Directory

Nicole Bourbonnais
Assistant Professor, International History
- nicole.bourbonnais@graduateinstitute.ch
Phone: +41 22 908 59 14
Office hours
Position(s) at the Institute
- Assistant Professor, International History
Profile
Dr. Nicole Bourbonnais is an Assistant Professor of International History with a focus on global population politics, reproductive rights, and transnational activism in the twentieth century. Her first book, Birth Control in the Decolonizing Caribbean: Reproductive Politics and Practice on Four Islands, 1930-1970 (Cambridge University Press, 2016) explores how family planning campaigns in Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Bermuda intersected with the politics of nationalism and working class women’s efforts to control their reproductive lives in the early to mid twentieth century. Her next major project, The Gospel of Birth Control: Prophets, Patients, and the Transnational Family Planning Movement, will expand outward from the Caribbean to explore the transnational networks that linked together birth control campaigns, family planning activists, and reproductive rights movements across the globe from the 1920s onwards.
Dr. Bourbonnais received her BA from the University of British Colombia (Vancouver) and MA/PhD in History from the University of Pittsburgh. She teaches courses and supervises theses on the subjects of population and reproduction, social history, gender history, Latin American and Caribbean history, and the history of public health and medicine.
Areas of Expertise
- Civil society, social movements, Trade Unions, NGOs
- Development, cooperation and aid policies
- Gender, women and public policies
- Global health, global health diplomacy, global health governance, medical anthropology
- Human Rights
- International Organisations
- Redistribution policies, social inequalities, poverty
- Religion and politics
- Latin America and the Caribbean
Languages spoken:
English, French, Spanish
Selected publications
Books
- Birth Control in the Decolonizing Caribbean: Reproductive Politics and Practice on Four Islands, 1930-1970. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2016.
Peer-reviewed Journal Articles and Book Chapters
- Our Joan of Arc: Women, Gender, and Authority in the Harmony Division of the UNIA, in Ronald J. Stephens and Adam Ewing, eds. Global Garveyism: Diasporic Aspirations and Utopian Dreams. Forthcoming.
- Class, Colour, and Contraception: The Politics of Birth Control in Jamaica, 1938-1968, in Taitu Heron and Shakira Maxwell, eds., Social and Economic Studies: Special Issue on Women’s Reproductive Health and Rights in Select Caribbean Countries, 61.3, (September): 7-38. 2012.
- Dangerously Large: The 1938 Labor Rebellion and the Debate over Birth Control in Jamaica, New West Indian Guide. 83.1&2 (2009): 39-69. 2009.
Book reviews
- Review of Juanita de Barros and Sean Stilwell, eds., Public Health and the Imperial Project, (Africa World Press, 2016), Medical History. Forthcoming.
- Review of Juanita de Barros, Reproducing the British Caribbean: Sex, Gender and Population Politics after Slavery (University of North Carolina Press, 2014), Canadian Journal of History 50.2 (2015): 380-382.
Works in Progress
- The Gospel of Birth Control: Prophets, Patients, and the Global Family Planning Movement, book-length project.
Media and Policy Papers
- “Spreading the Good News: International Family-Planning Activism and Grassroots Information Networks in the 20th Century,” History of Knowledge blog, July 13, 2017.
- “Reproductive Rights and Race Struggle in the Decolonizing Caribbean,” Black Perspectives online platform, April 1, 2017.
- “Abortion under Apartheid: Interview with Susanne Klausen,” Notches: (re)marks on the history of sexuality blog, September 13, 2016.
- “A Brief History of Women’s History,” LSE Engenderings Blog, March 29, 2016.
- “Entre coercition et émancipation: une histoire globale du contrôle des naissances,” Le Temps, November 4, 2015.
- “Implementing Free Maternal Health Care in Kenya: Challenges, Strategies, and Recommendations,” published by The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), 2013.