Cross-Cultural Cyborgs: Greek and Canadian Women's Discourses on Fetal Ultrasound

Mitchell, Lisa M.; Georges, Eugenia

doi:10.2307/3178405

Cited by 109 publications

(95 citation statements)

References 6 publications

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“…A growing body of literature reveals the various ways the foetal and infant body are positioned in popular media and medical and public health discourses in order to encourage maternal responsibility [18][19][20][21][22]. In neoliberal society, women turn to a range of technologies and systems of expertise and guidance in order to manage the risks, pressures and challenges characteristic of the transition to first-time motherhood.…”

Section: "Being-for-intimate-others"mentioning

confidence: 99%

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“Maternal Devices”, Social Media and the Self-Management of Pregnancy, Mothering and Child Health

2014

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Abstract:In recent years the smartphone has revolutionised lay people's management of health and illness, particularly in regards to pregnancy and parenting. This article analyses smartphone applications, or apps, and social media platforms as mediating technologies which act as performative devices. These devices encourage particular enactments of subjectivity and technologies of the self which combine the expert patient ideal with ideologies of mothering. Some apps and social media can be disciplinary and invoke biological responsibility in various ways including the monitoring of specific behaviours via -push responsibilisation‖. Apps claim to allow for greater convenience, connectivity, flexibility, efficiency, and what will be characterised in this article as the -tidbitisation‖ of information. This article suggests the ways in which health-conscious pregnant or maternal subjects are likely to view apps and social media sites as a means to improve and monitor their pregnancies, health, and their children's development and health.

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Section: "Being-for-intimate-others"mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Technology and the human imagination combine to form the -cyborg foetus‖ [20,28]. In the following quote, Jenny discusses how her baby's personality develops in her imagination after the sexing ultrasound:…”

Section: Apps and Social Mediamentioning

confidence: 99%

“Maternal Devices”, Social Media and the Self-Management of Pregnancy, Mothering and Child Health

2014

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“…It might also have been a way of displaying their consumption of ultrasound technology. It has been argued that consuming all available technologies during pregnancy is a sign of responsible mothering (Rothman, 2014) and that ultrasound use specifically may be a sign of 'good' and even 'modern' parenting (Mitchell and Georges, 1997).…”

Section: Sharing Sonogramsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Seeing the Baby, Doing Family: Commercial Ultrasound as Family Practice?

2015

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A note on versions:The version presented here may differ from the published version or, version of record, if you wish to cite this item you are advised to consult the publisher's version. Please see the 'permanent WRAP URL' above for details on accessing the published version and note that access may require a subscription.For more information, please contact the WRAP Team at: wrap@warwick.ac.uk 1 Seeing the baby, doing family: commercial ultrasound as family practice?ABSTRACT Medical sociologists and anthropologists have studied the social significance of obstetric ultrasound for families but little is known about how women and families make use of commercially available ultrasound scans. This article draws on interviews with women who booked a scan with a commercial company in the UK. For some women, commercial ultrasound can be understood as a family practice. We investigate this theme by examining who accompanies women to commercial scan appointments, how scan images are shared and how sonograms are used as prompts to resemblance talk. We argue that commercial scans are more than an additional opportunity to acquire 'baby's first picture' and offer a flexible resource to do family, creating and affirming family relationships and rehearsing roles as parents, siblings and grandparents. Our findings confirm the importance of imagination in doing family and raise questions about the role of technology and commercial interests in shaping family practices.

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“…Through these technologies the preborn have become 'public', their presence and character rendered visual rather than tactile (Duden 1993;Hartouni 1991Hartouni , 1992Petchesky 1987). Indeed, by virtue of the ubiquity of the use of images of the preborn body in western countries in the popular media, including Hollywood films and advertisements, the preborn have become represented as social actors in their own right (Mitchell 2001;Mitchell and Georges 1997;Stormer 2008;Taylor 2008). Many such images portray the preborn body as floating in its own space, with no visual indicator of the existence of the maternal body in which it is living.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Over the past half century, biomedical technologies have played an increasingly important part in the construction, production, imaging and surveillance of preborn bodies. Indeed some scholars have employed the term 'cyborg foetus' to denote the influence of technologies in representing and giving meaning to contemporary preborn bodies, suggesting that with the use of these technologies preborn embodiment emerges as a coupling of fleshly body and machine (Mitchell and Georges 1997). Visual imaging technologies construct and represent the preborn body in certain ways.…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Configuring Maternal, Preborn and Infant Embodiment

Lupton

2012

SSRN Journal

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A growing literature on the biopolitics of contemporary maternity and on risk society, individualisation and parenting has demonstrated the increasing emphasis that has been placed upon pregnant women and mothers to take responsibility for the health and welfare of their children. The ideal female 'reproductive citizen' is expected to place her children's health and wellbeing above her own needs and desires. Here the subject positions of the 'good mother' and the 'responsible citizen' as they are produced through the discourses and practices of neoliberalism intertwine. This paper looks at the convergence of various influential discourses, images, practices and technologies in configuring maternal, preborn and infant bodies in certain ways in the context of neoliberalism. These include such factors as the growing importance of the concept of risk in relation to preborn and infant wellbeing, the extension of infant identity back into preborn bodies, the emergence of the concepts of the foetal and embryonic (and even the preconceived embryonic) citizen, the precious child and intensive parenting and the symbolic concepts of permeability, purity and danger and Self and Other as they relate to maternal, infant and preborn embodiment.

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Cross-Cultural Cyborgs: Greek and Canadian Women's Discourses on Fetal Ultrasound

Cited by 109 publications

References 6 publications

“Maternal Devices”, Social Media and the Self-Management of Pregnancy, Mothering and Child Health

“Maternal Devices”, Social Media and the Self-Management of Pregnancy, Mothering and Child Health

Seeing the Baby, Doing Family: Commercial Ultrasound as Family Practice?

Configuring Maternal, Preborn and Infant Embodiment

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