Date of Award
12-2019
Degree Type
Thesis
Degree Name
Master of Arts (MA)
Department
Anthropology
First Advisor
Cassandra White
Second Advisor
Steven Black
Third Advisor
Faidra Papavasiliou
Abstract
Political events may constrain bodies, bodily autonomy, and agency. They also offer opportunities to embody resistance. Research suggests that the 2016 presidential election may have been a catalyst for people to select a long-acting birth control method that could “outlast a presidency.” The Intrauterine Device (IUD) is a form of highly-effective, reversible, and long-lasting birth control, and after November 2016 IUD insertions increased by 22%. This thesis explores the motivations of people in Georgia who chose to get an IUD after the election of anti-choice politicians in 2016 and 2018, through an ethnographic account of their birth control decision-making process. Study participants posited that the recent increase in IUD-use was due to fear of restricted reproductive rights. However, in describing their own decisions, IUD-users found their choices empowering, and follow biomedically-enforced narratives about responsible reproduction in a time of political and economic uncertainty.
DOI
https://doi.org/10.57709/15206803
Recommended Citation
Elliott, Nicole, "The Georgia IUD Project: An Ethnography of Birth Control and Biopolitics." Thesis, Georgia State University, 2019.
doi: https://doi.org/10.57709/15206803
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