IsisCB Explore

Article ID: CBB035082879

When craft kicks back: Embryo culture as knowledge production in the context of the transnational fertility industry (June 2022)

Elina Helosvuori (Author)
Riikka Homanen (Author)

Social Studies of Science
Volume: 52
Issue: 3
Pages: 425-446
Publication date: June 2022
Language: English

DOI: 10.1177/03063127221083869

URI: https://doi.org/10.1177/03063127221083869

Outside Links

PubMed

WorldCat

Google Scholar

JSTOR

Biomedicine Ethnography Standards and standardization Embryo culture Fertility clinics Science and technology studies (STS) Knowledge production (modes) Fertilization, in vitro 21st century Finland

The multibillion-dollar fertility industry promotes standardization in in vitro fertilization laboratories. Transnational pharmaceutical and biotechnological giants distribute a wide range of fertility products, from embryo culture mediums and incubator technologies to add-ons such as time-lapse embryo monitoring. These technologies are designed to standardize and automate knowledge production regarding embryonic viability. More effective knowledge production enables the more effective selection of embryos for transfer, which in turn leads to more future babies and enables economic scaling-up. Drawing on two multi-sited ethnographic studies at eight fertility clinics in Finland during 2013–2020, this article discusses how knowledge about embryos is produced in the processes and practices of embryo culture. We argue that automation and standardization in clinical practice are not always perceived as economically desirable. Sometimes standard technologies do not replace hands-on knowledge production, although they may transform it. The technologies are also perceived as modifying the object of knowledge itself in undesired or unnecessary ways. In such cases, concerns are raised regarding the best interests of patients, embryos and future babies, who might be better served by masterful laboratory craftwork. We conclude that embryo culture is not only a site of knowledge production – one that aims to make babies and parents through standard and craftwork knowledge practices – but also a site of multiple bio-economies of assisted reproduction, some of which resist automation and standardization.

...More

Citation URI

data.isiscb.org/p/isis/citation/CBB035082879

This citation is part of the Isis database.

Citations Indexes

Similar Citations

Article Alina Geampana; Manuela Perrotta; (2023)
Predicting Success in the Embryology Lab: The Use of Algorithmic Technologies in Knowledge Production (/p/isis/citation/CBB717872146/)

Article María Fernanda Olarte-Sierra; (2019)
Of flesh and bone: Emotional and affective ethnography of forensic anthropology practices amidst an armed conflict (/p/isis/citation/CBB046116318/)

Article Clémence Pinel; (March 2021)
Renting Valuable Assets: Knowledge and Value Production in Academic Science (/p/isis/citation/CBB574556496/)

Article Beth Greenhough; Emma Roe; (July 2018)
Exploring the Role of Animal Technologists in Implementing the 3Rs: An Ethnographic Investigation of the UK University Sector (/p/isis/citation/CBB661318783/)

Book Franklin, Sarah; (2013)
Biological Relatives: IVF, Stem Cells, and the Future of Kinship (/p/isis/citation/CBB001422164/)

Book Roberts, Elizabeth F. S.; (2012)
God's Laboratory: Assisted Reproduction in the Andes (/p/isis/citation/CBB001213115/)

Article Eve-Riina Hyrkäs; (2021)
Psychosomatic Pain? The Meanings of Musculoskeletal Affliction in Finnish Medicine, ca. 1950–2000 (/p/isis/citation/CBB762858243/)

Article Sibille Merz; (July 2021)
Global Trials, Local Bodies: Negotiating Difference and Sameness in Indian For-profit Clinical Trials (/p/isis/citation/CBB863654493/)

Article Tessa Moll; (2022)
Six Days in Plastic: Potentiality, Normalization, and In Vitro Embryos in the Postgenomic Age (/p/isis/citation/CBB595238747/)

Article David Demortain; (2024)
Mistrust of the black box: The public auditing of private models in the chemicals regulatory space (/p/isis/citation/CBB384424304/)

Article Anissa Tanweer; James Steinhoff; (2024)
Academic data science: Transdisciplinary and extradisciplinary visions (/p/isis/citation/CBB231930136/)

Article Amanda Menking; Jon Rosenberg; (May 2021)
WP:NOT, WP:NPOV, and Other Stories Wikipedia Tells Us: A Feminist Critique of Wikipedia’s Epistemology (/p/isis/citation/CBB986509779/)

Article Claudia Salomon Tarquini; (2019)
Academic knowledge about indigenous peoples in the Americas: A comparative approach about the conditions of its international circulation (/p/isis/citation/CBB286322356/)

Article Lisa Lindén; (July 2021)
Moving Evidence: Patients’ Groups, Biomedical Research, and Affects (/p/isis/citation/CBB080289080/)

Book James Doucet-Battle; (2021)
Sweetness in the Blood: Race, Risk, and Type 2 Diabetes (/p/isis/citation/CBB627670336/)

Book Laurent Pordié; Stephan Kloos; (2022)
Healing at the Periphery: Ethnographies of Tibetan Medicine in India (/p/isis/citation/CBB582163592/)

Article Esa Väliverronen; Sampsa Saikkonen; (November 2021)
Freedom of Expression Challenged: Scientists’ Perspectives on Hidden Forms of Suppression and Self-censorship (/p/isis/citation/CBB818104236/)

Article Pia Vuolanto; Marjo Kolehmainen; (July 2021)
Gendered Boundary-work within the Finnish Skepticism Movement (/p/isis/citation/CBB137850505/)

Article Jiang, Lijing; (2015)
IVF the Chinese Way: Zhang Lizhu and Post-Mao Human In Vitro Fertilization Research (/p/isis/citation/CBB001550709/)

Article Niccolò Tempini; Sabina Leonelli; (October 2018)
Concealment and discovery: The role of information security in biomedical data re-use (/p/isis/citation/CBB165158249/)