Making Parents: The Ontological Choreography of Reproductive Technologies (Inside Technology)

This is definitely someone’s dissertation, with all of the weight that that entails. The first few chapters, on STS and feminist theory, do an admirable job surveying deep and complicated fields. Thompson is deeply knowledgeable about reproductive technology, both as an ethnographic investigator in clinics, and as someone who conceived via ART. She walks the delicate line between the personal and the objective. That said, the writing is dense for no other reason than density, “ontological choreography” (whatever it is) is overkill for this work. I wanted to sit her down and ask “What does this all mean in words of no more than 2-syllables?” Alas, no luck.