“Birth control cultures in Poland, 1945 – 1989” was a two-year research project based at the Institute of Ethnology and Cultural Anthropology, University of Warsaw (2017-2019).
We approached the cultures of family planning during Polish state-socialism as an intersection between population policies, expert and popular knowledge on birth control, and people’s experiences related to contraception and abortion.
Our research examined:
• the evolution of state population policies and their interactions with those proposed and executed by the Catholic Church
• production, circulation and popularization of expert knowledge on contraception and abortion
• experiences and opinions linked to birth control of people who lived their reproductive lives between mid-1940s and late 1980s
Our research methods included archival research, discourse analysis and oral history interviews.
More about the project>>
This research project is funded with a POLONEZ 2 scheme, National Science Center, Poland, grant no. 2016/21/P/HS3/04080.