Document Type
Chapter in a Book
Publication Date
Fall 2024
Abstract
This chapter focuses on three family planning short films produced by the Mexican government. I interpret these films as an instrument to prompt the population to self-govern their reproduction. Relying on the definition of governmentality as “how modern forms of power and regulation achieve their full effects not by forcing people toward state-managed goals but by turning them into accomplices” (Agrawal 2005, 217), I argue that these short films sought to promote a new reproductive subjectivity among working-class urban and rural Mexicans. In other words, such reproductive subjectivity consisted of encouraging couples to have fewer children by promoting the idea that having smaller families would allow them to become middle-class and modernized citizens.
Recommended Citation
Espinosa, Martha L. "Population Growth and Mexico's Production of Family Planning Short Films," in Challenging Stories: Exploring the Intersections between Health and the Humanities, E.T. Ewing and P. Ganguly, editors (Blacksburg: Virginia Tech Publishing, 2024): 136-145.
Comments
This book is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution + Noncommercial + NoDerivatives 4.0 license.
