A feminist political economy of community-based reproductive care and advocacy in/through crisis

This paper outlines the theoretical framework for my ongoing doctoral research, which examines the labour relations of community-based reproductive care and advocacy workers, using Ottawa, Canada, as a case study. Feminist political economy (FPE) scholars have long analyzed the “care crisis” as a labour crisis (e.g., Armstrong 2024), emphasizing the worsening conditions of care workers as neoliberal capitalist states continue to divest from social reproduction. Recent outcry from the reproductive care and advocacy workforce in the United States similarly foregrounds a labour crisis underpinning the erosion of reproductive rights (e.g., Littlefield 2024). Yet, even in contexts where these rights are less directly under threat, organizations report how deepening austerity produces job loss, chronic underfunding, and untenable workloads, which in turn undermines reproductive rights and access (e.g., Sharma 2025 on the layoffs at Planned Parenthood Ottawa). My doctoral research intervenes in this moment when reproductive care and advocacy are simultaneously more urgent and more precarious than ever, analyzing the conditions of a highly feminized sector that remains underexplored by FPE scholars. Drawing on foundational FPE theory and recent scholarship on reproductive politics, this paper proposes a framework that bridges these perspectives by conceptualizing reproductive and labour injustice as interwoven crises of social reproduction. First, it situates community-based reproductive care and advocacy within the broader social relations that sustain neoliberal capitalism, tracing the layered processes through which this work is devalued and exploited. Second, it locates these dynamics within the current conjuncture where reproductive and labour rights are being eroded across many North American and European contexts. The discussion emphasizes the need to understand these crises as interconnected in order to challenge the persistent separation of reproductive issues from economic and labour analyses. While primary data from ongoing interviews with Ottawa-based care and advocacy workers will not yet be included, the paper draws on media and policy texts to sketch the contemporary labour context and reflect on its implications for reproductive rights and care under austerity.