About the project
Assisted reproduction has been controversial since the introduction of insemination in the 1930s.
When Louise Brown was born in 1978, and subsequently Mona Susanne Tetlie in Norway in 1984, attempts at treating infertility had been in place for a long time, and included surgical and pharmacological treatment.
However, the development of techniques like in vitro fertilisatiion (IVF) and intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI) were revolutionary because these techniques opened up for the production and reproduction of life outside the human body. These new ways of producing, administering and storing life makes it pertinent to investigate the new constellations of biopower and biopolitics which assisted reproduction technology bring about.
Objectives
The aims of the project are:
- To relate assisted reproduction technology to its specific historical, political and cultural context.
- To investigate how images of the body in general, and of the female body in particular, changed as a result of these developments, and how they in turn influenced scientific research.
Background
The project started 1.9.2011 and is a joint effort between the Department of Community Medicine and the Department of Health Science.
Main supervisor : Anne Kveim Lie
Co-supervisors: Heidi Fjeld and Hilde Bondevik.
Financing
University of Oslo
Cooperation
- Economies of reproduction
- Cultural Transformations in the Age of Globalization
Start - Finish
1.9.2011-1.9.2015