Abortion rights and biopolitics in Chile. With Dr Lieta Vivaldi

Cuerpa Politica

Lieta Vivaldi works at the Universidad Alberto Hurtado, Law Department. She has a Ph.D. in Sociology from Goldsmiths College, University of London, a Masters in sociology from the London School of Economics, a diploma in gender and violence from the Faculty of Philosophy and Humanities of Universidad de Chile, and is qualified in Law, by the same institution. She also works as a researcher in the Center of Applied Ethics (CEDEA) at Universidad de Chile, and as an associate researcher of the Faculty of Law at Universidad Diego Portales. She is both board member and coordinator of the Research Program on Biopolitics at the International Institute for Philosophy and Social Studies, IIPSS (Santiago, Chile), and the director of the Academic Committee of the Chilean Feminist Lawyer Association (ABOFEM). Her research focuses on human rights, sexual and reproductive rights, sociology and law, biopolitics, and feminisms.

In this episode, we discuss the shape of struggles for legalised abortion in Chile, including how reproductive controls have overlapped with the rationales of neoliberalism, and political ideologies, such as during the Pinochet dictatorship, and the images or ‘political signs’ that have been alternately mobilised by feminist activists and pro-life activists in this context.

Links:

Casas, L., & Vivaldi, L. (2014). Abortion in Chile: the practice under a restrictive regime. Reproductive health matters, 22(44), 70-81. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/pdf/10.1016/S0968-8080%2814%2944811-0

Vivaldi, L. (2020). Critical possibilities on social research: the abortion dispositif from a feminist perspective. Pléyade (Santiago), (25), 107-126. https://scielo.conicyt.cl/scielo.php?pid=S0719-36962020000100107&script=sci_arttext