Reproductive Racism

“This book makes a compelling case for the centrality of population policies and ideologies to ra-cism, coloniality and global capitalism. Crucially, it demonstrates how the openly Malthusian agen-das of today’s ascendant far-right are inextricable from a long and complex history of neoliberal populationism. Yet the book also offers reasons to hope, through listening to feminist activists in Brazil who are reimagining concepts of reproductive justice”—Kalpana Wilson, Department of Geography, Birkbeck, University of London.

“Susanne Schultz brings to light the processes through which statistic and demographic rationalities have become central to government policymaking in Germany and beyond. This illuminating case exemplifies how population knowledge, racism, border policy and family planning are deeply entangled—and how they structure local, transnational and ultimately global political systems” — Jade S. Sasser, PhD, Associate Professor, Gender & Sexuality Studies, University of California, Riverside.

“Drawing on extensive empirical fieldwork and a rich theoretical apparatus, Susanne Schultz follows the manifold trajectories of demographic rationalities, investigating how they inform governmental strategies and intersect with matters of race, gender and class. Reproductive Racism: Migration, Birth Control and The Specter of Population is not only an essential contribution to critical state theory but also offers important insights into how to question and oppose practices of demographization” —Thomas Lemke, Goethe Universität Frankfurt am Main.

“This timely book reveals the dangerous reach of reproductive racism. Schultz carefully analyzes how it distorts reproductive politics, migration policies and projections of population aging. Drawing from feminist praxis, she counters reproductive racism with reproductive justice articulations of hope and struggle"—Anne Hendrixson, Senior Policy Analyst, Challenging Population Control, Collective Power for Reproductive Justice.

In this exceptional book, Susanne Schultz offers an unsparing analysis of the specter of population, and how it shapes conjunctures of nationalism, reproductive racism, migration, and border regimes, as a method of neoliberal capitalism. This is an invaluable call against and beyond the logics of population, for anyone struggling towards building local and global eco-feminist, anti-racist, and anti-capitalist futures —Vanessa E. Thompson, Assistant Professor, Distinguished Professor in Black Studies and Social Justice, Department of Gender Studies, Queen’s University, Canada