Reproductive Justice: Impulse für intersektionale Bevölkerungsgeographien

Abstract

Abstract. Black women are three to four times more likely to die during childbirth than white women. Research in population geography and demography highlight factors such as educational background or access to health services as social determinants of fertility, to better understand these reproductive inequalities. Notwithstanding these determinants are key causes for reproductive outcomes, the question of how these determinants are embedded in global power relations remains mainly unresolved. As a feminist science intervention, this article develops two impetuses for a power-sensitive, intersectional knowledge production in the field of population geographies. Therefore, the article cursorily refers to current activist protests in the name of reproductive justice, a concept developed by black feminists in the US. It argues that a multi-scalar analysis of reproductive relations helps to shift the focus from the demographic question „who is born?“ to „how are life chances unevenly distributed?“. Reproductive justice suggests that smaller scales such as the body or the womb constitute helpful analytical entry points to disentangle the powerful webs, within which reproductive outcomes are embedded. Finally, the article outlines a future research design towards geographies of reproductive justice.