IsisCB Explore

Thesis ID: CBB415950063

The Science of Family Planning: Mexico’s “Demographic Explosion,” Contraceptive Technologies, and the Power of Expert Knowledge (2024)

Espinosa Tavares, Martha Liliana (Author)
Olcott, Jocelyn (Advisor)

Duke University
Olcott, Jocelyn
Publication date: 2024
Language: English

URI: https://www.proquest.com/docview/3058344928/abstract/BE2AC324D0B54541PQ/53?sourcetype=Dissertations%20&%20Theses

Publication Date: 2024
Physical Details: 249

Outside Links

This dissertation delves into the history of contraception in twentieth-century Mexico by analyzing the technoscientific activities of local professionals who sought to promote fertility control at a time in which the state maintained a pronatalist policy. By examining the roles of doctors, eugenicists, economists, chemists, and demographers between the 1930s and 1970s, this dissertation argues that these experts contributed to the government’s shift in population policy in the 1970s. Drawing on various archival sources, including clinical reports, institutional records, correspondence, and published materials authored by doctors and social scientists, this study demonstrates how local professionals forged alliances with international donors and fostered interdisciplinary collaborations. All these initiatives allowed these experts to smuggle contraceptives, establish family planning clinics, and even conduct human trials with the birth control pill in Mexico. “The Science of Family Planning,” thus, underscores the complex interplay between state policies, expert interventions, and individual agency, contributing to broader discussions on reproductive rights, public health, and governance in Latin America.

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB415950063

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Book Erika Dyck; Maureen Lux; (2020)
Challenging Choices: Canada's Population Control in the 1970s (/p/isis/citation/CBB928803182/)

Article Aya Homei; (December 2016)
Between the West and Asia: “Humanistic” Japanese Family Planning in the Cold War (/p/isis/citation/CBB578327089/)

Article Necochea López, Raúl; (2014)
Gambling on the Protestants: The Pathfinder Fund and Birth Control in Peru, 1958--1965 (/p/isis/citation/CBB001420185/)

Article Alexandra Barmpouti; (2020)
Issues of biopolitics of reproduction in post-war Greece (/p/isis/citation/CBB602217086/)

Article Jennifer Johnson; (2018)
The Origins of Family Planning in Tunisia: Reform, Public Health, and International Aid (/p/isis/citation/CBB662781842/)

Article Silies, Eva-Maria; (2010)
Verhütung als Mittel gegen Bevölkerungswachstum. Expertendiskussion und öffentliche Debatten in Westdeutschland in den 1960er Jahren (/p/isis/citation/CBB001022032/)

Article Hartmann, Heinrich; Unger, Corinna R.; (2010)
Einleitung: Zur transnationalen Wissensgeschichte der Demografie (/p/isis/citation/CBB001022031/)

Article Thuy Linh Nguyen; (2018)
Overpopulation, Racial Degeneracy and Birth Control in French Colonial Vietnam (/p/isis/citation/CBB816275491/)

Thesis Sujin Lee; (2017)
Problematizing Population: Politics of Birth Control and Eugenics in Interwar Japan (/p/isis/citation/CBB518032041/)

Article Berg, Annika; (2010)
A Suitable Country: The Relationship between Sweden's Interwar Population Policy and Family Planning in Post-independence India (/p/isis/citation/CBB001022035/)

Article Yi-Tang Lin; (2020)
Local Actions, National Policies and International Knowledge: Family Planning and Statistical Practices in Taiwan (1949–1980s) (/p/isis/citation/CBB725136358/)

Book Masako Kohama; Etsuko Matsuoka; (2014)
Ajia no shussan to kazoku keikaku: "umu, umanai, umenai" shintai o meguru seiji = Childbirth and family planning in Asia: The politics of women's reproductive bodies (/p/isis/citation/CBB348080459/)

Article DiMoia, John P.; (December 2016)
“Counting One’s Allies”: The Mobilization of Demography, Population, and Family Planning in East Asia, Late 1920s–Present (/p/isis/citation/CBB117012321/)

Article Eric D. Carter; (2018)
Population control, public health, and development in mid twentieth century Latin America (/p/isis/citation/CBB665827693/)

Book Emily Klancher Merchant; (2021)
Building the Population Bomb (/p/isis/citation/CBB050496119/)

Article Susan Greenhalgh; (December 2016)
Cold War Population Science and Politics in Asia (/p/isis/citation/CBB930417533/)

Article Nicole C. Bourbonnais; (2019)
Population Control, Family Planning, and Maternal Health Networks in the 1960s/70s: Diary of an International Consultant (/p/isis/citation/CBB957985292/)

Article John P. DiMoia; (2016)
“Counting One's Allies”: The Mobilization of Demography, Population, and Family Planning in East Asia, Late 1920s–Present (/p/isis/citation/CBB560855337/)

Article Löwy, Ilana; (2012)
Defusing the Population Bomb in the 1950s: Foam Tablets in India (/p/isis/citation/CBB001211284/)

Book Prescott, Heather Munro; (2011)
The Morning After: A History of Emergency Contraception in the United States (/p/isis/citation/CBB001212465/)