‘Updating Malthus’ Population Theory Is Out of the Question Today’: Nevenka Petrić, the Yugoslav Federal Council for Family Planning and the IPPF

This chapter sheds light on the global circulation and re-interpretation of family planning ideas and practices, by exploring the key role played by Yugoslavia vis-à-vis the International Planned Parenthood Federation (IPPF) and specifically by focusing on the political trajectory of Nevenka Petrić (1927-2015), the secretary of the Conference for the Social Activity of Women of Yugoslavia (1961–69), and the President of the Family Planning Council of Yugoslavia (1968–76). Petrić’s interventions as Yugoslav representative in the IPPF Europe Region reflected the country’s unique geopolitical stance as a leading actor in the Non-Aligned Movement (NAM), which fostered its critical perspective on Western-funded neo-Malthusian population policies targeting the Global South. The chapter discusses Yugoslavia’s reproductive politics as well as Yugoslav representatives’ critique of neo-Malthusianism from a Marxist perspective, as well as from an anti-colonial and developmentalist viewpoint which resonated with the experiences of reproductive rights activists in newly decolonized countries.