A feminist exploration of ‘populationism’: engaging contemporary forms of population control

Abstract

Following the International Conference on Population and Development in 1994 in Cairo, which prompted a discursive shift from population control to reproductive health and rights in international development, policy experts and scholars have relegated population control to the realm of history. This presents a unique challenge to feminist critics who seek to identify manifestations of population control in the present. In this article, we consider the potential of ‘populationism’ as terminology that may assist in clarifying varied new manifestations of population control. We explicate three interrelated populationist strategies that focus on optimizing numbers (demo), spaces (geo), and life itself (bio). Through our elaboration of these three populationisms and their interaction, we seek to inspire feminist, intersectional responses to the pernicious social, economic and environmental problems that technocratic populationist interventions obscure.