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Nicole Bourbonnais

Email: ncb21@pitt.edu

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Fields:

Caribbean and Latin American History; Gender, Ethnicity, Race and Religion

MA research topic:

“Dangerously Large”: The 1938 Labor Rebellion and the Debate over Birth Control in Jamaica

In the late 1930s, following a massive labor rebellion on the island, a group of middle and upper class Jamaicans launched a campaign to spread access to modern birth control technology to the working classes, leading to the establishment of the first birth control clinic in Kingston in March of 1939. This paper analyzes the debate that arose surrounding their activities during this period, focusing on the ways concerns over population and sexuality in Jamaica were intimately linked to class and racial tensions as well as to the various nationalist, feminist and eugenics movements occurring both locally and internationally at the time.

Teaching Experience:

Teaching Assistant: African American History From the Slave Trade to the Civil War

 Conference Presentations:

“‘Family Life is the Basis of a Well-Ordered Society': The Debate over Birth Control in Jamaica , 1938-1939.” Canadian Association of Latin American and Caribbean Studies Conference. University of British Columbia, July 4-7, 2008.

“Why Not Clean Your Own House First?: Religion and Nationalism in the Jamaican Birth Control Debate, 1938-1939.” Does the Caribbean have Borderlands ?  Towards a History of Places in Between and Cultures out of Place. Workshop, University of Pittsburgh , February 1, 2008.

Publications:

“Dangerously Large: The 1938 Labor Rebellion and the Debate over Birth Control in Jamaica,” New West Indian Guide. 83, 1/2. (forthcoming, June 2009).

Awards/Fellowships:

University of Pittsburgh Women 's Studies Program Student Research Fund, Summer 2008.

University of Pittsburgh Center for Latin American Studies Graduate Student Field Research Grant, Summer 2008.

University of Pittsburgh International Studies Fund Research Grant, Summer 2008.

University of Pittsburgh Arts and Sciences Graduate Fellowship, 2007-2008.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 
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