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SUMMARY:“M like Mother”: A Social Grammar of Assisted Reproduction in 
 Iranian Infertility Clinics - Shirin Garmaroudi Naef (International Centre
  for Ethics in the Sciences and Humanities (IZEW)\, University of Tübinge
 n)
DTSTART:20100427T160000Z
DTEND:20100427T173000Z
UID:TALK24259@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Zeynep Gurtin-Broadbent
DESCRIPTION:Focusing on the social uses of assisted reproductive technolog
 ies in Iranian infertility clinics\, this seminar will explore how the leg
 al and cultural meanings ascribed to physiological facts and bodily substa
 nces explain the construction of kinship relations in Iranian society and 
 the emic concept of reproduction in this context. Different methods of ass
 isted reproduction such as gamete donations and surrogacy are offered by I
 ranian IVF physicians within a Shiite Islamic jurisprudential framework in
  order to enable infertile married couples to conceive. Based on extensive
  ethnographic data\, this seminar will address the social implication of t
 his juridical permissibility. How reproductive technologies are understood
  by men and women who experience it\, and how the idea of assisted reprodu
 ction is conceptualized in their narratives. The major contribution of thi
 s seminar lies in the voices of gamete donors and recipients\, gestational
  surrogates and intended mothers\, their husbands\, their doctors and medi
 cal consultants\, women donating eggs and embryos and being surrogates\, w
 omen giving birth to the child of their brother or sister to explore how i
 n the sociologically defined area of reproduction the grammar of kinship i
 s used to experience reproductive technologies? How the affinal ties estab
 lished by marriage are reinforced and regenerated through productivity of 
 siblingship? And how\, without any connection to incest or incestuous adul
 tery in emic thought\, the transfer of substance between siblings or in-la
 ws\, as well as strangers or friends is considered ethically and morally n
 eutral? The theoretical aim of this seminar is to go beyond Euro-American 
 naturalistic and ‘biogenetic’ assumptions in order to contribute to a 
 better understanding of reproduction as a cultural achievement in which th
 e foundational structures of a society and its dynamics are reproduced and
  contested.
LOCATION:CRASSH Seminar Room 17 Mill Lane
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