Reproductive technology, disciplinary technology: Exploring empowerment and birth control in new order Indonesia

Reproductive Technology, Disciplinary Technology: Exploring Empowerment and Birth Control in New Order Indonesia explores why the “empowerment” of Indonesian women does not necessarily result from their participation in the family planning program. Although Western birth control methods are often promoted as requisite to empowering or realigning power in favor of women, in Indonesia their use does not seem to challenge prevailing relations of power and domination, but rather it reinforces them. Instead of experiencing increased choices and overall improvements in their lives, many Indonesian women have experienced a decrease in choices available to them, and increased control over their lives and their bodies by the First World, the State, and Indonesian males as a result of their participation in family planning. These three “layers” of power, as well as the family planning program itself, are examined through a Feminist Foucauldian analysis. By using a positive model of power and discourse analysis to explore both family planning and the three layers, it becomes apparent that family planning is a form of bio-power used to control and monitor women's behaviors so that they will act in ways which support certain power dynamics. Importantly, the reproductive practices of Indonesian women and their widespread participation in the program are no longer primarily the result of the gun-wielding state, but rather are a result of strategies of optimization and normalization, and the acceptance of certain discourses.