Haunting images : a cultural account of selective reproduction in Vietnam / Tine M. Gammeltoft.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Gammeltoft, Tine M.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Abortion--Moral and ethical aspects--Vietnam.

Abortion.

Abortion--Social aspects--Vietnam.

Physical Description:

1 online resource (332 p.)

Edition:

1st ed.

Place of Publication:

Berkeley, California : University of California Press, 2014.

Language Note:

English

Summary:

Based on years of careful ethnographic fieldwork in Hanoi, Haunting Images offers a frank and compassionate account of the moral quandaries that accompany innovations in biomedical technology. At the center of the book are case studies of thirty pregnant women whose fetuses were labeled "abnormal" after an ultrasound examination. By following these women and their relatives through painful processes of reproductive decision making, Tine M. Gammeltoft offers intimate ethnographic insights into everyday life in contemporary Vietnam and a sophisticated theoretical exploration of how subjectivities are forged in the face of moral assessments and demands.Across the globe, ultrasonography and other technologies for prenatal screening offer prospective parents new information and present them with agonizing decisions never faced in the past. For anthropologists, this diagnostic capability raises important questions about individuality and collectivity, responsibility and choice. Arguing for more sustained anthropological attention to human quests for belonging, Haunting Images addresses existential questions of love and loss that concern us all.

Contents:

Frontmatter

Contents

Illustrations

Acknowledgments

Prologue

Introduction

1. Sonographic Imaging and Selective Reproduction in Hanoi

2. A Collectivizing Biopolitics

3. Precarious Maternal Belonging

4. "Like a Loving Mother": Moral Engagements in Medical Worlds

5. "How Have We Lived?" Accounting for Reproductive Misfortune

6. Beyond Knowledge: Everyday Encounters with Disability

7. Questions of Conscience

Conclusion

Appendix: Core Cases

Notes

Bibliography

Index

Notes:

Description based upon print version of record.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Description based on print version record.

ISBN:

9780520278431

0520278437

9780520958159

0520958152

OCLC:

869735877