Abstract
Zakiya Luna offers an engaging discussion that details the reproductive rights movement using a human rights framework. She outlines the experience and structure of the SisterSong organization in her book Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice. Movements for reproductive justice, while not a new phenomenon, have recently faced challenges in the current U.S. political arenas. State entities have adopted more conservative and restrictive reproductive health policies in the past few years, reinvigorating broad discussion on reproductive politics. As these conversations are happening between politicians, the focus that Luna places on strategies for framing social movements for reproductive rights and justice is important, necessary, and informative. Further, the concepts discussed in the book offer timely teaching opportunities within sociological spaces.
To briefly summarize, the book offers a discussion that places a human rights framework at the core. Luna details the utility of a human rights approach as it encourages intersectional conversations and puts the voices of women of color at the center. By implementing such an approach, reproductive rights and reproductive justice movements are better able to understand and inform individuals and communities. Previous research has clearly outlined how reproductive politics have been used to create a system of domination for women, particularly for women of color (Solinger 2008). Luna highlights these trends as she summarizes movements throughout history. In doing so, she clearly addresses the role white women and women of color have had in these movements. Further, Luna encourages critical thought toward differences in marginalized experiences, offering nuanced discussions surrounding sociological approaches to human rights. Additionally, the expansiveness of a human rights framework across the globe allows the book to make important critiques of the agendas taking place in the United States regarding human rights, encouraging a critical eye of domestic policies.
More specifically, chapter 1 focuses on defining the Universal Declaration of Human Rights while offering background on the role of the United States in creating global human rights policies. Luna critiques the United States’ use of human rights policies and its decisions to frame human rights issues as dangerously foreign. Subsequently, Luna notes the U.S. participation in restrictive domestication. Chapter 2 outlines a history of marginalization for women of color, specifically in reproductive justice movements, leading the book into discussion regarding more inclusive organizations.
In the next chapters, Luna directs attention to the SisterSong organization. Chapter 3 frames the human rights global perspective and details its use or lack thereof in U.S. politics. Additionally, Luna details the emergence of SisterSong and its decisions regarding the use of a human rights framework. In the next chapter, chapter 4, Luna depicts the challenges, tensions, and potential consequences that SisterSong faced when deciding to use a human rights strategy. Chapter 5 defines human rights, reproductive rights, and reproductive justice as they are integrated in the SisterSong organization. The next chapter covers the strategies and resources SisterSong employed to create a culture shift related to human rights perspectives and public understanding. In chapter 7, Luna details the evolving nature of human rights and its integration into daily practice by social movement actors, specifically, how experiential learning allowed individuals to “feel” human rights and understand their right to demand them in the United States. Finally, chapter 8 outlines the challenges that come from individuals’ distinct experiences with various audiences and how SisterSong has continued to incorporate a human rights perspective.
Luna crafts a useful discussion regarding reproductive rights and justice, human rights, and social movements. The book would be useful in a variety of courses within a sociological discipline, including Sociology of Health, Sociology of Race and Ethnicity, Sociology of Gender, and Sociology of Social Movements. Gardner and McKinzie’s (2020) TRAILS activity, “Embodying Inequality Activity: Teaching Intersectionality with Ethnographic Data,” could be nicely paired with Luna’s work as there is a clear inclusion of intersectional tenets and black feminist thought. By first understanding intersectionality through the “Embodying Inequality” activity (Gardner and McKinzie 2020), then reading an example of applied intersectionality for social movements through Luna’s work, students may be further engaged and motivated to use a sociological and intersectional approach outside of the classroom. Further, in any of the listed courses and otherwise, a book club that includes the subject of this review could be incredibly beneficial. Wyant and Bowen (2018) discuss the utility of using nonfiction works in course book clubs to engage and introduce students to sociological ideas through various methods of implementation. As another pedagogical opportunity for this book, Ormrod (2011) discusses the benefits of using case study analysis in implementing, evaluating, and understanding social movement theory. The detail Luna offers in her discussion of SisterSong would make this particular literary resource suitable for a social movements case study.
While this work covers a variety of sociological areas, the book is complex and arguably vague in its discussion of core sociological concepts, particularly intersectionality and black feminist thought, leaving the reader to often make their own connections and think more critically of the information posed. The book would be most beneficial if used in upper-level undergraduate- or graduate-level courses as faculty encourage more complex and independent sociological thought for students who already have a handle on fundamental sociological concepts.
Overall, Luna offers a detailed and thorough discussion of reproductive rights and reproductive justice through her illustration of the SisterSong organization and its social movement motivation and strategy. The book is a useful resource for instructors looking to teach sociological theory through its application in our social reality. The book particularly focuses on social movements and social movement theory while emphasizing the importance and variation in experience of marginalized voices. For this reason, Reproductive Rights as Human Rights: Women of Color and the Fight for Reproductive Justice would be an outstanding literary and pedagogical tool across a variety of sociological courses.