CEU Electronic Theses and Dissertations, 2021
| Author | Fazan, Teresa Miroslawa |
|---|---|
| Title | Biopolitics of Abortion and Counterpublic in Poland: The Women's Strike (2020-21) |
| Summary | This thesis presents an in-depth description of the Women’s Strike, a social movement that ensued after the Polish Constitutional Tribunal declared abortions for fatal or severe fetal impairment unconstitutional effectively banning most of the already small number of legal abortions carried out in Poland. The mobilization originated on October 22, 2020, and continued till March 2021. During this period, despite the COVID-19 pandemic and related lockdowns protests continued to take place in numerous Polish cities amounting to what appears to be the biggest protest action since the revolution of 1989. The thesis is based on the multi-sited participant observation in Poland and Austria as well as semi-structured qualitative interviews I conducted with ten persons who participated in the protests. The main goal is to understand how the protesters perceived changes happening in the discourse on abortion and positioned themselves in the counterpublic. After introducing the overview of the applied methods, I draw a political and cultural context and explore the Polish debate on abortion which originated in the late 1980s. Subsequently, I explore how the debate on abortion prompted popular movement and how in the following years, abortion activism flourished in the country. I explain how those events enabled the emergence of a new counterpublic that attempted to oppose the recent Tribunal’s decision. The theoretical framework locates itself on the intersection of biopolitics (Foucault) and social movements research (Korolczuk, Majewska, Bennet and Segerberg). To buttress two key notions I employ – biopower and counterpublic – I engage with the theory of nationalism (McClintock), agency (Butler, McNay), and emotions (Gould). By supporting such theoretical analysis with the field observations and interviews, I wish to give justice to the popular actors of this struggle and their intimate sense of agency. I see this thesis as a record of the experiences and emotions that have changed over time and an attempt to voice the experiences of the “ordinary” protesters who, along with persons undergoing and providing abortions, constitute the political body of this struggle. As I argue, despite being unsuccessful, this mobilization created new strong alliances, had a lasting impact on many lives, and might influence the future of abortion legislation in Poland. |
| Supervisor | Renkin, Hadley Z. |
| Department | Gender Studies MA |
| Full text | https://www.etd.ceu.edu/2021/fazan_teresa.pdf |
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