Embodied Progress: A Cultural Account of Assisted Conception

by Sarah Franklin

New reproductive technologies, such as in vitrio fertilization, have been the subject of intense public discussion and debate worldwide. In addition to difficult ethical, moral, personal and political questions, new technologies of assisted conception also raise novel socio-cultural dilemmas. How are parenthood, kinship and procreation being redefined in the context of new reproductive technologies? Has reproductive choice become part of consumer culture? Embodied Progress offers a unique perspective on these and other cultural dimensions of assisted conception techniques. Based on ethnographic research in Britain, this study foregrounds the experiences of women and couples who undergo IVF, whilst also asking how such experiences may be variously understood.

268 pages, Kindle Edition

First published February 13, 1997

About the author

Dr. Sarah Franklin (1960–) is an anthropologist who was one of the first anthropologists to undertake ethnographic research on new reproductive technologies. Her research addresses the history and culture of UK IVF, the IVF-stem cell interface, cloning, embryo research, and changing understandings of kinship, biology, and technology. Her work combines both ethnographic methods and kinship theory, with more recent approaches from science studies, gender studies and cultural studies. Currently, she is a a Wellcome Trust Senior Investigator and the Chair of Sociology at the University of Cambridge where she directs the Reproductive Sociology Research Group.

Reviews

[Katie Waeldner · Rating 4 out of 5]

For a book report for Medical Anthropology Quarterly. Learned a lot tho and fun to be reading cul anth scholars again! Felt like college