Call for Abstracts – How to Give Birth to a Soviet Society? Reproductive Politics in Central Asian Societies
Although the USSR supported anti-imperialist movements internationally, its own imperial structure remained shaped by ethno-racial hierarchies throughout Soviet rule (Tlostanova 2010, Annus 2018, Gradskova 2019), which took the form of settler colonialism in Central Asia (Kassymbekova and Chokobaeva 2023). Researchers have shown how despite a discourse that celebrated the ‘Friendship of the Nations’, Central Asian lives were continuously considered as less valuable than Slavic lives. This hierarchy manifested in various key moments of Soviet history such as the Kazakh famine (1930-1933) (Sartbayeva Peleo 2018), the participation of Central Asians to the Second World War (Zharkynbayeva 2018), the atomic tests in Kazakhstan from 1949 to the 1980s (Kassenova 2022), or the racism experienced by Central Asians in Russia in the 1970s and 1980s (Sahadeo 2019). While this historical scholarship has made great advances in making these hierarchies visible, little is known about how reproductive politics in particular were tied to their production. Yet, understanding the history of reproductive politics in Central Asia is crucial, especially if we want to deepen our understanding of the relationship between women’s history and biopolitics in the Soviet empire. A focus on Central Asia, in particular, allows to expand broader research on reproductive politics, imperialism, and colonialism (Briggs 2002; Stoler 2013; Spensky 2015; Paris 2020) by examining an imperial formation that actively promoted women’s liberation and shaped global debates on gender, race and the condemnation of eugenics (Adams 1990; Krementsov 2011). This workshop aims to fill this gap on research on Soviet Central Asia, women’s history and reproductive policies by raising the following questions:
- Who is allowed and supported to give birth in Soviet Central Asia, and under what conditions? Who is not, and why?
- Which families are deemed worthy of existence, and which ones are not?
This workshop examines reproductive politics in Central Asia through three core themes, considering it both as a site for the production of social hierarchies and as a space for women’s agency.
Submission Guidelines
Author(s): Please indicate your institution, discipline, and email
Abstract: 500 words including title, context, research question, methodology, main results, and selected bibliography.
Accepted languages: English, Kyrgyz, Kazakh, Tajik, Russian
Timeline
- Submission deadline: December 18, 2025
- Notification of acceptance: January 16, 2026
- Event date: May 28, 2026
For more details, refer here
