Clinical Agencements and the Reproduction of Body Colour. Phenotype, Race and Kinship in the Argentine Fertility Clinic

ARIZA, LUCÍA

Desdobramentos do corpo no século XXI

FAPERJ

Año: 2016; p. 83 - 101

This article examines ?phenotype matching?, a procedure used in Assisted ReproductiveTechnologies (ARTs) to coordinate ova donor/recipient appearances. Using a Science andTechnology Studies (STS) approach, the articles suggests that race is key in making kinship explicit, amaking that is particularly important in the case of donor conception. By examining some of the waysin which race helps to sustain a regime of visibility whereby family links need to be made visible inorder to count as such, I make two concatenated claims. First, that race allows to see the differences inbodily colours that may otherwise be too abstract to relate empirically. This making visible contributes, in turn, to the production of race as a material bodily substance. Second, I contend thatthe avoidance of racial in-coherence between mothers and offspring helps to make kinship visible,that is, to make it real.