PHD
 

PhD Thesis Title: Reproductive Politics across the Post-1954 Dutch Kingdom

PhD Supervisor:  Nicole Bourbonnais

My doctoral research examines reproductive politics across the post-1954 Kingdom of the Netherlands through a critical, intersectional feminist lens, focusing on Suriname, the Netherlands Antilles, and their transatlantic connections with the Dutch metropole under changing forms of political autonomy. It explores how institutions, social movements, experts, and marginalized people themselves shaped the reproductive lives of women and queer or non-heteronormative people, influencing their possibilities for enabling, preventing, postponing, refusing, or reimagining pregnancy, parenthood, and family formation. The project draws on archival research in the Netherlands, Suriname, and Curaçao, as well as at the Wellcome Collection in London, complemented by historical newspapers and oral history interviews.
 

PROFILE

Natasja Nietvelt is a PhD researcher in the Department of International History and Politics at the Geneva Graduate Institute and is affiliated with its Gender Centre. Her broader scholarly commitment is to feminist historiography and to recovering the experiences and agency of women and other historically marginalized groups. She holds a BA in Arts and Economics from the Utrecht School of the Arts, an MSc in Political Science from Ghent University, where she graduated magna cum laude, and an MA in International and Development Studies from the Geneva Graduate Institute, specializing in Gender, Race, and Diversity. She is fluent in Dutch and English and has an intermediate command of French.
 

Publications and Works
 

• “Gendered Struggles in Post-Colonial Contexts: Women's Reproductive Rights in Post-Revolutionary Cuba,” The Graduate Institute, Geneva. September 19, 2024. (Blog Post)
   

Research Interests
 

• Reproductive politics and reproductive justice
• Gender, sexuality, and feminist history
• Decolonization and postcolonial history
• Dutch and Caribbean history
• Histories of health, medicine, and family planning
• Intersectionality, inequality, and citizenship
• Queer history and the history of marginalized groups
• Bodily autonomy and decision-making power 
• Societal organization and the individual
• Global social history and global microhistory
• Internationalism and transnational circulation of ideas
   

Academic work experience
 

• Student Representative on the Student Selection Committee for the Pierre du Bois Chair in “Europe in the World,” Department of International History and Politics, Geneva Graduate Institute (September–October 2024)
• Graduate Student Researcher, “Non-State Armed Groups and De Facto Authorities in Conflict Zones in Central and East Africa,” a research partnership between Geneva Call and the Geneva Graduate Institute (October 2023–June 2024)
   

Fellowships, Grants, and Awards
 

• Graduate Scholarship, The Geneva Graduate Institute, PhD in International History and Politics (2025-2029)