Raquel Irene Drovetta

Over the past two decades, feminist organisations across Latin America and the Caribbean — including women’s and lesbian organisations — have produced self-managed abortion manuals that have been translated into multiple languages and adapted across formats, from print booklets and zines to digital resources, and tailored to different communities, including trans people. These manuals turn clinical information into everyday guides that help protect those who seek abortions from criminalisation, stigma, and barriers within the health system, showing that access difficulties persist even where legal frameworks are more permissive.

Raquel Irene Drovetta proposes the concept of “feminist care pedagogies” to describe a collective way of teaching and learning that organises safety, mutual support, and care among those seeking abortion in contexts of unequal access to health services. Combining analysis of physical and digital archives with interviews with the activists who write, edit, illustrate, and distribute these materials, the project shows how the circulation of practical knowledge sustains forms of resistance and reproductive autonomy in the region.