Date:
Location:
"The ‘Nature’ of Queer Families: Tracking the Socio-Technics of the Fertility Clinic"
Speaker:
Stu Marvel, Visiting Assistant Professor, Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies, Emory University.
Co-sponsored by the Studies of Women, Gender, and Sexuality, Harvard University.
Contact:
Shana Rabinowich
shana_rabinowich@hks.harvard.edu
Chair:
Sheila Jasanoff, Faculty Associate. Pforzheimer Professor of Science and Technology Studies, Harvard Kennedy School.
Lunch is provided if you RSVP via our online form by Thursday of the week before the event.
Abstract:
This paper tracks how fertility interventions, legal regulations and human bodies align in the socio-technical space of the clinic to coproduce certain forms of family. It is based on a qualitative research project that canvassed 40 lesbian, gay, bisexual and trans-identified families about their experiences with assisted reproductive technology. Using this data, the paper explores the epistemic practices of the clinic and the manner in which discourses of ‘the natural’ are constructed through the operations of technology. I suggest the utility of a queer lens in thinking through these practices, and argue that queer families offer a fascinating combination of sociality and biology; traditional and disruptive; conventional and strange, which provide highly useful passage for scholars interested in the operations of reproductive technology and family. This paper will ask how a queer perspective might help destabilize ‘the natural’ and allow us to think more carefully about the manner in which reproductive power and privilege are distributed through law and medicine.
Biography:
Stu Marvel is a Visiting Assistant Professor at the Department of Women’s, Gender and Sexuality Studies at Emory University, where she works on issues related to sexuality, law, family and gender. She was previously a Postdoctoral Fellow with the Vulnerability and Human Condition Initiative at Emory Law. Dr. Marvel received her PhD from Osgoode Hall Law School in Toronto, Canada, based on a critical and empirical study of LGBTQ families in Ontario and their experiences with assisted reproductive technology. She received her LLM at Osgoode Hall, and an MA in gender analysis for international development from the University of East Anglia. She has held visiting scholar positions at the Centre for Law, Gender and Sexuality at Kent Law School, the Feminism and Legal Theory Project at Emory Law, and will be at Northeastern University in Spring 2016 as a visiting scholar with the Women’s, Gender, and Sexuality Studies Program. Previously, Dr. Marvel worked as communications liaison at the Korean National Commission for UNESCO in South Korea and served as gender advisor to the Ministry of Women in The Gambia.
