Abstract
This section introduction sets out the ways in which infertile bodies have been situated as objects of political concern. Since ancient times, the reproductive capacity of a people has been used as an indicator of political health. Even today, in many Western societies the fertile body is used as a symbol of national power. Historically, high-level machinations of power have often determined the individual experience of infertility, whether through castigation of those who fail to conceive, or policies of population control. This section examines the intersection between medical and cultural constructions of infertile bodies, political understandings of population and the health of the state, and the development and provision of techniques for investigating, managing, and curing infertility. It concludes that analysis of political influences on perceptions and experiences of infertility helps us to understand the boundaries of infertile individuals’ capacities for action, and their abilities to enact positive change.
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Notes
- 1.
Quotations from product description for Pre-Seed Vaginal Lubricant on Amazon.co.uk: https://www.amazon.co.uk/Pre-seed-Vaginal-Lubricant-Multi-Applicators/dp/B001G7QNKM/ref=sr_1_2_a_it?ie=UTF8&qid=1465477731&sr=8-2&keywords=pre-seed+vaginal+lubricant. The list of items here was obtained from searches for Peggy Orenstein, Waiting for Daisy: The True Story of One Couple’s Quest to Have a Baby (2008), and Anne-Marie Scully, Motherhoodwinked: An Infertility Memoir (2014): https://www.amazon.co.uk/Waiting-Daisy-Story-Couples-Quest/dp/0747594295/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465479702&sr=1-1&keywords=searching+for+daisy+orenstein and https://www.amazon.co.uk/Motherhoodwinked-Infertility-Memoir-Anne-Marie-Scully/dp/1494291169/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1465479295&sr=1-1&keywords=infertility+memoir. All websites accessed 6 December 2016.
- 2.
For a more extended discussion of infertility as a public/private affair, see Maureen McNeil, ‘Reproductive Technologies: A New Terrain for the Sociology of Technology’, in Maureen McNeil, Ian Varcoe, and Steven Yearley (eds), The New Reproductive Technologies (Basingstoke, 1990), pp. 9–10.
- 3.
See Colleen A. Hynes, ‘“A song for every child I might have had”: Infertility and Maternal Loss in Contemporary Irish Poetry’, in Irene Gilsenan Nordin (ed.), The Body and Desire in Contemporary Irish Poetry (Dublin, 2006), pp. 150–7.
- 4.
Miriam Ulrich and Ann Weatherall, ‘Motherhood and Infertility: Viewing Motherhood through the Lens of Infertility’, Feminism & Psychology, 10:3 (2000), p. 323; Stephanie Rich, Ann Taket, Melissa Graham, and Julia Shelley, ‘“Unnatural”, “Unwomanly”, “Uncreditable” and “Undervalued”: The Significance of Being a Childless Woman in Australian Society’, Gender Issues, 28 (2011), p. 228.
- 5.
Alisa Von Hagel and Daniela Mansbach, ‘The Regulation of Exploitation’, International Feminist Journal of Politics, 18:2 (2016), pp. 4–5.
- 6.
Judith Farquhar, ‘Objects, Processes, and Female Infertility in Chinese Medicine’, Medical Anthropology Quarterly, 5:4 (1991), p. 375.
- 7.
Frank van Balen and Marcia C. Inhorn, ‘Introduction. Interpreting Infertility: A View from the Social Sciences’, in Marcia C. Inhorn and Frank van Balen (ed.), Infertility Around the Globe: New Thinking on Childlessness, Gender, and Reproductive Technologies (Berkeley, Los Angeles, CA, and London, 2002), p. 7.
- 8.
See Naomi Pfeffer, The Stork and the Syringe: A Political History of Reproductive Medicine (Cambridge, 1993), p. 28 for a discussion of how the language of consumerism infiltrated representations of involuntary childlessness in the late twentieth century.
- 9.
Claire Ramussen and Michael Brown, ‘The Body Politic as Spatial Metaphor’, Citizenship Studies, 9:5 (2006), pp. 472, 475.
- 10.
Penny Roberts, ‘The Kingdom’s Two Bodies? Corporeal Rhetoric and Royal Authority During the Religious Wars’, French History, 21:2 (2007), pp. 149–50.
- 11.
Raywat Deonandan, ‘Recent Trends in Reproductive Tourism and International Surrogacy: Ethical Considerations and Challenges for Policy’, Risk Management and Healthcare Policy, 8 (2015), p. 111; ‘India Introduces Legislation to Ban Surrogacy Tourism’, International Medical Travel Journal, 7 December 2015: http://www.imtj.com/news/india-introduces-legislation-ban-surrogacy-tourism/. Accessed 10 June 2016; Teena Thacker, ‘Assisted Reproductive Technology Bill Will Focus Only on Surrogacy’, The Asian Age, 6 May 2016: http://www.asianage.com/india/assisted-reproductive-technology-bill-will-focusonly-surrogacy-863. Accessed 6 December 2016.
- 12.
For discussion of the concept of stratified reproduction, see this volume’s Introduction.
- 13.
Van Balen and Inhorn, ‘Introduction. Interpreting Infertility’, p. 7.
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Loughran, T., Davis, G. (2017). Introduction: The Body Politic and the Infertile Body. In: Davis, G., Loughran, T. (eds) The Palgrave Handbook of Infertility in History. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52080-7_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-52080-7_8
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