Reproductive Citizens: Gender, Immigration, and the State in Modern France, 1880–1945 by Nimisha Barton

Abstract

Reviewed by: Reproductive Citizens: Gender, Immigration, and the State in Modern France, 1880–1945 by Nimisha Barton Virginie Ems-Bléneau Barton, Nimisha. Reproductive Citizens: Gender, Immigration, and the State in Modern France, 1880–1945. Cornell UP, 2020. ISBN 978-1-5017-4963-6. Pp. xv + 284. While Barton did not coin the term "reproductive citizenship," it is a relatively novel concept in the study of individual rights and social frameworks. As presented in this book, the phrase accounts for the interwoven privileges, duties, and protections to which foreign-born French residents were subjected during France's populationist Third Republic. Due to France's (real and perceived, qualitative and quantitative) depopulation crisis, France eagerly opened its borders to immigrants as long as they "adopted profamily attitudes and procreative behaviors, and presented themselves in the acceptable accents of heterosexual masculinity and femininity" (5). The State, with the help of private and state-run welfare institutions, participated in shaping the gendered identity of its foreign population through what Barton calls "disciplinary paternalism" and "supportive maternalism." Foreign men were tolerated as long as they married and produced new French citizens, while foreign women, as the mothers of this new generation of French citizens, were supported through an array of benefits, if not rights (although family law also evolved to offer single mothers more stability at that time). Reproductive citizenship manifested itself in some perhaps unexpected ways: Women, an historically powerless class, received unprecedented attention from French officials with whom they often negotiated to obtain benefits, pensions, or even their husband's citizenship, thus showing a certain level of agency usually reserved to male subjects. Reproductive citizenship also proved more effective than legal citizenship in protecting France's Jewish population during the Vichy Regime. Many members of welfare organizations who had helped immigrant Jews for decades before the war refused to abandon their mission and charges, often actively aiding Jewish children and women by transporting or hiding them, sometimes at the cost of their own life. Furthermore, French citizens who had lived side-by-side with their foreign neighbors in Paris were much less inclined to denounce them than was the case in less diverse rural communities. Reproductive citizenship can therefore be seen as a set of practical, sometimes life-or-death, regulatory practices that affected the day-to-day life of foreign and French-born citizens as much as, if not more than, legal citizenship. The strength of this book lies in its attention to details and relatability. By offering personal accounts to illustrate the effects of these populationist policies, Barton has made History accessible, and maybe more importantly, real: These are people's stories, [End Page 219] lives lived. This book will therefore appeal to a wide readership, from historians and anthropologists to sociologists and gender studies scholars, to name just a few. Political scientists and lawmakers would particularly benefit from learning how policies aimed at increasing a nation's population through immigration can strengthen neighborhoods through mutual support and cohesion, all the while promoting national sentiment. [End Page 220] Virginie Ems-Bléneau Georgia Southern University Copyright © 2022 American Association of Teachers of French