ABSTRACT

Research on female foeticide in India frames India’s reproductive subjects as incapable of exercising mastery over their bodies. This framing often questions Indian women’s exercise of reproductive agency within Indian patriarchy and views women as preferring sons. Such framing is problematic as it pays very little attention to India’s population control measures, which are steeped in India’s colonial history, and sets women up for tutelage, instead. In response, this essay using Foucault historicises influential theoretical approaches to population control based on three texts, originating in different historical and geographical locations, written by Thomas Malthus, Margaret Sanger and Amartya Sen. This analysis demonstrates how colonial contexts and history framed research in the past and continues doing so in the present. This study addresses the epistemological conditions of knowing female foeticide. Drawing on Butler’s notion of framing this essay argues that Indian women’s autonomy is framed both as passive − a masculinist position − and as ‘other’ − an Orientalist position. This essay also argues that this causal location of women then deflects attention from state policies which may be exacerbating such a practice and is not helping the Indian reproductive subject.

摘要

印度对女性杀害妇女的研究表明，印度的生殖主体无法掌握自己的身体。这种情况经常质疑印度妇女在印度父权制内行使生殖机构的能力，并将妇女视为偏爱儿子。这样的框架是有问题的，因为它很少关注印度的人口控制措施，这些措施充斥于印度的殖民历史，反而让妇女接受教养。作为回应，本文使用福柯历史性地介绍了有影响力的人口控制理论方法，该理论基于托马斯·马尔萨斯，玛格丽特·桑格和阿玛蒂亚·森撰写的三本书，起源于不同的历史和地理位置。过去并在现在继续这样做。这项研究解决了认识女性杀真菌剂的认识论条件。本文以巴特勒的构架概念为依据，认为印度妇女的自治既被定义为被动的（男子气概的立场）又被定义为“其他”的东方主义的立场。这篇文章还认为，妇女的这种因果关系使人们对国家政策的关注转移了，这可能加剧了这种做法，并没有帮助印度的生殖主题。