In "Making Gaybies," Jaya Keaney explores the experiences of queer individuals and couples navigating assisted reproductive technologies. The book delves into the complexities of race and kinship formation within these families, challenging traditional notions of family structures. Keaney's research highlights the diverse ways in which queer individuals create families, emphasizing the importance of intersectionality and the fluidity of identity. The book offers a nuanced perspective on the social and cultural implications of assisted reproductive technologies, particularly for queer communities. It challenges readers to reconsider the assumptions and judgments surrounding family formation and calls for a more inclusive and equitable society.
In "Failing Moms," Caitlin Killian examines the social condemnation and criminalization of mothers, particularly focusing on how societal judgments and legal systems disproportionately affect marginalized mothers. The book explores the various ways mothers are judged and punished for their parenting choices, highlighting the systemic inequalities that contribute to this phenomenon. Killian's work sheds light on the complex interplay between personal responsibility, social expectations, and legal frameworks, offering a critical analysis of the challenges faced by mothers in navigating societal pressures and legal systems. The book provides a nuanced understanding of the social and legal forces that shape the experiences of mothers, particularly those from marginalized communities. It challenges readers to reconsider the assumptions and judgments surrounding motherhood and calls for a more just and equitable system.
Understanding Reproduction in Social Contexts: A Reader offers a comprehensive exploration of reproduction within its social and political context. The book delves into various aspects of reproduction, including fertility, pregnancy, childbirth, abortion, and assisted reproductive technologies. It examines how social structures, cultural norms, and political policies shape reproductive experiences, highlighting the impact of factors like race, class, gender, and immigration status. The reader features contributions from leading scholars, practitioners, and advocates, providing diverse perspectives on the complexities of reproduction. It encourages critical thinking about the social and political forces that influence reproductive choices and outcomes, promoting a more just and equitable approach to reproductive health and rights. The book serves as a valuable resource for students and researchers alike.
In today's post-Roe v. Wade world, U.S. maternal mortality is on the rise and laws regarding contraception, involuntary sterilization, access to reproductive health services, and criminalization of people who are gestating are changing by the minute. Today I’m joined by Dr. Caitlin Killian, the editor of and one of the contributors to a new book from Bloomsbury Academic, Understanding Reproduction in Social Contexts: A Reader. I’m also pleased to host two of the chapter authors, Drs. Nancy Hiemstra and Jaya Keaney.
Using a reproductive justice framework, Understanding Reproduction in Social Contexts walks students through the social landscape around reproduction through the life course. Chapters by cutting-edge reproductive scholars, practitioners, and advocates address the social control of fertility and pregnancy, the promises and perils of assisted reproductive technologies, experiences of pregnancy, miscarriage, abortion, and birth, and how individuals make sense of and respond to the cultural, social, and political forces that condition their reproductive lives. The book takes an intersectional approach and considers how gender, sexuality, fatness, disability, class, race, and immigration status impact both an individual's health and the healthcare they receive. The reader includes timely topics such as increased legal limitations on abortion, transpeople and reproduction, and new developments in assisted reproduction and family formation. The book can support undergraduate and graduate courses on families, gender, public health, reproduction, and sexuality – and I’m pleased to have contributed a chapter.
Dr. Caitlin Killian is a Professor of Sociology at Drew University specializing in gender, families, reproduction, and immigration. We featured her book, Failing Moms: Social Condemnation and Criminalization of Mothers (Polity 2023) previously on New Books Network. Her articles have appeared in Contexts magazine and The Conversation, as well as numerous academic journals, and she has done work for the United Nations on sexual and reproductive health and rights and on Syrian refugee women
Dr. Nancy Hiemstra is a political, cultural, and feminist geographer and Associate Professor in the Department of Women's, Gender, and Sexuality Studies at Stony Brook University. Her scholarship focuses on how border and immigration policies shape patterns and consequences of human mobility. Her 2019 book Detain and Deport: The Chaotic U.S. Immigration Enforcement Regime examined the U.S. detention and deportation system, and her forthcoming book (with Deirdre Conlon) Immigration Detention Inc: The Big Business of Locking Up Migrants scrutinizes how profit making goals drive the expanding use of detention.
Dr Jaya Keaney is Lecturer in Gender Studies in the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. She writes, researches, and teaches in the fields of feminist technoscience, queer and feminist theory, and cultural studies. Her research across these fields explores reproduction, racism, and queer feminist practices of embodiment and inheritance. Jaya is the author of Making Gaybies: Queer Reproduction and Multiracial Feeling (Duke University Press, 2023), which was a finalist for the 2024 Rachel Carson Prize. Her writing has also appeared in journals such as Body and Society, Science Technology & Human Values, and the Duke University Press edited collection Long Term: Essays on Queer Commitment (2021).
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