Contraceptive technology and Harmful practices
- Abortion Services and Care
- Reproductive Labour
- Activism, Fighting Injustice and Struggles
- Infertility and Assisted Reproductive Technology
- Disability and Reproductive Struggles
- State and Non-State Actors
- Incentives and Disincentives
- Digital technology, SRHR and risks
For Concept Note and detailed information: Download Concept Note
Please email the title and abstract of no more than 250 words, along with an author bio sketch (100 words) and 3 keywords, to seminar@cwds.ac.in.
Any questions or queries related to the conference can be directed to seminar@cwds.ac.in.
Selected participants will be notified by 31st October 2024. Following this, each participant must submit a soft copy of their full paper with their name and title clearly marked to seminar@cwds.ac.in by 20th January, 2025.
- Papers (empirical and theoretical) should be between 4000-5000 words, including notes.
- Panel Abstracts shall be part of a publication based on the Conference proceedings.
Please note that accommodation for outstation participants is available from 5th Feb 2025 (after 12 noon) up to 8th Feb 2025 (morning). Participants wishing to leave after the conclusion of the seminar on 7th Feb 2025 may do so.