Renee
Almeling. 2015. “Reproduction.” Annual
Review of Sociology, 41: 423-42
"What is the social scientific study of reproduction, and what might it become?" p.424
"Public health officials have sought to extend these efforts to the period before conception, advising women to prepare their bodies for pregnancy in order to improve reproductive outcomes (Waggoner 2013). One result of efforts such as these is that responsibility for reproduction is lodged within women’s physical bodies (Armstrong 2003)." p.426
"Bridges’s (2011) ethnographic study of a large public hospital in New York City demonstrates the extent to which the care of pregnant and birthing women is shaped by social processes around race and class, including the prenatal education women receive from hospital staff about how to comply with institutionalized processes of labor and delivery (Armstrong 2000)." p.426
"Appearing on the market in 1960, the birth control pill has been hailed as revolutionary for how it allowed women to control their fertility and thus increase their educational attainment and participation in the labor force (Goldin & Katz 2002, May 2010, Watkins 2001). In light of the long history of pharmaceutical interventions in reproduction (Bell 2009), scholars have also focused on side effects, including gendered risk assessments by companies evaluating contraceptives for women and men (Van Kammen & Oudshoorn 2002), as well as on how gendered cultural norms around weight and emotions influence the embodied experience of side effects from the pill (Littlejohn 2013)." p.427
"Throughout the nineteenth century, reproduction became increasingly associated with political economy and demography (Franklin 2013)." p.429
"Whereas Ginsburg & Rapp (1991) emphasize reproductive “events” (p. 311) and “phenomena” (p. 330), Murphy instead defines reproduction as a “process.” She writes, “Reproduction is not so much a ‘thing’ as an overdetermined and distributed process that divergently brings individual lives, kinship, laboratories, race, nations, biotechnologies, time, and affects into confluence” (Murphy 2012, p. 8)." p.430
"Reproduction is the biological and social process of having or not having children" p.430
Different ways of studying reproduction:
How to begin research on reproduction: "Examine the
concepts that exist already, identify their scope and limits, place them in dialogue with one another,
build upon them, challenge them, and, when necessary, replace them." p.433
"Both stratified reproduction and reproductive justice are similar in that they focus on intersecting inequalities in the realm of reproduction. Yet they have slightly different emphases, which might be phrased as “how things are” versus “how things could be,” a distinction in keeping with their respective roots in anthropology and activism." p.434
RECOMMENDATION - Sweeney & Raley’s (2014) review of research on childbearing
"comparative studies of women’s and men’s experiences of reproductive ageing, as well as how this aspect of ageing is shaped by the intersecting inequalities associated with race, class, and sexuality." p.436
"Conceptualizing reproduction as a process trains one’s attention not just on a singular event (conception or abortion or birth), but on what came before and what follows, tracing the multiple effects of bodies, experiences, and interactions in particular social, political, and historical contexts. No aspect of reproduction is reducible to the individual, and conceptualizing it as a process that occurs on multiple levels over time emphasizes its sociality." p.437
"What is the social scientific study of reproduction, and what might it become?" p.424
"Public health officials have sought to extend these efforts to the period before conception, advising women to prepare their bodies for pregnancy in order to improve reproductive outcomes (Waggoner 2013). One result of efforts such as these is that responsibility for reproduction is lodged within women’s physical bodies (Armstrong 2003)." p.426
"Bridges’s (2011) ethnographic study of a large public hospital in New York City demonstrates the extent to which the care of pregnant and birthing women is shaped by social processes around race and class, including the prenatal education women receive from hospital staff about how to comply with institutionalized processes of labor and delivery (Armstrong 2000)." p.426
"Appearing on the market in 1960, the birth control pill has been hailed as revolutionary for how it allowed women to control their fertility and thus increase their educational attainment and participation in the labor force (Goldin & Katz 2002, May 2010, Watkins 2001). In light of the long history of pharmaceutical interventions in reproduction (Bell 2009), scholars have also focused on side effects, including gendered risk assessments by companies evaluating contraceptives for women and men (Van Kammen & Oudshoorn 2002), as well as on how gendered cultural norms around weight and emotions influence the embodied experience of side effects from the pill (Littlejohn 2013)." p.427
"Throughout the nineteenth century, reproduction became increasingly associated with political economy and demography (Franklin 2013)." p.429
"Whereas Ginsburg & Rapp (1991) emphasize reproductive “events” (p. 311) and “phenomena” (p. 330), Murphy instead defines reproduction as a “process.” She writes, “Reproduction is not so much a ‘thing’ as an overdetermined and distributed process that divergently brings individual lives, kinship, laboratories, race, nations, biotechnologies, time, and affects into confluence” (Murphy 2012, p. 8)." p.430
"Reproduction is the biological and social process of having or not having children" p.430
Different ways of studying reproduction:
-
Comparing across reproductive events (pregnancy, abortion, etc.)
-
Comparing across the life course (adolescence, adulthood, old age, etc.)
-
Comparing across analytical levels (bodily, interactional, cultural, political, etc.)
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Comparing across social locations (clinic, home, school, work, legislature, etc.)
-
Comparing across social groups (gender, race, class, sexuality, religion, etc.)
-
Comparing across historical periods (p.432)
"Both stratified reproduction and reproductive justice are similar in that they focus on intersecting inequalities in the realm of reproduction. Yet they have slightly different emphases, which might be phrased as “how things are” versus “how things could be,” a distinction in keeping with their respective roots in anthropology and activism." p.434
RECOMMENDATION - Sweeney & Raley’s (2014) review of research on childbearing
"comparative studies of women’s and men’s experiences of reproductive ageing, as well as how this aspect of ageing is shaped by the intersecting inequalities associated with race, class, and sexuality." p.436
"Conceptualizing reproduction as a process trains one’s attention not just on a singular event (conception or abortion or birth), but on what came before and what follows, tracing the multiple effects of bodies, experiences, and interactions in particular social, political, and historical contexts. No aspect of reproduction is reducible to the individual, and conceptualizing it as a process that occurs on multiple levels over time emphasizes its sociality." p.437
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