Details

Autor(en) / Beteiligte

• Gammeltoft, Tine M

Titel

Haunting Images: A Cultural Account of Selective Reproduction in Vietnam

Erscheinungsjahr

2014

Link zum Volltext

Quelle

Sociological Abstracts

Beschreibungen/Notizen

• This ethnography offers a frank and compassionate account of the moral quandaries that accompany innovations in biomedical technology, based on fieldwork in Hanoi. At the center of the book are case studies of thirty pregnant women whose fetuses were labeled 'abnormal' after an ultrasound examination. By following these women and their relatives through painful processes of reproductive decision making, the author offers insights into everyday life in contemporary Vietnam and a sophisticated theoretical exploration of how subjectivities are forged in the face of moral assessments and demands. Across the globe, ultrasonography and other technologies for prenatal screening offer prospective parents new information and present them with agonizing decisions never faced in the past. For anthropologists, this diagnostic capability raises important questions about individuality and collectivity, responsibility and choice. Arguing for more sustained anthropological attention to human quests for belonging, the book aims to address existential questions of love and loss. Appendixes, References.