Figuring the Population Bomb: Gender and Demography in the Mid-Twentieth Century

Front Cover
University of Washington Press, Dec 1, 2016 - Social Science - 328 pages

Figuring the Population Bomb traces the genealogy of twentieth-century demographic “facts” that created a mathematical panic about a looming population explosion. This narrative was popularized in the 1970s in Paul Ehrlich’s best-selling book The Population Bomb, which pathologized population growth in the Global South by presenting a doomsday scenario of widespread starvation resulting from that growth.

Carole McCann uses an archive of foundational texts, disciplinary histories, participant reminiscences, and organizational records to reveal the gendered geopolitical grounds of the specialized mathematical culture, bureaucratic organization, and intertextual hierarchy that gave authority to the concept of population explosion. These demographic theories and measurement practices ignited the population “crisis” and moved nations to interfere in women’s reproductive lives. Figuring the Population Bomb concludes that mid-twentieth-century demographic figures remain authoritative to this day in framing the context of transnational feminist activism for reproductive justice.

 

Contents

Demography and the MidTwentiethCentury Population Imaginary
3
Population and Masculine Modernity
23
Demographic Boundary Work
43
4 Remaking Malthusian Couplings for the Contraceptive Age
79
5 Demographic Transitions and Modern Masculinities
119
6 Second Sight and Fictitious Accuracy to the Numbers
156
Demographic Convictions and Sound Knowledge
199
Notes
219
References
281
Index
299
Copyright

Other editions - View all

Figuring the Population Bomb: Gender and Demography in the Mid-twentieth Century
Carole Ruth McCann
No preview available - 2017
Figuring the Population Bomb: Gender and Demography in the Mid-twentieth Century
Carole Ruth McCann
No preview available - 2017

Common terms and phrases

action aggregate analysis argued authority became birth control cause census Chand chapter claim clinic Coale colonial concern concluded conference configured Connelly continued contraceptive cultural death decline demographic differences differential discourse discussion economic effects efforts establishment estimate eugenics facts family planning feminist fertility field figures founding future gender Global groups human important included increase India individual influence Kingsley Davis knowledge limitation living logic Malthus Malthusian marriage masculinity means measure meeting methods Moreover mortality movement narrative natural noted Notestein numbers objects observed organizations Osborn patterns Pearl period politics population control Population Council population growth position practices pregnancy problem processes produced programs projections question RAC-PC race racial rates reason relations represented reproductive result risk Sanger scientific scientists sexual shaped social society specific standard statistical studies theory tion transition United Western women

About the author (2016)

Carole McCann is professor of gender and women’s studies at the University of Maryland, Baltimore County. She is the author of Birth Control Politics in the United States, 1916–1945, and coeditor of Feminist Theory Reader: Local and Global Perspectives.

Bibliographic information

TitleFiguring the Population Bomb: Gender and Demography in the Mid-Twentieth Century
Feminist Technosciences
AuthorCarole R. McCann
Editionillustrated
PublisherUniversity of Washington Press, 2016
ISBN029599911X, 9780295999111
Length328 pages
Subjects › 

Science / History
Social Science / Demography
Social Science / Gender Studies
  
Export CitationBiBTeX EndNote RefMan