The Substance of Sperm

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Abstract

In this chapter, the author examines the ways in which anthropologists, sociologists, and science and technology studies scholars working in different parts of the world have ethnographically engaged with sperm as a substance. Carried out in different parts of the world, ethnographic research has shown how sperm as a substance indexes masculinity, vitality, and “strength,” both individually and collectively; has become commodified and exchangeable through the work of sperm banks; has led to complex negotiations of kinship; and acts as a sentinel of today's global environmental crisis. The making of technosemen has been undergirded by what can be thought of as technologies of assurance – a configuration of strategies and techniques within which certain persons, activities, objects and/or substances come to be vouched for over others.
OriginalsprogEngelsk
TitelA Companion to the Anthropology of Reproductive Medicine and Technology
RedaktørerCecilia Coale Van Hollen, Nayantara Appleton
UdgivelsesstedLondon
ForlagWiley
Publikationsdato2023
Sider317-331
Kapitel18
ISBN (Trykt)9781119845348
ISBN (Elektronisk)9781119845379
DOI
StatusUdgivet - 2023

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