ABSTRACT
Since the mid-2000s, sexual and reproductive rights have become increasingly politicised in Russian society (Zdravomyslova 2009; Rivkin-Fisch 2004, 2014; Stella 2007, 2013; Temikina 2013). This politicisation has occurred both from above, as a result of the introduction of new legislation and social policy restricting sexual and reproductive rights and from below, as laws and policies are debated and contested by activists and ordinary citizens. A substantial amount of international media coverage and academic analysis has focused on the introduction of the infamous ‘gay propaganda’ laws and discussed the ambiguous impact of global LGBT solidarities on the Russian domestic context (Stella 2013; Kondakov 2014; Wilkinson 2014). However, an exclusive focus on LGBT rights overlooks the fact that recent restrictions on sexual and reproductive rights affect other social groups (particularly women). This chapter explores the relationship between sexuality and nationalism in the Russian context. We consider how restrictions on citizens’ sexual and reproductive rights are justified in the name of the national interest and how family and demographic policies are deployed in the construction of ideals of nation and national belonging, which are both sexualised and gendered. We draw on Foucault’s concept of biopower as a technology of power specific to modern nation-states, which is concerned with the control of social and biological processes at the level of the population (Foucault 1978/1998, 1997/2005).
