Nameless Relations - Anonymity, Melanesia and Reproductive Gift Exchange between British Ova Donors and Recipients (Hardcover)

Based on the author's fieldwork at assisted conception clinics in England in the mid-1990s, this is the first ethnographic study of the new procreative practices of anonymous ova and embryo donation. Giving voice to both groups of women participating in the demanding donation experience - the donors on the one side and the ever-hopeful IVF recipients on the other - Konrad shows how one dimension of the new reproductive technologies involves an unfamiliar relatedness between nameless and untraceable procreative strangers. Offsetting informants' local narratives against traditional Western folk models of the 'sexed' reproductive body, the book challenges some of the basic assumptions underlying conventional biomedical discourse of altruistic donation that clinicians and others promote as "gifts of life." It brings together a wide variety of literatures from social anthropology, social theory, cultural studies of science and technology, and feminist bioethics to discuss the relationship between recent developments in biotechnology and changing conceptions of personal origins, genealogy, kinship, biological ownership and notions of bodily integrity.

General

Imprint:	Berghahn Books, Incorporated
Country of origin:	United States
Series:	Fertility, Reproduction and Sexuality: Social and Cultural Perspectives
Release date:	June 2005
Authors:	Monica Konrad
Dimensions:	229 x 152mm (L x W)
Format:	Hardcover
Pages:	304
ISBN-13:	978-1-57181-647-4
Categories:	Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Anthropology > General Books > Social sciences > Sociology, social studies > Social institutions > Family & relationships > General Books > Medicine > Pre-clinical medicine: basic sciences > Human reproduction, growth & development > Reproductive medicine > General
LSN:	1-57181-647-X
Barcode:	9781571816474

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