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Baby's First Picture : Ultrasound and the Politics of Fetal Subjects / Lisa M. Mitchell.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: Toronto : University of Toronto Press, [2001]Copyright date: ©2001Description: 1 online resource (288 p.)Content type:
Media type:
Carrier type:
ISBN:
  • 9780802083494
  • 9781442671140
Subject(s): DDC classification:
  • 618.3/207543 21
LOC classification:
  • RG527.5.U48 M55 2001
Other classification:
  • online - DeGruyter
Online resources: Summary: 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.
Holdings
Item type Current library Call number URL Status Notes Barcode
eBook eBook Biblioteca "Angelicum" Pont. Univ. S.Tommaso d'Aquino Nuvola online online - DeGruyter (Browse shelf(Opens below)) Online access Not for loan (Accesso limitato) Accesso per gli utenti autorizzati / Access for authorized users (dgr)9781442671140

restricted access online access with authorization star

http://purl.org/coar/access_right/c_16ec

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.

Mode of access: Internet via World Wide Web.

In English.

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 01. Nov 2023)