Keeping Up Appearances in the Argentine Fertility Clinic. Making Kinship Visible through Race in Donor Conception

This article examines "phenotype matching", a procedure used in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) to coordinate the physical appearance of ova donors with that of recipients. Looking into phenotype matching as a socio-technical arrangement, and on the basis of an STS approach, the...

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Main Author: Lucía Ariza
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: University of Bologna – Dipartimento di Filosofia e Comunicazione 2015-07-01
Series:Tecnoscienza
Subjects:
Online Access:https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/view/17237
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author Lucía Ariza
author_facet Lucía Ariza
author_sort Lucía Ariza
collection DOAJ
description This article examines "phenotype matching", a procedure used in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) to coordinate the physical appearance of ova donors with that of recipients. Looking into phenotype matching as a socio-technical arrangement, and on the basis of an STS approach, the articles suggests that race is key in making kinship explicit, a making that is particularly important in the case of donor conception. By examining some of the ways in which race enters, and helps to sustain, a regime of visibility whereby family links need to be made visible in order to count as such, I make two concatenated claims. First, that race allows seeing the differences in bodily colours that may otherwise be too abstract to relate empirically. This making visible of certain features of body contributes, in turn, to the production of race as a material bodily substance. Second, I contend that the avoidance of racial in-coherence between mothers and offspring, which is argued both in "scientific" and "social" terms, helps to make kinship visible, that is, to make it real.
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spelling doaj.art-73415deba1ec450484d2e99d332599672024-01-22T10:27:45ZengUniversity of Bologna – Dipartimento di Filosofia e ComunicazioneTecnoscienza2038-34602015-07-016153110.6092/issn.2038-3460/1723715596Keeping Up Appearances in the Argentine Fertility Clinic. Making Kinship Visible through Race in Donor ConceptionLucía Ariza0Instituto de Investigaciones Gino Germani, University of Buenos AiresThis article examines "phenotype matching", a procedure used in Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ARTs) to coordinate the physical appearance of ova donors with that of recipients. Looking into phenotype matching as a socio-technical arrangement, and on the basis of an STS approach, the articles suggests that race is key in making kinship explicit, a making that is particularly important in the case of donor conception. By examining some of the ways in which race enters, and helps to sustain, a regime of visibility whereby family links need to be made visible in order to count as such, I make two concatenated claims. First, that race allows seeing the differences in bodily colours that may otherwise be too abstract to relate empirically. This making visible of certain features of body contributes, in turn, to the production of race as a material bodily substance. Second, I contend that the avoidance of racial in-coherence between mothers and offspring, which is argued both in "scientific" and "social" terms, helps to make kinship visible, that is, to make it real.https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/view/17237assisted reproductive technologiesphenotype matchingracekinshipargentina
spellingShingle Lucía Ariza
Keeping Up Appearances in the Argentine Fertility Clinic. Making Kinship Visible through Race in Donor Conception
Tecnoscienza
assisted reproductive technologies
phenotype matching
race
kinship
argentina
title Keeping Up Appearances in the Argentine Fertility Clinic. Making Kinship Visible through Race in Donor Conception
title_full Keeping Up Appearances in the Argentine Fertility Clinic. Making Kinship Visible through Race in Donor Conception
title_fullStr Keeping Up Appearances in the Argentine Fertility Clinic. Making Kinship Visible through Race in Donor Conception
title_full_unstemmed Keeping Up Appearances in the Argentine Fertility Clinic. Making Kinship Visible through Race in Donor Conception
title_short Keeping Up Appearances in the Argentine Fertility Clinic. Making Kinship Visible through Race in Donor Conception
title_sort keeping up appearances in the argentine fertility clinic making kinship visible through race in donor conception
topic assisted reproductive technologies
phenotype matching
race
kinship
argentina
url https://tecnoscienza.unibo.it/article/view/17237
work_keys_str_mv AT luciaariza keepingupappearancesintheargentinefertilityclinicmakingkinshipvisiblethroughraceindonorconception