PROFILE

Dr. Nicole Bourbonnais is an Associate Professor of International History and Politics at the Graduate Institute. Her research focuses on the transnational history of reproduction, population, sex, motherhood, and the family in the twentieth century. Her first book, Birth Control in the Decolonizing Caribbean: Reproductive Politics and Practice on Four Islands, 1930-1970 (Cambridge University Press, 2016) traced how birth control campaigns in Jamaica, Trinidad, Barbados, and Bermuda were shaped by colonialism, nationalist movements, social activism, and working class women’s efforts to control their reproductive lives. Her current project, The Gospel of Family Planning: A Global History, explores the rise and spread of the transnational family planning movement from the 1940s-80s and the turn to a “reproductive rights” paradigm in the 1990s. She is also interested in the links between anti-racist and feminist activism in the early twentieth century and the history of maternal and child health.

Dr. Bourbonnais received her BA from the University of British Colombia (Vancouver) and MA/PhD in History from the University of Pittsburgh. She teaches courses and supervises theses on the subjects of reproductive politics, social history, the history of gender/sexuality, Latin American and Caribbean history, oral history, and the history of global health.  She is also a podcast host for the New Books Network.

SELECTED PUBLICATIONS

Books

• Birth Control in the Decolonizing Caribbean: Reproductive Politics and Practice on Four Islands, 1930-1970. New York: Cambridge University Press. 2016.

Selected articles and chapters (2013 onwards)

• “The Intimate Labor of Internationalism: Maternalist Humanitarians and the Mid-20th Century Family Planning Movement,” Journal of Global History 17.3 (November 2022): 515-538

• “Contraception and Reproduction in Global Conversation,” Journal of Women’s History 33.4 (Winter 2021): 222-230.

• “Sexual Hierarchies and Erotic Autonomy: Colonizing and Decolonizing Sex in the Caribbean,” p 30-42 in Dagmar Herzog and Chelsea Schields, eds. The Routledge Companion to Sexuality and Colonialism. London: Routledge, 2021.

• Co-editor with Marcos Cueto and Davide Rodogno, História, Ciências, Saúde– Manguinhos special issue “The Meaning(s) of Global Public Health History,” 27.1 (September 2020).

• “Population Control, Family Planning, and Maternal Health Networks in the 1960s/70s: Diary of an International Consultant,” Bulletin of the History of Medicine. 93.3 (Fall 2019): 335-364.

• “Our Joan of Arc: Women, Gender, and Authority in the Harmony Division of the UNIA,” in Ronald J. Stephens and Adam Ewing, eds. Global Garveyism: Diasporic Aspirations and Utopian Dreams. University Press of Florida, 2019.

• “Discrimination in Any Shape or Form: Black Activism and Women’s Rights in Interwar Bermuda,” in K. Natanya Duncan and Reena N. Goldthree, eds.  Caribbean Review of Gender Studies Special Issue: Gender and Anticolonialism in the Interwar Caribbean, 12 (October 2018): 143-168.

Media and Policy Papers

• "Global Impact of Roe v. Wade Being Overturned", What Matters Today podcast, July 8, 2022

• "Féminisme, intersectionallisme”, Seisme podcast, April 30, 2022.

• “Women’s History Channel`", New Books Network podcast, 2021-pres.

• Gender and Decolonization, Global Challenges, October 20, 2021.

• The Small Spaces of Global Struggle, Black Perspectives blog, July 1, 2021.

• Gender-Based Violence and Intersectionality, Geneva International Podcast Initiative, May 7, 2021.

• Unsafe in Your Own Home: Violence Against Women and the Politics of Domination. Graduate Institute News, Nov 25, 2020.

• Workplace Sexual Harassment, Power, and Hashtag Activism, Globe: The Graduate Institute Review, No. 21, Spring Edition, 2018

• Spreading the Good News: International Family-Planning Activism and Grassroots Information Networks in the 20th Century,” History of Knowledge blog, July 13, 2017.

• Reproductive Rights and Race Struggle in the Decolonizing Caribbean,” Black Perspectives online platform, April 1, 2017.

• Abortion under Apartheid: Interview with Susanne Klausen,” Notches: (re)marks on the history of sexualityblog, September 13, 2016.

• A Brief History of Women’s History,” LSE Engenderings Blog, March 29, 2016.

• Entre coercition et émancipation: une histoire globale du contrôle des naissances,” Le Temps, November 4, 2015.

• Implementing Free Maternal Health Care in Kenya: Challenges, Strategies, and Recommendations,” published by The Kenya National Commission on Human Rights (KNCHR), 2013.