Social and biological reproduction: Entangled concepts on the move in medical research, practice, and policy

Datum
08. April – 11. April 2025 

Pan­el at the upcom­ing ASA 2025 conference 

„Social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion: Entan­gled con­cepts on the move in med­ical research, prac­tice, and policy”
Pan­el at the upcom­ing ASA 2025 con­fer­ence tak­ing place in
8–11 April
Birmingham

Social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion: Entan­gled con­cepts on the move in med­ical research, prac­tice, and pol­i­cy will be a pan­el exam­in­ing the entan­gling of social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion in med­ical research, prac­tice, and pol­i­cy, broad­ly con­ceived (pun intend­ed). We invite anthro­po­log­i­cal works which con­sid­er these rela­tions today, espe­cial­ly via the social repro­duc­tion of kin­ship, par­ent­hood, or tech­nolo­gies of relat­ed­ness. The long abstract with more infor­ma­tion is pro­vid­ed below.

The dead­line for abstracts is Novem­ber 18th. Abstracts may be sub­mit­ted by fol­low­ing this link.

Con­venors:

Tay­lor Riley (Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege London)
Olga Dolet­skaya (Uni­ver­si­ty Col­lege London)

Long abstract:

Bio­log­i­cal and social repro­duc­tion are deeply entan­gled (Rapp and Gins­burg 1991) and repro­duc­tion is always a con­cept on the move. ‘Social repro­duc­tion’ has been tak­en up wide­ly in fem­i­nist research as both the under­val­ued labour that sus­tains human life and the labour that repro­duces social sys­tems and rela­tions. What repro­duc­tion and kin­ship are bio­log­i­cal­ly is co-repro­duced with their legal, eco­nom­ic, and cul­tur­al mean­ings. As assist­ed repro­duc­tive tech­nolo­gies (ARTs) become, though uneven­ly, more ordi­nary (Franklin 2013), entwined con­cepts of social and bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion con­tin­ue to travel.

In their close atten­tion to human expe­ri­ences and rela­tions, anthro­po­log­i­cal approach­es, such as bioethnog­ra­phy (Roberts and Sanz 2017), are well-suit­ed to trace these trav­els today. Pop­u­la­tion stud­ies such as birth cohorts are invest­ed in the busi­ness of bio­log­i­cal repro­duc­tion along­side the social repro­duc­tion of par­tic­i­pa­tion that keeps stud­ies alive. The pro­lif­er­a­tion of ARTs like in vit­ro game­to­ge­n­e­sis will neces­si­tate social­ly repro­duced changes to con­cepts of relat­ed­ness. Repro­duc­tive jus­tice is impli­cat­ed in the above and oth­er examples—how do these social repro­duc­tions deny or grant access to per­son­hood or care, espe­cial­ly for those who are mar­gin­al­ized? Can kin­ship be post-genom­ic in these con­texts, or only elsewhere?

We invite works using ethno­graph­ic meth­ods to dis­cuss bio­log­i­cal and social repro­duc­tion with ref­er­ence to bio­med­ical dis­cours­es and/or insti­tu­tions, health poli­cies, pop­u­la­tion research, and/or the worlds of sci­ence and med­i­cine, broad­ly defined. Papers could e.g. focus on:

• Stud­ies of conception/birth, maternal/infant health, fam­i­lies, and/or parenting
• Genet­ic or epi­ge­net­ic research and/or policies
• Repro­duc­tive health research and/or policies
• ARTs
• Med­ical­ized fer­til­i­ty and/or infertility