Colloque – Reproduction and risk (20.11.2019, Leicester)

BSA POSTGRADUATE STUDENT REGIONAL EVENT ‘REPRODUCTION AND RISK’, 20TH NOVEMBER 2019, COLLEGE COURT LEICESTER

This one-day conference is designed to stimulate theoretical conversations around the ways risk and anxiety are enacted across the reproductive life course, and, in turn, how they are theorised in various disciplinary sub-fields, such as the sociology of birth, reproductive sociology and the sociology of the family.

We are pleased to announce that Dr Zeynep Gurtin from the Institute for Women’s Health, UCL, will give the key-note address, discussing 'Anxious Reproduction and Reproductive Anxiety: How Risk, Uncertainty and Accountability Have Changed the Emotional Landscape of Parenthood'. Zeynep is a reproductive sociologist, focusing on the socio-cultural aspects of assisted reproduction and later motherhood. 

Dr Cathy Herbrand, Deputy Director of the Centre for Reproduction Research, DMU, will open the afternoon session with a talk on 'Making reproductive choices in the context of inherited disease: a complex balance between risks, experiential knowledge and practical constraints'. Cathy's research interests lie in the sociological and anthropological study of new family forms, biotechnologies, health and genetics, with a particular focus on reproductive decision-making and patients’ needs. 

With five post-graduate researchers presenting on diverse aspects of the reproductive experience, from 'artificial wombs' through to 'untangling tongue tie', this conference will explore how risk is conceptualised, learnt and enacted across the reproductive subfields, with the aim of developing our understanding of shared themes, tensions and theories.

The full programme with speaker profiles is now available on the BSA website.