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Capitalizing Fertility: Feminist STS Approaches to Reproductive Bioeconomies - II

Thu, September 5, 4:30 to 6:00pm, Sheraton New Orleans Hotel, Floor: Five, Grand Ballroom A

Abstract

Feminist STS and medical anthropology scholars of the past three decades have offered innovative theorizations of the entanglements between capitalism and reproductive and regenerative technologies. These technologies--from surrogacy to embryo “adoption,” gamete vending to cord blood banking, placenta exchanges to uterine transplants, and gene testing to gene editing--have much to tell us about how contemporary bioeconomies work. Scholars in this tradition have contributed to the proliferation of “bio-concepts” that draw critical attention to the political economies involved in shaping clinical, institutional, social, geopolitical, and cultural practices of assisted reproduction and social life more broadly. Taking the capitalizing practices that steer the global fertility sector as an object of inquiry, this panel uses, critiques, expands, and contextualizes this range of bio-concepts within the context of reproductive technologies.

Drawing upon research from across the globe, this double panel addresses core themes: how centering economic analyses in scholarship on reproductive technologies and bio-exchanges interrupt and generate new understandings of late capitalism; which methods and disciplinary perspectives help to foreground configurations of value and power; and what opportunities exist for amplifying political economy analyses in STS scholarship. Together, these papers provide a critical take on what political economy contributes to long-standing feminist STS concerns with the imbrications of capital, reproduction, and technology.

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