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Women’s Health–Nation’s Health: The Policies of Reproduction in Post-Soviet Belarus1

Gender Panic, Gender Policy

ISBN: 978-1-78743-203-1, eISBN: 978-1-78743-202-4

Publication date: 27 October 2017

Abstract

Purpose: After the dissolution of the Soviet Union, Belarus began to develop a national policy on reproductive health, influenced by late Soviet policy, market relations, and international actors. The central question of this research is how the issues of reproduction and woman’s health are reconsidered in post-Soviet Belarus, in light of the influence of various social and political factors.

Methodology/approach: This chapter critically examines discourses of legal regulations of reproduction and how they promote certain understandings of national security and traditional values through reproduction. In particular, the study is based on the discourse-analysis of the official legislative documents on reproduction in Belarus between 1991 and 2015.

Findings: The transformation of the post-Soviet social protection system, reproductive health care, family policy, as well as specific configuration of public discourse legitimize one model (unified and homogenized normative body that is heterosexual, fertile, healthy, prosperous) and exclude others (non-normative bodies that are non-heterosexual, infertile, unhealthy, poor, and thus precarious for the nation) in favor of the interests of biopolitical governance, nation-building, and neoliberal ideology. Moreover, legal documents legalize new principles of social stratification and produce new ideas about responsible parenthood.

Social implications: Although there is some scholarship on reproduction in Belarus, a thorough analysis of the public discourse and the legal regulations of reproduction has yet to be conducted. Contributing to the debate about post-Soviet reproductive politics, this chapter explores the influence of the biopolitical dialogue and the panic around depopulation on social policies. In particular, this chapter offers more critical perspective toward the economic and social dynamics in Belarus, taking into account the variety of processes and configurations of discourses that influence official policy.

Keywords

Acknowledgements

Acknowledgments

Research for this chapter was supported in part by the Carnegie Research Fellowship Program, which was funded by the Carnegie Corporation of New York and administered by the National Council for Eurasian and East European Research (NCEEER).

Citation

Shchurko, T. (2017), "Women’s Health–Nation’s Health: The Policies of Reproduction in Post-Soviet Belarus1", Demos, V. and Segal, M.T. (Ed.) Gender Panic, Gender Policy (Advances in Gender Research, Vol. 24), Emerald Publishing Limited, Leeds, pp. 45-66. https://doi.org/10.1108/S1529-212620170000024004

Publisher

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Emerald Publishing Limited

Copyright © 2017 Emerald Publishing Limited