Austerity, Experimentation and Opposition: The Global andLocal Politics of Biomedical Contraception in Uganda

Friday, November 26, 2021 10:30 am - 11:30 am EST (GMT -05:00)

The first event in the 2021-22 History Speaker Series, this talk examines the establishment of the birth control project in Uganda by American physician and eugenicist Clarence Gamble as a biomedical endeavor driven by global concerns about the reproductive capacities of Ugandan women and global overpopulation. It shows how these concerns clashed with local anxieties about demographic changes, social and political reproduction, and medical ethics. The talk examines the birth control project in Uganda as a form of reproductive exploitation of women. Dr Kembabazi argues that Gamble’s experimentation on women, and refusal to engage the public and their detractors, legitimized the concerns of pronatalist groups who tapped into a global racialized rhetoric that birth control would exterminate the Black race.