Ar Ts And The Family Notes

JW REVISION NOTES ARTs and the Family Franklin et al Franklin Sassen Barthes Weston Hayden Corea Inhorn Inhorn Kahn Ragone Global Nature, Global Culture Embodied Progress Guests and Aliens Mythologies Families We Choose Gender, Genetics and Generation The Mother Machine Local Babies, Global Science Rethinking 'reproductive tourism' as 'reproductive exile' Reproducing Jews Surrogate Motherhood and American Kinship Thomas Beatie - Pregnant man Evans v. Johnson - who's embryos after divorce? Diane Blood - posthumous conception Maria Bousada - elderly mother 2005 Donor identity revealed HFEA Act 1990 Theory Franklin et al Global Nature, Global Culture Globalisation has a particular effect of producing particular dialogues of what constitutes nature. Nature is often constructed through technologies, which she calls 'Second Nature'. The globalisation of certain issues has been provoked by certain icons, which have led to the sense of a global duty. This duty has met certain meta-narratives of nature/culture. To paraphrase, SF says that she is looking at "how the relationship between nature and culture has been refigured in a global order" She critiques Butler positively, saying that feminist literature has become more about what gender does, than what it 'is'. This is particularly relevant in looking at how 'gender technologies' produce ARTs. She looks at how ARTs and biological technologies have affected global issues. The foetus and the cell have produced very visceral, symbolic icons of humanity's exposure to risk. "the icons of the foetus and the cell offer a view from within" In evoking the word icons SF brings to mind a Levi-Straussian world where certain items form part of mythological narratives. The foetus has produced a narrative of humanity's exposure to risk. It has also brought pre-life to within human grasp, much as the Blue Planet has brought the 'world' within human grasp. Both of these icons are used in a narrative of human fragility. They both stand for something beyond human's direct experience. They are, in Straussian terms, a new 'myth' that brings with it certain imperatives of what 'should' be done. This globalised icon of the fragile human life has been incorporated into different local narratives in very different ways. Although SF's interpretation of global icons is useful for looking at how global issues have been produced, her work lacks an empirical backing. For one, ARTs have been part of sociological imagination for a long, long time. The foetus was part of most religions, etc. She also disregards the experience of pregnant women, who although the sonogram is an important icon of their pregnancy, also have an experiential evocation of the fetus. The globalistion of ARTs rests less on the global icons that are produced, and more on the global technologies that are culturally interpreted. Sassen Guests and Aliens In this history of migration in Western Europe and US, Sassen develops a critical edge that nation states are changing in their meaning. Although immigration is often considered to threaten nation states, for example 'American Culture', Sassen criticizes this political rhetoric. Historically for example in movement from East to West Germany, the problem of immigration was a problem of 'Otherness' more than it was a problem of race, ethnicity or religion. More than ever, globalisation means that the divide between origin and destination is no longer a divide of Otherness, a world in which borders no longer separate human realities". Because of this 'belonging' is an outdated concept. In particular Sassen critiques the popular belief that migration is a homologous 'poor-to-rich' movement. Rather, it is from particular areas to particular areas. It is not 'invasion'. A relatively small number of people choose to move, even across very steep gradients in objective 'quality of life' because people remain localized through history, kin and memory. Barthes Mythologies 

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