Candace Johnson

My research reconciles two sub-disciplinary areas within political science: political theory and public policy. Most of my published work entails the application of theoretical tools and frameworks to complex global reproductive rights issues; I am also committed to socially engaged feminist research, standpoint methodologies, community engaged collaborations, and transnational dialogue. In 2025, 2017, and 2009, I was awarded the Canadian Political Science Association’s Jill Vickers Prize in recognition of my research on gender and politics and was nominated for this award on two other occasions (in 2011 and 2015).

In 2022, I co-founded the Grounded and Engaged Theory Lab (GETlab) with Dr. Monique Deveaux), which is a creative research space dedicated to using the tools of philosophy and political theory to solve “real world” problems. The GETlab showcases the work of faculty, postdoctoral researchers, graduate students, and undergraduate students, and regularly hosts Activists-in-Residence.

My teaching also reflects a commitment to grounded knowledge and engagement. In 2013, I was the faculty coordinator of the Latin American semester abroad in Guatemala and I have organized and coordinated two other field schools: in 2015, with NGO Rights Action in Guatemala, and in 2019, with the University for Peace in Costa Rica.

I have published my work in many academic journals including Signs, Critical Policy Studies, Feminist Theory, Politics, Groups, and Identities, PhiloSOPHIA, Canadian Journal of Political Science, and Polity.

In 2014, I published Maternal Transition: A North-South Politics of Pregnancy and Childbirth (Routledge; paperback in 2016), which is a comparative examination of maternal health preferences in Canada, the United States, Cuba, and Honduras and the ways in which these preferences reflect global, regional, national, and micro-level political dynamics (the research for which was supported by a SSHRC Standard Research Grant).

In 2018, I published a volume on Human and Environmental Justice in Guatemala, co-edited with Stephen Henighan (University of Toronto Press). This book brings together contributions from scholars and activists working to address human rights abuses in Guatemala.

My current research addresses the problem of misinformation and disinformation in reproductive politics (funded by a SSHRC Insight Grant, 2025-2030). It builds on more recent work that considers the ways in which North American reproductive politics are context-specific yet sensitive to regional and global trends.

I am currently recruiting graduate students to work on projects related to reproductive rights and justice in any part of the world.

Books

Candace Johnson and Stephen Henighan, eds. Human and Environmental Justice in Guatemala. University of Toronto Press, 2018.

Maternal Transition: A North-South Politics of Pregnancy and Childbirth. New York: Routledge, 2014; 2016.

Health Care, Entitlement, and Citizenship. Toronto: The University of Toronto Press. September 2002.

Book Chapters

“Reproductive politics beyond autonomy and justice: a borderlands approach.” Forthcoming. In Philosophies of Pregnancy, Childbirth, and Mothering, Caroline Lundquist and Sarah LaChance Adams, eds. Palgrave MacMillan.

“Toward a Theory of Obstetric Justice.” In Debating Birth and Models of Maternity Care, Nicole Thualagant and Katja Schrøder, eds. Routledge. Forthcoming.

“Abortion in the Borderlands: Canadian Rights and Policy in the Shadow of Dobbs.” In Born and Raised: Governing Reproduction in Canada. Alana Cattapan and Megan Gaucher, Eds. McGill-Queens University Press. Forthcoming.

“Fertile Truth: Plato’s Midwifery Metaphor and Contemporary Reproductive Politics.” Midwifery as Metaphor: Between Theory and Praxis. Marlene Sokolon and Stephanie Paterson, eds. University of Alberta Press, Forthcoming.

Journal Articles

Candace Johnson. 2025. “Abortion Rights Revision: Dobbs, COVID-19, and Policy Complexity.” Critical Policy Studies, 19(2): 242-260. https://doi.org/10.1080/19460171.2024.2355970

Candace Johnson. 2024. “Drafting Injustice: Overturning Roe v. Wade, Spillover Effects, and Reproductive Rights in Context.” Feminist Theory, 25(1): 122-127. https://doi.org/10.1177/14647001221114611

Candace Johnson. 2023. “Reproductive Subjects and Shifting Global Health Policy Discourses. Signs. 48:2. https://doi.org/10.1086/722896

Candace Johnson. 2023. “The End of the Maternal Health Moment: An Examination of Canada’s Evolving Global Reproductive Policy Commitments.” International Feminist Journal of Politics, 25(1): 54-75. https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/14616742.2021.1997150?src=

Candace Johnson. 2020. "Responsibility, Affective Solidarity, and Transnational Maternal Feminism." Feminist Theory. 21(2): 175-198.

Candace Johnson. 2020. “Socially Engaged Research Across Borders: Feminist Bridges for Global Gender Justice and Human Rights.” Politics, Groups, and Identities. 8:2, 444-452.

Ebenezer Agyei and Candace Johnson. 2019. “The Politics of Global Policy Frames: Reproductive Health and Development in Ghana.” Global Health Governance. 9(1&2): 69-85.

Candace Johnson. 2018. The Virtues of Repression: Politics and Health in Revolutionary Cuba. Health Policy and Planning, 33, 758–759.

Candace Johnson. 2017. “Pregnant Woman versus Mosquito: A Feminist Epidemiology of Zika Virus.” Journal of International Political Theory, 13(2): 233-250.

“Reproduction and Knowledge.” SSHRC Insight Grant, 2025-2030, $238,380

“The Politics of Global Maternal Health Initiatives.” SSHRC Insight Grant, 2017-2024, $168,716

“Medicalization and Maternal Health: Intersectionality and Identity in North-South Comparative Perspective.” SSHRC Standard Research Grant, 2009-2014, $88,416.