CONTROLLING BIRTHS AND BODIES IN VILLAGE CHINA

This article seeks to deepen the understanding of reproductive politic s by conjoining a feminist analytics of reproductive control with a de mographic dissection of reproductive process and outcome, as well as a political-economic enquiry into state domination and accommodation. F ocusing on China's one-child-per-family birth control program, it argu es that women are not only victims but also agents in the practice of controlling births and making population policy in China's villages. I n Shaanxi Province, peasants have contested policy elements they do no t like, forcing local officials to negotiate the terms of policy imple mentation. Resistance to the policy has had contradictory effects, how ever. while increasing the number of children allowed, it has put wome n's bodies at risk and reinforced their social subordination. Ironical ly, resistance has worked to reproduce the very state control over chi ldbearing that women have contested.