On 7 October 2025 at 18:00, Marta Bucholc will give a lecture entitled:
Nationalism and Reproductive Rights in Post-Transitional Societies
at the IWM in Vienna. The event will be moderated by Ludger Hagerdorn.
In many countries that have recently gone through political transitions—from Eastern Europe to Africa and Latin America—nationalism has re-emerged as a powerful force. This revival reaches deeply into everyday life, shaping ideas about family, sexuality, and reproduction. Reproductive rights, once seen as part of the democratic promise, are often the first to be restricted. Political pressure, cultural stigma, and weak health systems keep access limited, even where laws are formally liberal. Nationalist politics cast women’s and minorities’ rights as threats to the nation’s survival, tying them to fears of migration, low birth rates, or religious tradition. At the same time, human rights language—once the hallmark of pro-democracy movements—is now contested: it is used both by those seeking to expand freedoms and by those determined to constrain them. Marta Bucholc argues that these conflicts converge around three forms of justice: transitional justice, which deals with the legacies of authoritarianism; reproductive justice, which links reproductive rights to broader inequalities; and historical justice, which mobilizes the past to shape present debates. Their collision in the processes of political transition shows why reproductive rights are not a side issue, but a central arena where the future of democracy and equality is being decided.
Find more information and registration link here: https://www.iwm.at/event/nationalism-and-reproductive-rights-in-post-transitional-societies.
You are warmly invited!
