Alumni Profile: Nicole Bourbonnais

Highlights

Alumni Profile: Nicole Bourbonnais

by Gina McDonell

Dear Sir or Madam: I have seen advertisement in the gleaner for birth control so I would like to get some information for I was having children from I was 14 years old and in the space of 6 years I have 6 children and I get very sickly, I nearly dead with the last one and for that I am in bad health so I write to get some information. I am, your Obedient, Ivy Hall.
---- Letter, Ivy Hall to the Jamaica Birth Control League, October 16, 1941

When Ivy Hall wrote to request information on birth control in 1941, Jamaica was one of only two British colonies in the Caribbean where birth control clinics existed. By the mid-1950s, however, a number of volunteer-driven birth control associations had arisen across the islands and by the late 1960s, nearly every government in the English-speaking Caribbean was in the process of either creating or implementing massive family planning programs funded by state and international aid agencies.

This transition occurred in a period that saw the organization of the region’s first feminist, labor, nationalist, and black power movements under British colonial rule; the expansion of American influence in the area; and the achievement of independence from the British. Yet despite the dynamic context in which birth control was introduced, debated, and accepted, no major historical work exists that traces the evolution of family planning in the region.

Nicole Bourbonnais, doctoral candidate in the Department of History, is seeking to uncover this history. Understanding how birth control campaigns interact with political, cultural, and social contexts is of continuing relevance to the Caribbean today, where family planning remains a key issue. She says, “I experienced this firsthand in the summer of 2003, as a sex education project volunteer for Youth Challenge International (a Toronto-based non-governmental aid organization) in Guyana. This was my first interaction with the complexity, energy, and rich cultural diversity of the English-speaking Caribbean, an experience which has driven my personal and scholarly interest in the region ever since. It was also an experience that led me to realize the profound impact birth control can have, especially in areas now facing the onslaught of HIV/AIDS. For many of the women I met in Guyana, as for Ivy Hall in the 1940s, access to birth control was a matter of life and death.”

After receiving a bachelor’s degree in history from the University of British Columbia, Bourbonnais entered the master of arts program in Pitt’s Department of History. Her master’s thesis and research efforts led to her receipt of a doctoral fellowship from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council of Canada, which will provides a stipend for four years. In addition to this external funding source, Bourbonnais was awarded grants and fellowships from numerous University entities during her master’s studies, including the Center for Latin American Studies, the Dietrich School of Arts and Sciences, the Women’s Studies Program, and the University Center for International Studies.

Bourbonnais feels that Pitt’s history department is a supportive environment for her research. “[Pitt] provides the ideal setting for my program of study. My advisor, Lara Putnam, is a specialist in both the English-speaking Caribbean and in the issues of gender, race, and sexuality that my research addresses. Joining her on the Department of History faculty are renowned Caribbean/Latin American historians Alejandro de la Fuente and George Reid Andrews, who regularly offer courses on the region. As well, the history PhD program’s emphasis on thematic areas ensures that courses on ‘gender, ethnicity, race, and religion’ are offered by scholars with different geographical focuses, which allows me to place my study into a comparative, international context.”