With Anne Hendrixson

This course is a critical introduction to international development history and theory, through the lens of population, or “overpopulation.” “Overpopulation” has been seen as a fundamental impediment to nations’ economic and social development and a global environmental and security crisis requiring an emergency response on an international scale. We will upend this account of population drawing from feminist and critical race theorists, as well as global South perspectives on development. We will explore notions of environmental sustainability, gender and empowerment, race and threat in international development theory. We will look at the history of population control and trace the international shift toward sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR). We will examine current issues in SRHR alongside on-going population control abuses, including forced sterilization and mass dissemination of long-acting contraceptives. We will also investigate how current population dynamics, including divergent age distribution in the global North and South as well as increased migration, influence development in the era of climate change.

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