International sustainable development policy : (re)producing sexual norms through eco-discipline

This article contends that the global thrust towards population management, legitimised by the concept of sustainable development, works to construct identities along the lines of gender and sexuality. This article focuses on the operation of what Foucault termed, biopower, as operational through and (re)productive of the United Nation's (UN) population/sustainable development discourses. I argue that the said disciplinary narratives and apparatuses such as the construction of environmental threat and the monitoring and regulating of populations, in the service of sustainable development, work to construct gendered identities and ‘naturalise’ heterosexual relationships. To demonstrate this, this article focuses on key UN documents directed at informing international environmental/population policy, namely Agenda 21 and the International Conference on Polulation and Development's Programme of Action.