Suitable Sweden: Co-producing Sweden Through Reproduction, Technological Development and International Aid in the Mid-twentieth Century

TL;DR

This paper explores how Sweden became a key player in global birth control development during the mid-20th century, linking it to international aid and overpopulation concerns.

Contribution

The paper highlights Sweden's understudied role in co-producing global reproductive technologies and international aid frameworks.

Findings

Sweden was positioned as a leader in developing and testing birth control technologies.

Reproductive research in Sweden was shaped by international overpopulation discourse and local scientific networks.

Technological development in birth control helped define Sweden's international identity during the overpopulation scare.

Abstract

In the mid-twentieth century, there were worries about overpopulation globally. Birth control — an often-sensitive topic — was made to be an issue of urgency through an overpopulation discourse. It stopped being associated mainly with sex and started to be associated with ending world starvation. Some nations were seen as requiring help; some nations were seen as politically sensitive to birth control; some nations were seen as financially capable; and other nations, such as Sweden, were seen as well suited for developing birth control technologies. This paper traces how Sweden became a main global protagonist in international aid that focused on reproduction through local birth control development. By using perspectives from science and technology studies, I examine the specific networks and actors that made birth control development and testing possible in Sweden in the mid-twentieth century. Centering around the testing of intrauterine devices and abortion pills in the 1960s, this paper shows how technological development in Sweden co-produced understandings of reproduction and the conditions for reproductive research infrastructure. It argues that the technological development of birth control is an important and yet understudied aspect of how Sweden situated itself internationally when it came to the overpopulation scare.