Biological Relatives: IVF, Stem Cells, and the Future of Kinship

Author:   Sarah Franklin
Publisher:   Duke University Press
ISBN:  

9780822354857


Pages:   376
Publication Date:   15 November 2013
Format:   Hardback
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
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Biological Relatives: IVF, Stem Cells, and the Future of Kinship


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Overview

Thirty-five years after its initial success as a form of technologically assisted human reproduction, and five million miracle babies later, in vitro fertilization (IVF) has become a routine procedure worldwide. In Biological Relatives, Sarah Franklin explores how the normalization of IVF has changed how both technology and biology are understood. Drawing on anthropology, feminist theory, and science studies, Franklin charts the evolution of IVF from an experimental research technique into a global technological platform used for a wide variety of applications, including genetic diagnosis, livestock breeding, cloning, and stem cell research. She contends that despite its ubiquity, IVF remains a highly paradoxical technology that confirms the relative and contingent nature of biology while creating new biological relatives. Using IVF as a lens, Franklin presents a bold and lucid thesis linking technologies of gender and sex to reproductive biomedicine, contemporary bioinnovation, and the future of kinship.

Full Product Details

Author:   Sarah Franklin
Publisher:   Duke University Press
Imprint:   Duke University Press
Dimensions:   Width: 15.20cm , Height: 2.30cm , Length: 22.90cm
Weight:   0.640kg
ISBN:  

9780822354857


ISBN 10:   0822354853
Pages:   376
Publication Date:   15 November 2013
Audience:   College/higher education ,  Professional and scholarly ,  Postgraduate, Research & Scholarly ,  Professional & Vocational
Format:   Hardback
Publisher's Status:   Active
Availability:   In Print   Availability explained
This item will be ordered in for you from one of our suppliers. Upon receipt, we will promptly dispatch it out to you. For in store availability, please contact us.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments ix Introduction. Relatively Biological 1 1. Miracle Babies 31 2. Living Tools 68 3. Embryo Pioneers 102 4. Reproductive Technologies 150 5. Living IVF 185 6. IVF Live 221 7. Frontier Culture 258 8. After IVF 297 Afterword 311 Notes 313 References 333 Index 351

Reviews

Hurtled with eggs, sperm, embryos, technicians, scientists, photographers, and critters of many species, including humans, we are all redone by the histories and practices of IVF. Sarah Franklin makes vivid how IVF is a kin-making, person-making, and world-making engine, one that refabricates the facts of life into bundles of kin and bundles of kin into facts of life. No wonder I read Biological Relatives as a fabulous work of SF in all its tones--string figures, speculative fabulation, science fact. Because Franklin's multigeneric gifts are generous, my debts are large. --Donna Haraway, University of California, Santa Cruz


Author Information

Sarah Franklin holds the Professorship in Sociology at the University of Cambridge. She is the author of Dolly Mixtures: The Remaking of Genealogy and coeditor (with Susan McKinnon) of Relative Values: Reconfiguring Kinship Studies, both also published by Duke University Press.

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