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In recent years, there has been increasing concern about falling birthrates in the Global North. While people of all genders can be affected by infertility, public debates often center specifically on women’s bodies and life choices, such as prioritizing career ambitions over motherhood, or being overly “picky” in their search for a partner.

This International Women’s Day seminar takes a step back and asks: what is on the line in public conversations about fertility? And how are certain debates and silences surrounding reproduction linked to deeper societal norms about gender, sexuality, race, and social class?

To explore this topic, we will take a broad view, looking both to the past and the present. Invited speakers will consider these themes in the context of Nordic colonial history, contemporary conversations and societal taboos around involuntary childlessness, different forms of parenthood, and extreme right anxieties around white fertility.

Questions we will address in this seminar are:

• If, and how, do these fertility panics relate to one another?
• What are the implications for people’s agency over their own bodies?
• And how can we critique and challenge these deeply gendered manifestations of fertility panic productively?

Speakers:

• Kari Nyheim Solbrække (Helsam, UiO)

• My Rafstedt (IKRS, UiO)

• Eviane Leidig (Independent scholar, affiliated with C-REX, UiO)

• Daniela Alaattinoglu (University of Turku, Finland)

Moderator: Thea Storøy Elnan

Program:

• 9.15-9.25: Welcome
  STK Director Rebecca Lund and Pro-Rector ̽����ѡ Åse Gornitzka
• 9.25-10.30: Presentations
  • “Whose Fertility? Whose Reproduction? The Politics of Desirability in the Nordic Countries”
    Daniela Alaattinoglu (University of Turku, Finland)
  • “’It’s the birthrates. It’s the birthrates. It’s the birthrates.’: Far-right anxieties around fertility and reproduction”
    Eviane Leidig (Independent scholar, affiliated with C-REX, UiO)
  • "’They push the talk about children up in your face.’ Fragments of reproductive citizenship in a Norwegian context.”
    Kari Nyheim Solbrække (Helsam, UiO)
  • “Reproductive justice in times of fertility panics”
    My Rafstedt (IKRS, UiO)
• 10.30-10.45: Break
• 10.45-11.30: Panel discussion with Alaattinoglu, Leidig, Solbrække and Rafstedt
  The conversation will be moderated by journalist Thea Storøy Elnan.

Participate

The event is free and open to all. Sign up via the link below.

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