CfP: Minimising Risks, Selling Promises?
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 (Irene.Maffi@unil.ch) & Sezin Topçu (sezin.topcu@ehess.fr)
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/reproductiv
[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.
