Selective Reproductive Technologies

PROJECT IS COMPLETED
Project period: 2011-2014

Selective Reproductive Technologies was a three year research project originally named ‘Exchanging ‘good’ life – socio-technical imaginaries in a Chinese sperm bank'.

The project consisted of the following components:

  • An in-depth ethnographic study of a Chinese sperm bank led by Ayo Wahlberg.
  • An international conference on the social and ethical challenges of sperm banking (Changsha, May 2012) organised in collaboration with the CITIC-Xiangya Reproductive and Genetic Hospital in China.
  • An international conference on Selective Reproductive Technologies (Copenhagen, December 2012) organised in collaboration with the Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies.
  • A Sino-Danish researcher exchange programme which allowed Chinese doctoral and postdoctoral researchers to travel to Denmark to study ethical governance of reproductive technologies in Denmark and Europe.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Books

Cover - Good Quality


Special journal issue

Journal articles

Book chapters

 

Selective reproductive technologies – routes of routinisation and globalisation

International Conference, 13–15 December 2012, University of Copenhagen, Denmark

Conference delegates

In December 2012, nearly one hundred scholars convened in Copenhagen, Denmark. With more than fifty presentations with empirical contributions from over twenty countries, the conference aimed at invigorating the momentum that has been gathering around social studies of selective reproduction in the 21st century.

The conference was organised by the Department of Anthropology in collaboration with the Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies, UCPH.

Focussing on comparative social science research into the routinisation and globalisation of selective reproductive technologies (SRTs), the conference discussed key questions like:

  • How have selective reproductive technologies been taken up and put into practice in different cultural and socio-economic contexts?
  • In which ways are prospective parents in different countries engaging with these technologies?
  • How do SRT providers interact and communicate with prospective parents?
  • What visions and imaginings of potentiality guide clinical practice in the realm of reproductive selection?
  • What are some of the structural constraints/possibilities that these technologies come to be embedded in?
  • What are the roles of government authorities in promoting or regulating the use of SRTs?
  • How do market forces and other economic factors fuel or constrain the routinisation of SRTs?
  • Finally, the conference explored how routinisation and globalisation took place: When and how were these technologies introduced in various countries, what forms of opposition did they encounter, which role did public criticism play for the practical, technological and regulatory development of the technologies in question?

The keynote speakers were:

  • Sarah Franklin, Department of Sociology, University of Cambridge
  • Lene Koch, Centre for Medical Science and Technology Studies, University of Copenhagen
  • Rayna Rapp, Department of Anthropology, New York University

The Danish newspaper Kristeligt Dagblad wrote about the conference (article no longer available).

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The project was funded by:

Danish Council for Independent Research

Selective Reproductive Technologies was funded by the Sapere Aude Young Researcher programme of the Danish Council for Independent Research.

Project: Selective Reproductive Technologies
Principal investigator: Ayo Wahlberg
Start: 2011
End: 2014