Contraception meets the environment: everyday contraceptive practices, politics, and futures in a toxic age

ended

This action aims to conduct research among young women who are both feminists and environmentalists, and study how they negotiate these sensibilities in their striving for chemical-free contraception. Field research will be carried out in France, a place where on the one hand environmentalism is characterized by a strong concern with toxic chemicals in everyday life and, on the other, where access to the contraceptive pill remains an emblematic victory of second wave feminism, and by far the most prescribed contraceptive method nationwide. Theoretically, this project will contribute to the anthropology of chemicals, an emergent and cutting-edge subfield of research, and to the growing public debate regarding the ‘crisis’ of the contraceptive pill. Findings will be disseminated through seminars and publications that help push the boundaries of the discipline, a short documentary film that will appeal to wider audiences, and a few, carefully designed interdisciplinary activities that will bridge the domains of academia, arts, activism, and policy.