Women and Agency: A Study of Women’s Reproductive Lives in Assam
By Adishree Borgohain and Sarmistha Das
A woman’s reproductive health is an important aspect of her overall physical and mental wellbeing and should be understood within the wider socio-economic, political and behavioral context of her life. The ability of women to make decisions and lifestyle choices in terms of her reproductive health will be discussed in this paper vis-à-vis her agency, i.e., autonomy over her own body and fertility. This notion of reproductive agency will be explored via the parameters of education, occupation and age of marriage to shed light on how non-biomedical factors have a crucial impact on reproductive health. The paper will to unpack the existing discourse of reproductive health in Guwahati city of Assam through in-depth qualitative interviews conducted by the authors with women of selected areas of the city. It will also critically examine the government intervention to improve the reproductive health status of the women in the city through its various policies, programmes and discuss whether and how it has impacted the women’s reproductive health status.