2017 Berkshire Conference on the History of Women, Genders and Sexualities

June 01 - 04, 2017

This panel addresses how oral history engages the myriad ways that the state interacts with reproductive rights issues. Running from the mid 20^th century to the present and across political and cultural borders, each paper challenges the codification of marginalization through women’s bodies.

Kelly Sartorius focuses on a life history project addressing unplanned pregnancy, abortion, and rape within the context of American higher education in the mid 20^th century. She traces the networks of support for women that often ran counter to legislation regarding sensitive topics while considering methodological challenges.

Frances Davey explores the evolution of abortion metanarratives as negotiated between the state and its citizens from the 1950s into the 21^st century. She centers her analysis on Histories of Choice, a project in which undergraduates collect oral histories of abortion from women and men across three “generations.”

Lina-Maria Murillo focuses on oral histories taken in El Paso, Texas and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico during the 20^th century. She unveils how women on the edges of nation-states confronted, rebelled against, and reconciled with state forces as they sought to control their reproductive capacities.

Mytheli Sreenivas draws from oral histories among women in rural Tamil Nadu, India to ask how state-sponsored population control in postcolonial India shaped narratives about fertility, reproduction, and childbearing. She especially considers how poor women’s histories simultaneously reflected some aspects of state population control ideologies while challenging state assumptions about the importance of fertility, the costs of raising children, and the very meaning of a ‘good life.’