Configuring maternal, foetal and infant embodiment in the

context of biopolitics

Deborah Lupton, Department of Sociology and Social Policy, University

of Sydney

My related research

• Biopolitical dimensions of medicine and public health• Risk and everyday life• First-time parenthood: women’s experiences of

pregnancy, childbirth, breastfeeding and infant care• Mothers’ concepts of health in their infants and young

children• Emotion and maternal carework • Infant embodiment: representations, meanings,

practices• The social worlds of the preborn organism

Time magazine heralds the advent of IVF

Embryo at 7 weeks of gestation

7-week embryo specimen from ectopic pregnancy, Wikipedia

The Visible Embryo Project

The commodification of preborn body images

‘Embryo Princess’ from the animation series ‘Adventure Time’

Lennart Nilsson pic 1

Lennart Nilsson pic 2

Lennart Nilsson pic 3

3/4D obstetric ultrasound

Pro-life pic 1

Pro-life pic 2

Angel foetuses with embryos

God’s Little Ones

Pro-life display dolls

BodyWorlds Exhibition

Misbehaving Mums to Be

US Time magazine, 21 May 2012

Theoretical perspectives

• Risk society, reflexive modernisation, individualisation (Beck and Beck-Gernsheim)

• Biopolitics, governmentality and pregnancy/motherhood: ‘reproductive asceticism’ (Weir, Ettore, Ruhl)

Theoretical perspectives 2

• Gendered embodiment, permeability, liquidities, ambiguity, Self/Other (Grosz, Shildrick, Kristeva, Young, Longhurst)

• Visualising culture, technologies and the preborn body (Duden, Petchesky, Hartouni, Casper)

Blurring of boundaries of bodies/selves

maternal body/self

child/infant/foetus/embryo/ pre-conceived embryo