We invite participants to a conference that will address current debates on both reproduction and nonreproduction with a particular focus on the role of religion in the Global South and the Global North.
The last decades have seen a rise of debates about reproductive matters. They have moved to the centre of local and global negotiations of legal and moral definitions of diverse kinds of kinship, of (il)legitimate sexuality, and of the integrity of bodies. These debates crystallise in questions of the legality and illegality of surrogacy, debates about international adoptions and different technologies of assisted reproduction, and the legal and medical conditions of abortions. They also crucially inflect anti-racist, postcolonial, or (queer-)feminist perspectives on the right to a life with and without biological and non-biological offspring. Increasingly, controversies about the right to reproductive self-determination become entangled with discussions of the reproductive rights of queer people, people of colour, and people with disabilities.
Religious knowledge and belief systems as well as religious actors and organizations have prominently contributed to shaping practices of reproduction and of non-reproduction, and they continue to do so. Regulating sexuality and gender relations has been part of most religious codes of conduct, turning them into matters of biopolitics. In the past, religions have contributed to shaping body and sexual politics as well as boundaries of legitimate desire. Around the world, religiously (self-)defined communities, actors and organizations, but also multiple secular communities frame reproductive matters as specifically moral challenges of enabling and protecting the life of a particular population. Combined with anthropocentric notions of wealth, these religion-based positions have often led to the promotion of pronatalist perspectives on issues such as contraception, pregnancy termination or artificial insemination. However, prohibitions to reproduce and institutionalised childlessness are also equally rooted in religious belief systems, such as monasticism, and celibate asceticism. Non-religious eco-spiritual and ethical movements for the environment are also prominent voices in the debate on childfree lives in accordance with climate struggle and post-anthropocentric ideas of the good life on earth. Practices and discourses of reproduction and non-reproduction thus appear to be inextricably intertwined, requiring a mutual understanding of their respective dynamics.
Acknowledging the large spectrum of religio-political perspectives, the conference will focus on discourses and practices of (non)reproduction and emancipation emerging from religious, religiously structured, and post-secular contexts and communities, and which reflect, for example, (queer-)feminist, postcolonial, or anti-racist positions.
Contact: gender_and_religion_conferencespam prevention@posteo.com
