Dr. Nicole Bourbonnais, Assistant Professor of International History at the Graduate Institute, recently published Birth Control in the Decolonizing Caribbean: Reproductive Politics and Practice on Four Islands, 1930-1970, an insightful in-depth study of the increase of access to modern birth control methods in the Caribbean.

What is the main argument of the book?
The book has two central arguments.  First, I argue that reproductive politics were deeply entwined with decolonisation movements across the region from the 1930s-70s.  Colonial officials and nationalist leaders alike saw birth rates and the sexual practices of Caribbean peoples as critical factors in wider debates over state policy, self-government, and independence.  But debates over birth control also pulled in a much wider cast of characters (including social welfare, health, women’s rights, labour and anti-racist activists) with a wider spectrum of concerns (including race, class, and gender inequality) thus allowing us to see the broader landscape of decolonisation politics beyond the usual questions.  Second, I argue that there was a split between the forces driving intervention and funding of birth control policy on the political level (often dominated by foreign and local elites drawing on neo-Malthusian and eugenic discourses) and the daily practices of early family planning associations and clinics (often dominated by middle class health professionals and social workers drawing on their personal experiences in the field).  Rather than assuming that political priorities directly translated into practice, I argue that whether birth control campaigns were “coercive” or “liberating” for the people they targeted depended on interactions at a variety of levels: between colonial governments and subjects, independent states and citizens, doctors and patients, campaigners and communities, and, critically, women and their sexual partners. 

Had that history been examined previously and, if so, what did you seek to add or examine further, and with what results?

There had been a few articles/dissertation chapters on early debates over birth control in Jamaica, usually placed within the broader framework of health policy/practice.  My book sought to narrow in on the subject of reproduction and trace it across a broader expanse of time (the 1930s-1970s), which allowed me to see how reproduction became connected to a wider variety of agendas over the years.  Exploring four islands together (Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Bermuda) and drawing on the archives of transnational actors and organizations also allowed me to see more clearly how the broader context of birth control activism and connections across borders shaped local dynamics.  Finally, I was very fortunate to find some sources from early clinics and family planning associations that allowed me to get at least some sense of the “social history” of reproduction: ie. what it might have been like to try and control reproduction in the mid-20th century Caribbean.

What larger social history insights can we draw from this debate about reproductive practices in this part of the world and at that particular moment, notably as regards subsequent global policies?

For one thing, my sources suggest that we should be wary of trying to generalize about the reproductive practices and desires of entire societies.  Public debates in the 1930s-70s often expressed polarising views of how Caribbean women would react to family planning campaigns: some argued that all working-class women would choose to use birth control if given the opportunity, while others argued that it went against Caribbean culture and would be resisted tooth and nail.  Clinic records, however, suggest that women’s engagement was shaped by a much more complex set of factors: their beliefs and desires, yes, but also their economic situation, state of health, the support (or not) of their sexual partners, the quality and safety of different methods on offer, their past experiences, their work patterns, advice of friends and family, the attitudes of doctors and nurses, and, at times, basic issues like whether they could get transportation to the clinic or childcare on the day of their appointment.  All of these things need to be considered in creating policies that address the broader context shaping reproductive practices.  Women’s rejection of more aggressive campaigns (such as the heavy promotion of the IUD in the 1960s, in the Caribbean and in many other regions, despite troubling side effects and lack of sufficient medical apparatus to ensure sufficient care) also reminds us of the dangers of “quick fix” approaches and the need for centering a holistic, rights-based approach to reproductive health.