This book explores the empirical manifestations of the paradoxical features of reproductive technologies and provides in-depth understandings of solo motherhood through assisted reproduction and by recognising the complex experiences and the lived realities of forming donor-conceived families. The author offers insights into how single women 'do' family, identity and kinship and how the choice to create life as a solo mother is continuously rationalised. She uncovers how established, societal cultural narratives are adopted, negotiated and transformed in the processes of decision-making and fertility treatment. The book draws on science and technology studies, feminist theory, kinship- and family studies and identity theory, and reveals how aspects of bio-genetic and social connections (nature-culture) take on varying meanings when kinship and familial relations - are created through assisted reproduction. Through the lens of solo mother families, the book covers broader sociological questions including; how donor conception challenges existing and endemic kinship ideas and practices and what kinds of individual, social and legal responses have been prompted by advances within medically assisted reproduction.

This textbook offers a new approach to understanding social theory. Framed around paired theoretical perspectives on a series of sociological problems, the book shows how distinctive viewpoints shed light on different facets of social phenomena. The book includes sociology's "founding fathers", major 20th-century thinkers and recent voices such as Butler and Zizek. Philosophically grounded and focused on interpretation and analysis, the book provides a clear understanding of theory's scope while developing students' skills in evaluating, applying and comparing theories.

This textbook offers a new approach to understanding social theory. Framed around paired theoretical perspectives on a series of sociological problems, the book shows how distinctive viewpoints shed light on different facets of social phenomena. The book includes sociology's "founding fathers", major 20th-century thinkers and recent voices such as Butler and Zizek. Philosophically grounded and focused on interpretation and analysis, the book provides a clear understanding of theory's scope while developing students' skills in evaluating, applying and comparing theories.