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Palgrave Macmillan

Knowledge, Power, and Women's Reproductive Health in Japan, 1690–1945

  • Book
  • © 2018

Overview

Authors:
  1. Yuki Terazawa

    1. Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA

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  • Traces the increasing power and control of the state and scientific and medical experts over women’s reproductive lives in Japan
  • Provides a broad perspective on the history of reproduction, discussing the transition from the premodern to modern period
  • Demonstrates how some women resisted and challenged the state and medical experts to manage and control their bodies

Part of the book series: Genders and Sexualities in History (GSX)

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Table of contents (7 chapters)

  1. Front Matter

    Pages i-xvii
    Download chapter PDF

  2. Introduction

    • Yuki Terazawa
    Pages 1-25

  3. The Reproductive Body of the Goseihō School

    • Yuki Terazawa
    Pages 27-76

  4. Changing Perceptions of the Female Body: The Rise of the Kagawa School of Obstetrics

    • Yuki Terazawa
    Pages 77-124

  5. The State, Midwives, Expectant Mothers, and Childbirth Reforms from the Meiji Through to the Early Shōwa Period (1868–1930s)

    • Yuki Terazawa
    Pages 125-176

  6. Women’s Health Reforms in Japan at the Turn of the Twentieth Century

    • Yuki Terazawa
    Pages 177-223

  7. Knowledge, Power, and New Maternal Health Policies (1918–1945)

    • Yuki Terazawa
    Pages 225-283

  8. Epilogue

    • Yuki Terazawa
    Pages 285-290

  9. Back Matter

    Pages 291-318
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Keywords

About this book

This book analyzes how women’s bodies became a subject and object of modern bio-power by examining the history of women’s reproductive health in Japan between the seventeenth century and the mid-twentieth century. Yuki Terazawa combines Foucauldian theory and
feminist ideas with in-depth historical research. She argues that central to the rise of bio-power and the colonization of people by this power was modern scientific taxonomies that classify people into categories of gender, race, nationality, class, age, disability, and disease. While
discussions of the roles played by the modern state are of critical importance to this project, significant attention is also paid to the increasing influences of male obstetricians and the parts that trained midwives and public health nurses played in the dissemination of modern power
after the 1868 Meiji Restoration.

Reviews

“Knowledge, Power, and Women’s Reproductive Health in Japan is a result of extensive research and editing. It is thoroughly embedded in an exhaustive array of literature in English and Japanese. The excellent prose, which seems to have been carefully edited, is easy to read. For scholars in the field, in particular, this book makes a significant contribution.” (Aya Homei, Journal of Japanese Studies, Vol. 49 (2), 2023)



“It is a reflection on the Japanese reflection on the body, which will probably be of interest to historians of Japanese medical culture and culture, as well as to historians of other traditions interested in comparative work. … it is a fascinating reconstruction of a deep and radical transformation that illustrates how a society might have shifted from its tradition to a totally different position because (or thanks to) its desire to align itself with the international community.” (Alain Touwaide, Doody's Book Reviews, October, 2018)

Authors and Affiliations

  • Hofstra University, Hempstead, NY, USA

    Yuki Terazawa

About the author

Yuki Terazawa is Associate Professor in History at Hofstra University, USA. She has previously published ‘Racializing Bodies through Science in Meiji Japan: The Rise of Race-Based Research in Gynecology’ in Morris Low (ed), Building a Modern Japan: Science, Technology, and Medicine in the Meiji Era and Beyond (Palgrave, 2005).

Bibliographic Information

  • Book Title: Knowledge, Power, and Women's Reproductive Health in Japan, 1690–1945

  • Authors: Yuki Terazawa

  • Series Title: Genders and Sexualities in History

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-73084-4

  • Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan Cham

  • eBook Packages: History, History (R0)

  • Copyright Information: The Editor(s) (if applicable) and The Author(s) 2018

  • Hardcover ISBN: 978-3-319-73083-7Published: 23 April 2018

  • Softcover ISBN: 978-3-030-10312-5Published: 27 December 2018

  • eBook ISBN: 978-3-319-73084-4Published: 13 April 2018

  • Series ISSN: 2730-9479

  • Series E-ISSN: 2730-9487

  • Edition Number: 1

  • Number of Pages: XVII, 318

  • Number of Illustrations: 45 b/w illustrations

  • Topics: History of Japan, History of Science, Gender Studies, Cultural History, History of Medicine

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