Michele Rivkin-Fish

Ph.D., Associate Professor, Anthropology

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Campus Office: 301 Alumni
Campus Phone Number: (919) 962-3353

Michele Rivkin-Fish is an Associate Professor of Anthropology. Her research interests most closely fit two of the signature themes: fertility, families, and children; population and health policies and programs. A cultural and medical anthropologist interested in gender, health, and the cultural analysis of population policies, Rivkin-Fish is currently developing a study tracing the historical and cultural dimensions of abortion and contraception in the Soviet Union and contemporary Russia, titled, "Unmaking Russia's Abortion Culture: Gender, Class, and the Politics of Planning Families." This project aims to understand the cultural, institutional, and political dimensions of dramatic transformations underway in post-Soviet reproductive health practices, as the routine use of abortion for fertility control is being replaced by the strategic prevention of unwanted pregnancy. She has published extensively on demographic politics, welfare policies, and gender in Russia. This project builds on her longstanding research in this area, including her award-winning book on women's health published in 2005, Women's Health in Post-Soviet Russia: The Politics of Intervention. An article published in 2010 entitled "Pronatalism, Gender Politics, and the Renewal of Family Support in Russia: Towards a Feminist Anthropology of 'Maternity Capital,'" examines Vladimir Putin's incentive program for second and third births, including critiques offered by various sectors of Russian society and alternative visions of how to reverse the country's low fertility. Rivkin-Fish finds that the forms of critique emerging in these debates reflect interpretations about the historical effects of the Soviet past on men and gender relations that Western feminist paradigms do not address. Addressing Russian historical experiences and logics of debate is necessary for understanding demographic politics and gender inequities there.

Related CPC Signature Themes:

Fertility, Families, and Children

Population and Health Policies and Programs

Information updated on 8/30/2012