CALL FOR PAPERS
International Conference
University of Lausanne (UNIL) and
the School of Advanced Studies in the Social Sciences (EHESS Paris)
Minimising Risks, Selling Promises?
Reproductive Health, Techno-Scientific Innovations and
the Production of Ignorance
Lausanne, 22-23 November 2018
Organisers: Irène Maffi (UNIL) & Sezin Topçu (CEMS-Ehess)
Over the last decades, medical techno-scientific innovations have radically
transformed reproductive processes at every level by putting the
reproductive body under strict biomedical surveillance and submitting it to
significant technological manipulation. Most of these innovations, often
promoted as miracles and even revolutions, were generalised very rapidly
thanks to ever-growing national and global markets. Their side effects on
health were, however, insufficiently studied, or even ignored, until
scandals (diethylstilbestrol, thalidomide, primodos, Dalkon Shield) or
controversies (contraceptive pill, hormonal replacement therapy)
unavoidably made them public.[1] The medical community’s lack of concern
for the side effects of these technologies has been explained from a gender
perspective emphasising the fact that they were used mostly on female
bodies.[2] Not only are the pharmaceutical industry and technological
markets clearly gendered, but the script of medical reproductive
innovations and clinical tests is not gender-neutral as it generally
targets women rather than men.[3] Other technologies routinely used in
hospital births that generate iatrogenic risks, such as induction of
labour, continuous foetal monitoring, epidural anaesthesia or caesarean
section,[4] have rarely been critically examined considering their effects
in the short and long term. Moreover, even when there is consistent
scientific evidence that an intervention is harmful, the change in clinical
practice is very slow, such as in the case of systematic episiotomy.[5]
Besides, the health effects of hormonal treatments for women going through
IVF, the risks of miscarriage in case of amniocentesis, the various health
disorders of ‘ICSI babies’ and the psychological impacts of surrogacy or
egg-freezing[6] on (surrogate) mothers and babies continue to be
under-investigated. Many innovations, tests and treatments were made
routine despite the fact that their efficiency is marginal, unproven or
unevaluated, as is the case for the ‘add-ons’ that are supposed to increase
the success of IVF[7] or the MRTs that are supposed to prevent the
transmission of mitochondrial diseases.[8] Beyond their clinical or
practical impacts, however, innovations within fertility/anti-fertility
markets, pregnancy testing, obstetrical care and reproductive health often
have ethical, legal, social, economic and even anthropological
implications, which are rarely publicly debated before they become
normalised, thus making it difficult to go back once a technology is
introduced. This is the case with using caesarean section for breech
births, which in many countries became a routine operation following the
publication of a study later proven scientifically unfounded.[9] At the
crossroads of STS, sociology of risk, medical anthropology, gender studies
and ignorance studies, the aim of this international conference is to
analyse the dynamics of ignorance production prior to, during but also
after the rapid expansion of reproductive technologies, innovations and
products. Following its recent theorisations,[10] ignorance refers here to
either the absence of knowledge or to the artificially maintained
controversies, doubts and uncertainties involving the iatrogenic risks,
side effects or lack of efficiency (from an evidence-based medicine point
of view) of different innovations. Considering the notion of risk in its
broadest sense, ignorance also implies the absence or weakness of public
debate or deliberation regarding the potential destabilisations or ruptures
that these innovations often provoke in ethical, social, existential, as
well as political terms. In our contemporary knowledge societies, what are
the zones and frontiers of knowledge and ignorance in the field of human
reproduction? How (i.e. using which strategies, coalitions, discourses) do
the innovators, promoters and regulators of reproductive technologies or
products draw or influence such boundaries? What are the economic, social,
political or gendered prerogatives or interests that lead to the
non-production of evidence on health externalities or, taking a different
perspective, to the loss of collective memory on un-medicalised ways of
procreating or giving birth? Are there national regimes of ignorance
production that persist despite the increasing importance of transnational
regulatory bodies and the exceptional information flow characterising
today’s globalised and connected world? How are real-world or embodied
experiences of women, parents, babies and patients recognised, or rather
dismissed, in different political-cultural contexts and techno-industrial
sectors? What are the processes, circumstances or actions that facilitate
their recognition (popular epidemiology, social protest, juridical action,
coalition of causes with past or international experiences…)? This
international conference proposes to tackle these questions by putting
together empirical contributions that highlight the contemporary as well as
historical processes of technological normalisation and relevant ignorance
production (as well as its possible public challenge) in the fields of
human reproduction and reproductive health.
Organizing Committee
Irène Maffi ([log in to unmask]) & Sezin Topçu ([log in to unmask])
Paper Submission Guidelines Please send your abstract of around 700 words
as well as a short biography to the organizers before June 1st, 2018. The
abstracts should offer a precise description of your research object,
methodology and data. Notifications of acceptance will be sent by June
20th, 2018. If your abstract is accepted, you will be asked to provide a
full paper by November 5th, 2018. The travel and/or accommodation expenses
will be covered in accordance with the budget of the symposium.
Date and Place of the Conference The Conference will be held on 22-23
November 2018 at the University of Lausanne (UNIL), Institute of Social
Sciences, Lausanne, Switzerland.
[1] On diethylstilbestrol, see Bell, Susan E., 2009, DES Daughters.
Embodied Knowledge and the Transformation of Women’s Health Politics in the
Late Twentieth Century, Temple University Press ; on primodos, see
Olsynzko-Gryn, Jesse et al. (forthcoming), ‘Water under the bridge? A
Historical Argument for Regulatory Failure in the case of Primodos and
other « Hormone Pregnancy Tests »’. [2] Van Kammen, Jessika & Nelly
Oudshoorn, 2002, ‘Gender & risk assessment in contraceptive technology’,
Sociology of Health and Illness, Vol. 24, n. 4, pp. 436-461. Hardon, Anita,
2002, “Women’s views and experiences of hormonal contraceptives: what we
know and what we need to find out”,
http://www.who.int/reproductive-health/publications/
beyond_acceptability_users_perspectives_on_contraception/ hardon.en.pdf.
[3] Oudshoorn, Nelly (1994), Beyond the Natural Body. An Archeology of Sex
Hormones, Routledge; Oudshoorn, Nelly (2003), Male Pill. A Biography of a
Technology in the Making, Duke University Press ; Lafontaine, Céline
(2014), Le corps marché. La marchandisation de la vie humaine à l’ère de la
bioéconomie, Seuil.
[4] Sarda, Gita (2011), ‘Artificially maintained scientific controversies,
the construction of maternal choice and caesarean section rates’, Social
Theory & Health, vol. 9, n°2, p. 166-182.
[5] Perrenoud, Patricia (2014), ‘Naissance et évolution des pratiques:
entre evidence-based, expérience et intuition’ in C. Burton-Jeangros, R.
Hammer, I. Maffi, Accompagner la naissance. Terrains socio-anthropologiques
en Suisse romande, Lausanne et Bangkok, BNS Press, pp. 133-154. Goer, Henci
(1995), Obstetrics Myths versus Research Realities: A Guide to the Medical
Literature, Westport & London: Bergin & Garvey.
[6] Baldwin, Kylie, Culley, Lorraine A., Hudson, Nickey, Mitchell, Helene
L. (2014), ‘Reproductive technology and the life course: current debates
and research in social egg freezing’, Human Fertility, 17 (3), pp. 170-179.
[7] Heneghan, Carl et al. (2016), ‘Lack of evidence for interventions
offered in UK’s fertility centers’, British Medical Journal, 355, i6295.
[8] Herbrand, Cathy (2017), ‘Mitochondrial replacement techniques: who are
the potential users and will they benefit?’, Bioethics, vol. 31, n°1, p.
46-54.
[9] Hannah, Mary E. et al. (2000), ‘Planned caesarean section versus
planned vaginal birth for breech presentation at term: a randomised
multicentre trial’, Lancet, vol. 356, pp. 1375-1383.
[10] Gross, Matthias & McGoey, Linsey (eds.) (2015), Routledge
International Handbook of Ignorance Studies, Routledge ; Proctor, Robert N.
(1995) ; Cancer Wars: How Politics Shapes What We Know and Don’t Know about
Cancer, Basic Books ; Oreskes, Naomi & Conway, Eric M. (2015), Merchants of
Doubt: How a Handful of Scientists Obscured the Truth on Issues from
Tobacco Smoke to Global Warming, Bloomsbury Press.
--
Dr Jesse Olszynko-Gryn
Wellcome Trust Research Fellow
Department of History and Philosophy of Science
University of Cambridge
Cambridge CB2 3RH
Telephone: 07760918951
http://www.people.hps.cam.ac.uk/index/fellows-associates/olszynkogryn
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