Configuring maternal, foetal and infant embodiment in the context of biopolitics

Configuring maternal, foetal and infant embodiment in the

context of biopolitics

Deborah Lupton, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University

of Sydney

My related research

• Biopolitical dimensions of medicine and public health• Risk and everyday life• First-time parenthood: women’s experiences of

pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and infant care• Mothers’ concepts of health in their infants and young

children• Emotion and maternal carework • Infant embodiment: representations, meanings,

practices• The social worlds of the preborn organism

Time magazine heralds the advent of IVF

Embryo at 7 weeks of gestation

7-week embryo specimen from ectopic pregnancy, Wikipedia

The Visible Embryo Project

The commodification of preborn body images

‘Embryo Princess’ from the animation series ‘Adventure Time’

Lennart Nilsson pic 1

Lennart Nilsson pic 2

Lennart Nilsson pic 3

3/4D obstetric ultrasound

Pro-life pic 1

Pro-life pic 2

Angel foetuses with embryos

God’s Little Ones

Pro-life display dolls

BodyWorlds Exhibition

Misbehaving Mums to Be

US Time magazine, 21 May 2012

Theoretical perspectives

• Risk society, reflexive modernisation, individualisation (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim)

• Biopolitics, governmentality and pregnancy/motherhood: ‘reproductive asceticism’ (Weir, Ettore, Ruhl)

Theoretical perspectives 2

• Gendered embodiment, permeability, liquidities, ambiguity, Self/Other (Grosz, Shildrick, Kristeva, Young, Longhurst)

• Visualising culture, technologies and the preborn body (Duden, Petchesky, Hartouni, Casper)

Blurring of boundaries of bodies/selves

maternal body/self

child/infant/foetus/embryo/ pre-conceived embryo