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Reproductive Governance and Bodily Materiality explores the growing centrality and power of the medical professional and lay practices within the field of human reproduction as they entangle with political economic processes, providing examples from multiple countries.
Throughout the collection the authors address the issues of abortion, sterilization, 'natural' childbirth, breastfeeding, surrogacy, pregnancy loss, IVF, disability and parenting, whilst focusing both on the mechanisms through which reproductive behaviours are shaped and controlled, and on the socially and culturally constructed bodies' materiality. The chapters analyse how reproductive governances are inherently attached to different social life aspects, such as gender, industry, and religion, residing within complex political domains and how these features are embodied through practices, care, rituals, and gestures. Rather than assuming corporeal materiality - the 'flesh' - as something stable and pre-given, this collection shows how different bodies are defined and shaped by local biologies, institutional practices and reproductive subjects inside and outside the Euro-American space.
This is essential reading for researchers of social, cultural and medical anthropology, sociology, and education.
Corinna Sabrina Guerzoni is a Research Fellow at the Department of Political and Social Sciences at Alma Mater Studiorum, University of Bologna, Italy. Her previously research has been focused on reproductive technologies, gay parenting, new family configurations mostly between Italy and the USA.
Claudia Mattalucci is Associate Professor in Social and Cultural Anthropology at Milano-Bicocca University. Her research interests include gendered bodies; kinship and reproduction; abortion and pregnancy loss. She published several articles and edited and co-edited books on these topics.
Governing reproduction through the matter; Corinna Sabrina Guerzoni and Claudia Mattalucci
Chapter 1. When the body comes back to strengthen identity and communities; Dominique Memmi
I Parents by bodies
Chapter 2. Fighting medicalization, feeling full parents: the choice of natural childbirth in Italy; Chiara Quagliariello
Chapter 3. Breastfeeding and the production of maternal bodies as part of holistic care in Switzerland; Caroline Chautems
Chapter 4. Interconnected Experiences and Bodies in US Surrogacy; Corinna Sabrina Guerzoni
II Body’s imaginaries and ontologies
Chapter 5. Abortion, pregnancy losses and the afterlife of bodies, bonds and memories in Italy; Claudia Mattalucci
Chapter 6. Embodying contraception: Women’s representations of the body and reproductive technologies in India; Lucia Gentile
Chapter 7. Untangling toxicity in birth practices: Placenta politics in the US and Uganda; Kara Miller
III Reproductive and bodily disruptions
Chapter 8. The (in)fertile body: Discourses on Assisted Reproductive Technologies in Spain; Natalia Fernández-Jimeno
Chapter 9. Infertility as a gendered social experience in Italy (Lombardy): sense of self and modality of action; Léa Linconstant
Chapter 10. Reproductive exclusion: French clients of cross-border reproductive care in Barcelona; Alexandra Desy and Diana Marre
Chapter 11. The misleading body: Reproducing a “defective child” in Italy; Rossana Di Silvio