Reproduction
by
The word reproduction has always exceeded the biological. Its meanings range from the act of bringing into existence again, the formation of new tissue, the act of being productive in the economy, and the action of recreating a memory (OED Online 2021, “reproduction”). Reproduction is particularly useful for scholars in the health humanities because even its biological meanings are always inextricably bound up with the term’s social, cultural, political, religious, and economic dimensions. As Michel Foucault ([1976] 1990) revealed most famously, reproduction is not simply an act. Rather, since at least the sixteenth century, reproduction has been a locus of state power. It was at that time, Foucault teaches us, that at least in France, government shifted from wielding power over death alone to controlling life. He called this biopolitics, a term that describes the state’s turn toward managing the life and reproduction of populations, especially through demographic tools like birth rate and mortality. Many scholars have followed, conceiving of reproduction as a site for thinking about the relationship between population, governance, and political economy as well as the representational tools, rhetorics, sociocultural dynamics, religious ideologies, and structures of power shape how reproduction is understood and managed in given times...
This essay may be found on page 179 of the printed volume.