EMBODIED PROGRESS IBD

Sinopsis

This new editionáof Sarah FranklinâÇÖs classic monograph on the development of in vitro fertilisation (IVF) includes two entirely new chapters reflecting on the relevance of the bookâÇÖs findings in the context of the past two decades and providing a âÇÖstate-of-the-artâÇÖ review of the field today.Over the past 25 years, both the assisted conception industry and the academic field of reproductive studies have grown enormously. IVF, in particular, is belatedly becoming recognised as one of the most influential technologies of the twentieth and twenty-first centuries, with a far-reaching set of implications that have to date been underestimated, understudied and under-reported. This pioneering text was the first to explore the emergence of commercial IVF in the United Kingdom, where the technique was originally developed. During the 1980s, the British Parliament devised a unique system of comprehensive national regulation of assisted reproduction amidst fractious public and media debate over IVF and embryo research. Franklin chronicles these developments and explores their significance in relation to classic anthropological debates about the meanings of kinship, gender and the âÇÖbiological factsâÇÖ of parenthood. Drawing on extensive personal interviews with women and couples undergoing IVF, as well as ethnographic fieldword in early IVF clinics, the book explores the unique demands of the IVF technique. In richly detailed chapters, it documents the âÇÖtopsy-turvyâÇÖ world of IVF, and how the experience of undergoing IVF changes its users in ways they had not anticipated. Franklin argues that such experiences reveal a crucial feature of translational biomedical procedures more widely - namely, that these are âÇÖhope technologiesâÇÖ that paradoxically generate new uncertainties and risks in the very space of their supposed resolution. The final chapter closely engages with the âÇÖhope technologyâÇÖ concept, as well as the idea of âÇÖhaving to tryâÇÖ and uses these frames to link contemporary reproductive studies to core sociological and anthropological arguments about economy, society and technology.In the context of rapid fertility decline and huge growth in the fertility industry, this volume is even more relevant today than when it was first published at the dawn of what Franklin calls the era of âÇÖiFertilityâÇÖ. Embodied Progress is an essential read for all social science academics and students with an interested in the burgeoning new field of reproductive studies. It is also a valuable resource for practitioners working in the fields of reproductive health, biomedicine and policy.