Reproductive Technologies as Global Form

In the thirty years since the first "test-tube baby", in-vitro fertilization and other methods of reproductive assistance have become a common aspect of family life and medicine in developed nations – and, increasingly, throughout the world. This collection brings together ethnographic studies of how these reproductive technologies are deployed across a wide variety of nations and cultures, taking special account of how they are linked to aspirations towards modernity – and how they contribute to an ongoing reconfiguration of the boundaries of knowledge and human agency. The resulting volume offers both a current snapshot of the cultural state of reproductive technologies and a plethora of provocative questions for the future.