Sympoiesis with CeSaM: Making with Menstrual Blood Stem Cells in a Brazilian Biophysics Laboratory

• In Event: Latin American Entanglements of Gender, Sexuality, Race, Ethnicity, Coloniality - I

Abstract

In this paper, I intend to briefly present, and critically address, my ethnographic practices with the “CeSaM”, acronym for the “células-tronco do sangue menstrual” (menstrual blood stem cells), that inhabit a Biophysics laboratory from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, in Brazil.

Since 2015, I’ve been conducting an anthropological research at this laboratory “with” the female scientists and these cells. The concept or idea of “sympoiesis”, proposed by Donna Haraway (2016: 58) has been a useful key to think about narrative forms, possible collective (ethno)graphical inscriptions and feminist speculations that arise from telling the stories of CeSaM and their researchers.

CeSaM’s advantages as a mesenchymal stem cell source (they are easy to collect, with non-invasive procedures) and excellent research engagements (they survive longer than other types of cells in the laboratory) have been helping us actualize matters of gender bias in technoscience. It allows us to deal critically with the ways different bodies and their substances are engaged in technoscientific practices and, perhaps, in future clinical procedures and treatments.

This presentation will be based on a comparative approach from an international literature review concerning recent researches and clinical trials conducted with menstrual blood mesenchymal cells. Departing from this material, I intend to inquire about: the ways gender, race, class or ethnicity appear (or not) at the papers, considering either more literal engagements with the research (as tissue donors) or scientific careers aspects (as authorships); possible Latin American/Brazilian specificities; and bioethical issues.

Author

• Daniela Tonelli Manica, Unicamp - Brazil