Baby's First Picture: Ultrasound and the Politics of Fetal Subjects - Softcover

Mitchell, Lisa M.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802083498 ISBN 13: 9780802083494

Publisher: University of Toronto Press, 2001

Synopsis

Appearing through developments in medicine, in volatile debates over abortion rights, in popular guides to pregnancy, and in advertisements for cars and long-distance telephone plans, the fetus has become an increasingly familiar part of our social landscape in Canada. Lisa Mitchell provides a critical anthropological perspective on the fetal subject, particularly as it emerges through the practice of ultrasound imaging.

'Seeing the baby,' is now a routine and expected part of pregnancy and prenatal care in Canada. Conventionally understood as a neutral and passive technology, ultrasound appears to be a 'window' through which to observe fetal sex, age, size, physical normality, and behaviour. However, Mitchell argues, what is seen through ultrasound is neither self-evident nor natural, but historically and culturally contingent and subject to a wide range of interpretation.

Drawing upon fieldwork over the past ten years, the author includes observations at ultrasound clinics, interviews with pregnant women and their partners, and a discussion on how ultrasound's echoes become meaningful as 'baby's first picture' - a snapshot of the fetus in utero.

Throughout, Mitchell probes our acceptance of this technology, our willingness to take fetal imaging for granted, and illuminates the links between this technologically mediated 'fetal reality' and the politics of gender and reproduction in Canada.

About this title

About the Author

Lisa M. Mitchell is Assistant Professor in the Department of Anthropology at the University of Victoria in British Columbia.

Edition details

• Publisher: University of Toronto Press
• Publication date: 2001
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802083498
• ISBN 13: 9780802083494
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 288