Nicole Bourbonnais

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.

Areas of expertise

• Civil society, social movements, Trade Unions, NGOs

• Development, cooperation and aid policies

• Gender, women and public policies

• Global health, global health diplomacy, global health governance, medical anthropology

• Human rights

• International organisations, UN

• Redistribution policies, social inequalities, poverty

• Religion and politics

Geographical Region of Expertise

• Central America

• South America