Abstract

The workshop "IVF as Global Form - Ethnographic Knowledge and the Globalization of Reproductive Technologies" uses the 30th anniversary of the birth of Louise Joy Brown as an opportunity to reflect on the world encompassing spread of so called assisting reproductive technologies, on the emerging transnationalisation of reproduction, and on the diversity of social, ethical, economical, and political forms which accompany reproductive technologies in different contexts of appropriation.
The workshop brings together anthropologists, STS-researchers and ethnographers, who have researched reproductive technologies in diverse settings such as Germany, Sri Lanka, India, Spain, Israel, Dubai, Turkey, Norway and Switzerland, in gay and heteronormative surroundings, in public and private hospitals and along the edges of affluence that separate East and West, North and South. Its focus is not so much directed on comparison as such as on the question, how dense and detailed ethnographic knowledge, interactively produced in very different situations and regions, mobilized by multi sited research and re-linked by our coming together, can enhance the understanding of the globalisation of biomedical technologies and reinvigorate the analysis of global forms.
The workshop is organized by a team of researchers with Stefan Beck and Michi Knecht as principal investigators. Since three years, the team has been investigating the implications of reproductive technologies in Istanbul/Turkey and Berlin/Germany with regards to kinship/relatedness, knowledge politics and transnationalisation - as well as with a view on long term developments. The opening keynote for the workshop will be given by Sarah Franklin, LSE London.