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MB-MT04


Flexible reproduction: on the moving articulations of reproduction, technology and culture 
Convenors:
Kelsey Marr (University of British Columbia Okanagan)
Sophya Yumakulov (York University)
Stream:
Moving bodies: Medical Travels/Corps mouvants: Trajets médicaux
Location:
TBT 0019
Start time:
2 May, 2017 at
Time zone: America/New_York
Session slots:
2

Short Abstract:

This panel seeks to explore reproduction in all of its diverse forms, and the space it opens up between defined bodies, relationships, and ideas which trouble normative understandings of biological/physiological reproduction.

Long Abstract:

This panel seeks to explore reproduction in all of its diverse forms, and the space it opens up between defined bodies, relationships, and ideas which trouble normative understandings of biological/physiological reproduction. In an increasingly global world, reproduction is nested within articulations of different social worlds - politics, technology, culture, economies, law - which problematize normative and localized understandings of reproduction. Increasing use of assisted reproductive technologies (ARTs) and acceptance of variable familial structures, for instance, inherently trouble normative boundaries of bodies and parenthood. Diverse reproductive forms give rise to spaces of fluidity and motion, where definitions become ambiguous, and embodied experiences become central to ways knowing. Within these spaces, the cultural work of normalizing and making sense of the uncertainty created by diverse reproductive forms is simultaneously difficult and productive, as we attempt to normalize novel experiences and ways of relating. It is creative but at the same time constraining, an attempt to solidify and slow down the fluidity of bodies and definitions. Thus, among other things, this panel seeks to explore: How can we come to describe and understand diverse forms of reproduction and their entanglements with bodies, technologies, and ontologies? How can we access spaces of motion and uncertainty in reproduction without inevitably bounding them? How does examining the fluid spaces of reproduction inform an anthropological understanding of culture and experience? How do individuals and communities negotiate and make sense of moving reproductions among expectations of normality and stability?

Accepted papers:

Session 1