Pastoral Power and the Production of the Anticipatory Reproductive Subject

Ashlee Wilson

Graduate Panel 2

Pastoral Power and the Production of the Anticipatory Reproductive Subject 

Ashlee Wilson (Deakin University) 

Abstract: Michel Foucault’s concept of biopower has become central to analyses of reproduction but I think that his account of pastoral power offers a richer framework for understanding contemporary reproductive governance. I will examine how reproductive governance increasingly operates through ‘pastoral’ relations that encourage women to assume responsibility for the health of future children. Rather than relying solely on prohibition or coercion, power functions by creating self-governing subjects who monitor and regulate their own conduct in anticipation of uncertain reproductive futures.

Drawing on Foucault’s account of pastoral power as an individualising and caring form of governance, I argue that women are produced as anticipatory reproductive subjects whose moral obligation is to optimise future maternal and foetal outcomes. Medical advice and public heath interventions encourage continual self-surveillance and confession, positioning reproductive responsibility as an ethical duty rather than an external demand. Although these practices appear benevolent, they simultaneously expand the reach of governance into intimate aspects of everyday life whilst obscuring the structural conditions that shape reproductive decision making.

By examining contemporary reproductive governance through the lens of pastoral power, I will demonstrate the continued relevance of Foucault’s work for understanding how reproductive subjects are produced and through responsibility and self-government.

Bio: Ashlee Wilson is a PhD Candidate in Philosophy at Deakin University. Her research examines reproductive governance and the ways the possibility of reproduction shapes women’s lives long before pregnancy through emerging understandings of epigenetics, public health, and biopolitics. Drawing on feminist political philosophy and feminist bioethics, her work explore how reproductive responsibility is increasingly extended across the life course, reshaping ideas of autonomy and bodily governance.

**Times listed are for panel times as order of presentations in each panel may differ from the schedule.