ERC Abortion Figurations Project

Happy to announce that our new article has been published! This time, Prof. Marta Bucholc and Iskra de Vries take you on a historical exploration of the abortion debate in Poland.

Link: journals.univie.ac.at/index.php/oe...

Excited to be attending (De)Constructing Gender in International Judicial Discourse: Actors, Norms and Practices at the University of Trieste 🇮🇹✨

Nationalism and Reproductive Rights in Post-Transitional Societies Date: Tue, 07.10.2025 18:00

🎓 Missed the lecture “Nationalism and Reproductive Rights in Post-Transitional Societies”? Good news! The recording is now available online.

🎥✨ Catch up and dive into this thought-provoking discussion at your own convenience! www.iwm.at/event/nation...

The anti-abortion movement, Catholic Church, and communist state: Poland in the 1970s and 1980s This paper studies the forms of organization and activism adopted by the anti-abortion movement in late-communist Poland. Examining relations between the communist state as a non-democratic regime ...

This week’s featured article explores the anti-abortion movement in late-communist Poland, tracing how it organized, mobilized, and negotiated with the communist state.

Link: www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10....

#PaperOfTheWeek #Poland #AbortionPolitics #ReproductivePolitics

Curious about our project? Our PI, Prof. Marta Bucholc, has been invited to talk about human rights and abortion. There will be two lectures further deepening our understanding of the topic!

For more info, see
www.iwm.at/event/nation...

romanistyka.wn.uw.edu.pl/index.php/20...

Yet another inspiring event coming up! Tune in for a thought-provoking exchange ☕️

Thousands of women and allies across Poland took to the streets dressed in black as part of the “Black Protest”—a mass demonstration against a proposed total ban on abortion. The scale of the protest led lawmakers to ultimately reject the proposed legislation.
#CzarnyProtest #BlackProtest #OnThisDay

Thank you Ogólnopolski Zjazd Socjologiczny for having us!
We are grateful for the opportunity to share our work, exchange ideas, and connect with so many inspiring colleagues in Białystok. Dziękujemy ✨

Towards a common EU‐abortion policy? The European Parliament's resolutions on abortion as a human rights issue While abortion regulation may formally escape European Union competence, EU self-restraint may be under growing pressure. An EU common abortion policy may not be far-fetched, as impulses that trigger....

It explores this shift as a form of internal cultural diplomacy, revealing how the EU negotiates values in the absence of formal competence.

Full text here: onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/...

Towards a common EU‐abortion policy? The European Parliament's resolutions on abortion as a human rights issue While abortion regulation may formally escape European Union competence, EU self-restraint may be under growing pressure. An EU common abortion policy may not be far-fetched, as impulses that trigger....

The article examines how the European Parliament has progressively framed abortion as a human rights issue, culminating in its call to include the right to abortion in the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

We’re happy to share our new article, just in time for some summer reading: “Towards a common EU-abortion policy? The European Parliament’s resolutions on abortion as a human rights issue” by Lourdes Peroni and Marta Bucholc.

#isaforum25

Tomek Detlaf: Large Language Models as a tool for argumentation analysis: a field report from the study of parliamentary debates on abortion.

Stay tuned to our socials, we’ll be sharing more about our experience at ISA, including reflections and exchanges in different formats.

Marta Gospodarczyk: If only a man could control the rain!” strategies of polish farming households in times of drought.

Iskra De Vries and Carolina Mosquera Vera: Pregnancy interpellation under restrictive abortion laws: rethinking law through abortion testimonies in Argentina and Poland.

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we presented four papers and joined interdisciplinary conversations. Our PI chaired three panels and took part in rich discussions across fields. Here's what we shared:

Marta Bucholc: Alienated human rights? comparative insights from a study of abortion debates in Poland and Argentina.

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The Abortion Figurations team is happy to wrap up our participation at the ISA Conference (@isa-sociology.org) ‬We had inspiring encounters in Rabat, a city full of history, murals, cats, and the warmest people.

With over 4,000 sociologists from around the world +

Read it here: abortion-figurations.uw.edu.pl/wp-content/u...

www.annualreviews.org/content/jour...

The article examines the association between democratic transitions, the resurgence of nationalism, and the status of reproductive rights in societies that have experienced political transitions. The focus of this paper is on experiences in East-Central Europe, Sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America.

The #PaperOfTheWeek for today is "Nationalist Revivals and Reproductive Rights in Post-Transitional Societies" by our PI Marta Bucholc, which was published in the Annual Review of Law and Social Science.

Dynamics of Gender Relations This book unites research on gender relations using processual sociology, exploring dynamic changes in Western and non-Western contexts.

It explores how gender dynamics evolve in settings like academia, rural communities, urban public life, and intimate relationships, always through a process-sociological lens.

Follow the link to access more about the book and its contributors: link.springer.com/book/10.1007...

Dynamics of Gender Relations This book unites research on gender relations using processual sociology, exploring dynamic changes in Western and non-Western contexts.

This volume brings together 21 chapters by over 32 authors working across Sociology and Gender Studies.

The book is anchored, on the one hand, in a socio-historical understanding of the trajectory of gendered societies over centuries, drawing on Norbert Elias’s Process of Civilization.

New book: Dynamics of Gender Relations

Edited by Stefanie Ernst, Valerie Dahl, and our PI Marta Bucholc

What happens when gender is approached not as a fixed category, but as a long-term social process shaped by power balances, interdependence, and emotional regulation?

, and opened space for dialogue between academia and practice. This felt like the beginning of a growing community of sociolegal gender scholars. We're looking forward to continuing the conversation.
Till next time!

Over two days, we explored key issues like reproductive justice, trans rights, obstetric violence, anti-gender campaigns, and more. The conversations were deeply interdisciplinary, connecting gender studies, law, and the social sciences +

Huge thanks to the wonderful organizers, and to the IISL for warmly hosting us with such care. And thank you to all the participants for your engaged presence, thoughtful provocations, and generous reflections.

That’s a wrap from Oñati! The Abortion Figurations team participated last week in the workshop “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) under the Spectrum of Sex, Gender and Sexuality” at the International Institute for the Sociology of Law (IISL), which concluded this past Friday.

We’re looking forward to the conversations and hope to see some of you there!

The event is organized by Nikoletta Pikramenou, Marta Bucholc (University of Warsaw), and Barbara Giovanna Bello (Università degli Studi della Tuscia), and brings together researchers working on SRHR through feminist, socio-legal, and intersectional lenses.

Next week, the Abortion Figurations team will be participating in the workshop “Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) under the Spectrum of Sex, Gender and Sexuality”, taking place on 22–23 May at the International Institute for the Sociology of Law (IISL) in Oñati.

This session will be particularly relevant to those interested in the sociology of climate change.

Date and Time: Thursday, 15 May 2025, 16:00 CEST

Register here: uw-edu-pl.zoom.us/meeting/regi...