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Paper short abstract:

This paper analyses the post-war Japanese reproduction discourse from the vantage point of disability and addresses how the presence, participation, and contributions of disabled activists pushed the debate beyond bodily autonomy based on gender and sexuality.

Paper long abstract:

Kick-started by the ūman ribu movement and the debates surrounding the revision of the Eugenic Revision Law, the 1970s enabled the emergence of intersectional discursive spaces on reproduction in Japan within social activism. As disability activists and ūman ribu members came together, not always without conflict, the critique that ribu formed of the proposed expansion of state intervention into women’s bodies and the simultaneous devaluing of disabled life transcended a liberal rights discourse and represented an intervention into Japan’s bio-political order. Following the dissolution of the ūman ribu movement in the mid-1970s, former members continuously carried on this legacy, most prominently Yonezu Tomoko, who I argue took these intersectional ideas into the field of disability activism and reproductive justice through organisations such as SOSHIREN and the DPI Josei shōgaisha nettowāku.

In this paper, I analyse the evolution of disabled women’s activism for reproductive justice and bodily autonomy by mainly following the life and work of activist Yonezu Tomoko and her encounters with the disability movement. Starting with the student movement of the 1960s and the subsequent ūman ribu movement of the 1970s, I make the case that such emancipatory spaces were essential for marginalised groups and radical activists like Yonezu to engage with their own embodiment, a personal self-exploration which ultimately refined their societal critique. Based on this understanding ūman ribu becomes more than a short-lived experiment of radical feminism in Japan as I argue that ribu thought provided a platform for new forms of intersectional activist groups to challenge productivity as the predominant measure of human value in Japan well into the 1990s.

Furthermore, this paper provides an analysis of the post-war Japanese reproduction discourse from the vantage point of disability and addresses how the presence, participation, and contributions of disabled activists pushed the debate beyond bodily autonomy based on gender and sexuality. Thus, my analysis questions the very motivation behind state interventions into bodies and essentially the mechanisms of power, more specifically bio-power.