Jade S. Sasser is Associate Professor of Gender and Sexuality Studies University of California, Riverside.
"Like the best social science writing, the book will spark
conversation and encourage critical questions about received
knowledge. Notably, Sasser declines to offer any policy solutions
in her conclusion, preferring to give her readers space for what
she calls productive fretting. All in all, On Infertile Ground
should be required reading for anyone interested in climate change,
women’s lives, or global population dynamics. You may not agree
with Sasser’s conclusions, but you will find her analysis
thoughtful, clear-eyed, and great food for thought."
*American Journal of Sociology*
"Sasser shows how environmental activists and scientists have used
the urgency of climate change to call for reducing population
numbers in the Global South as part of the effort to slow global
warming. Drawing on two years of fieldwork with NGO workers,
government employees, volunteers, activists, and donors, Sasser
chronicles a resurgent Malthusianism, which she calls
“populationism,” dressed in progressive-sounding terms such as
“empowerment,” “human rights,” and “reproductive justice.” ...
Sasser’s observations of how family planning programs operate in
low-resource communities are invaluable ... As Sasser notes, the
distance between the intentions of idealistic advocates who talk
about women’s empowerment and the women they claim to be helping is
vast."
*New York Review of Books*
"On Infertile Ground deepens and expands our understanding of
contemporary population politics and policy discourses in the era
of climate change. In a fresh and original analysis, Jade S. Sasser
reveals how poor women in the Global South are now instrumentalized
as & sexual stewards of both the environment and the neoliberal
economic order by population/environment NGOs, foundations, and
policymakers. Her fieldwork gives us a first-hand view of how this
hegemonic knowledge is produced and how it colonizes young white
activists vision of the future. This book comes not a moment too
soon as population control efforts gain force under a false banner
of womens empowerment. Sasser has made an impressive contribution
to political ecology, feminist theory, and the pursuit of real
reproductive justice."
*Betsy Hartmann,Author of Reproductive Rights and Wrongs: The
Global Politics of Population Control*
"On Infertile Ground is a welcome and necessary addition to medical
anthropology. It is especially fruitful for scholars interested in
reproductive politics, climate disaster, international development,
and histories of population control ... The book’s attention to
sexual stewardship—Sasser’s principal contribution—serves as a
guidepost to help scholars and activists untangle the social
ontology of neoliberal rights during the mounting climate
disaster."
*Medical Anthropology Quarterly*
"As we face a feverish and hyper politicized climate around
reproductive justice and climate change, this is a critical book
for our times. Superbly researched, carefully analyzed, and deeply
historical, On Infertile Ground provides a thoughtful and
insightful exploration of how we got here, and what the future has
in store . . . Jade S. Sasser brings many important strains in
feminist and environmental literature into a cogent analysis of
contemporary politics"
*Banu Subramaniam,Author of Ghost Stories for Darwin: The Science
of Variation and the Politics of Diversity*
"Sasser’s groundbreaking insights clearly demonstrate the overlap
between social justice groups, and in this case, environmental
causes, reproductive justice, and women’s rights. [...] [Her]
critical analysis couldn’t have come at a more crucial time where
society finds itself at a crossroad between value priorities on
personal, communal, national, and international levels."
*Journal of Environmental Studies and Sciences*
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