Biopolitical deliberation:
The Faroese abortion movement as rhetorical reproductive citizenship
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.52610/rhs.v27i86.303Keywords:
rhetorical citizenship, reproductive citizenship, abortion rhetoric, contre-conduit, Michel Foucault, social movementAbstract
A new social movement arose in 2018 in the Faroe Islands, when the organization Frítt Val, fighting for increased access to abortion, was formed. This article analyses the movement’s campaigns as a form and expression of rhetorical reproductive citizenship, or what I in reference to Michel Foucault’s authorship call biopolitical deliberation, underscoring how we can understand institutional power through resistance to it. In campaigns which focus on multivocal and multifarious experiences with abortion, Frítt Val describes the restrictive norms for reproduction in the current legislation, and by analysing these I argue for accommodating Foucault in rhetorical theory, and for how concepts such as counter conduct (contre-conduit) should have a place in rhetorical studies of social movements.
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