Siri Suh

African women's uteri have long been objects of biomedical and technological control, from the promotion and discouragement of births by colonial authorities and development experts, to the neoliberal and feminist achievements of reproductive autonomy through consuming pharmaceutical products. We explore misoprostol - a medication for abortion and hemorrhage - as a technology for reproductive control in Burkina Faso and Senegal. By tracing authorized and unauthorized misoprostol use and distribution within and beyond hospitals, and in official and unofficial pharmaceutical circuits, we examine the perils of and possibilities for uterine control offered by this medication to local, national, and global stakeholders.

Despite evidence of a growing interest in reproductive justice (RJ) among feminist economists, this interest is nascent. To avoid RJ becoming a buzzword and losing its political and critical edge, it is important to fully grasp what the RJ framework means and brings to research. This Dialogue aims to create a space where the possibility of an interdisciplinary, transnational exchange of knowledge and ideas could be explored and encouraged. It presents four views about what it means to adopt and commit to the RJ framework in feminist research. One of the contributors was trained as an economist and the remaining contributors trained in other disciplines. The contributions discuss directly or show by example how research guided by the RJ framework can contribute to the development of an ethical and effective transformative response to an increasingly oppressive policy trajectory in the current historical moment.