This talk focuses on the development of a population science in the decade that preceded the Ferdinand Marcos regime in the Philippines and throughout the Marcos dictatorship. The regime’s management of reproductive health, in particular, illustrates the construction of new technologies of measurement and containment. The talk focuses on readings of “family planning” archives that highlight both family planning as the management of the Philippines labor-surplus economy and the different ways that family planning workers struggled against these impositions.

Josen Masangkay Diaz (she/they) writes and teaches about race, gender, colonialism, and authoritarianism. Her book, Postcolonial Configurations: Dictatorship, the Racial Cold War, and Filipino America (Duke University Press, 2023), analyzes the formation of Filipino American subjectivity through a study of U.S.-Philippine cold war politics.

Winter 2026 COLLOQUIUM SERIES

THE CENTER FOR CULTURAL STUDIES hosts a weekly Wednesday colloquium featuring work-in-progress by faculty & visitors. We are pleased to announce our Winter 2026 Series. Sessions begin promptly at 12:15 PM and end at 1:30 PM (PST) in Humanities Building 1, Room 210.

Staff assistance is provided by The Humanities Institute.