Bodies of Knowledge: Material Practices of Reproductive Resistance

This paper explores how embodied practices such as traditional midwifery, herbal contraception and self-managed abortion networks operate as critical forms of reproductive resistance. In contexts where formal healthcare systems are inaccessible, coercive or culturally alienating, these material practices offer alternative routes to bodily autonomy. Drawing on decolonial feminist theory, the paper interrogates how such practices challenge state control, biopolitical regulation and medicalised narratives of reproductive health. Through case studies from Latin America, the Global South and the Global North, the paper highlights the knowledge systems sustained by women, queer communities and traditional practitioners in resisting colonial and patriarchal control over fertility and birth. It also explores how these practices form counter-publics rooted in care, solidarity and ancestral knowledge, even when operating in the shadows of legality or legitimacy. This paper asks: what happens when resistance is not a public spectacle but a quiet, embodied routine? And how do such practices complicate mainstream feminist and human rights discourses that centre legality and access over autonomy and tradition?