Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-g8jcs Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-23T20:31:06.811Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Fetal Relationality in Feminist Philosophy: An Anthropological Critique

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  11 March 2020

Lynn M. Morgan
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

This essay critiques feminist treatments of maternal-fetal “relationality” that unwittingly replicate features of Western individualism (for example, the Cartesian division between the asocial body and the social-cognitive person, or the conflation of social and biological birth). I argue for a more reflexive perspective on relationality that would acknowledge how we produce persons through our actions and rhetoric. Personhood and relationality can be better analyzed as dynamic, negotiated qualities realized through social practice.

Type
Research Article
Information
Hypatia , Volume 11 , Issue 3 , Summer 1996 , pp. 47 - 70
Copyright
Copyright © 1996 by Hypatia, Inc.

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Addelson, Kathryn Pyne. 1987. Moral passages. In Women and moral theory, ed. Kittay, Eva Feder and Meyers, Diana T.Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Addelson, Kathryn Pyne. 1994. Moral passages: Toward a collectivist moral theory. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Battaglia, Debbora ed., 1995a. Rhetorics of self‐making. Berkeley: University of California Press.10.1525/california/9780520087989.001.0001CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Battaglia, Debbora ed., 1995b. Problematizing the self: A thematic introduction. In Rhetorics of self‐making, ed. Battaglia, Debbora. Berkeley: University of California Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Berlant, Lauren. 1994. America, fat, the fetus. Boundary, 2, 21: 145–95.Google Scholar
Boling, Patricia ed., 1995. Expecting trouble: Surrogacy, fetal abuse, and new reproductive technologies. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Bordo, Susan. 1993. Unbearable weight: Feminism, Western culture, and the body. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Burgess‐Jackson, Keith. 1994. Review of No longer patient: Feminist ethics and health care, by Susan Sherwin. Canadian Journal of Philosophy 24 (1): 135–54.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Butler, Judith. 1990. Gender trouble: Feminism and the subversion of identity. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Carrithers, MichaelCollins, Steven, and Luke, Steven. 1985. The category of the person: Anthropology, philosophy, history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Casper, Monica J. 1994. Reframing and grounding nonhuman agency: What makes a fetus an agent? American Behavioral Scientist 37 (6): 839–56.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Condit, Celeste Michelle. 1990. Decoding abortion rhetoric: Communicating social change. Urbana: University of Illinois Press.Google Scholar
Condit, Deirdre Moira. 1995. Fetal personhood: Political identity under construction. In Expecting trouble: Surrogacy, fetal abuse and new reproductive technologies, ed. Boling, Patricia. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Conklin, Beth Ann. 1995. “Thus are our bodies, thus was our custom”: Mortuary cannibalism in an Amazonian society. American Ethnologist 22 (1): 75–101.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Conklin, Beth Ann and Morgan, Lynn M.Babies, bodies, and the social production of personhood in North America and native Amazonia.Ethos, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Daniels, Cynthia. 1993. At women's expense: State power and the politics of fetal rights. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Duden, Barbara. 1993. Disembodying women: Perspectives on pregnancy and the unborn. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Fox‐Genovese, Elizabeth. 1991. Feminism without illusions: A critique of individualism. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press.Google Scholar
Franklin, Sarah. 1992. Fetal fascinations: New dimensions to the medical‐scientific construction of fetal personhood. In Off‐Centre: Feminism and cultural studies, ed. Franklin, SarahLury, Celia, and Stacey, Jackie. New York: HarperCollins.Google Scholar
Franklin, Sarah and Ragoné, Helena eds., Reproducing reproduction. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Gallagher, Janet. 1987. Prenatal invasions and interventions: What's wrong with fetal rights. Harvard Women's Law Journal 10: 9–58.Google ScholarPubMed
Gilligan, Carol. 1982. In a different voice: Psychological theory and women's moral development. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Gilligan, Carol. 1987. Moral orientation and moral development. In Women and moral theory, ed. Kittay, Eva Feder and Meyers, Diana T.Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Ginsburg, Faye, and Rapp, Rayna. 1995. Conceiving the new world order: The global politics of reproduction. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Hart, Amy. 1994. Mother maroon. One‐woman performance at Hampshire College.Google Scholar
Hartouni, Valerie. 1991. Containing women: Reproductive discourse in the 1980s. In Technoculture, ed. Penley, Constance and Ross, Andrew. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Hartouni, Valerie. 1993. Fetal exposures: Abortion politics and the optics of allusion. Camera obscura 29: 131–49.Google Scholar
Hartouni, Valerie. 1994. Breached birth: Reflections on race, gender, and reproductive discourse. Configurations 2 (1): 73–88.10.1353/con.1994.0011CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Held, Virginia. 1987. Feminism and moral theory. In Women and moral theory, ed. Kittay, Eva Feder and Meyers, Diana T.Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Littlefield.Google Scholar
Held, Virginia. 1993. Feminist morality: Transforming culture, society, and politics. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.Google Scholar
Inhorn, Marcia C. 1994. Quest for conception: Gender, infertility, and Egyptian medical traditions. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.Google Scholar
Jackson, Michael, and Karp, Ivan. 1991. Introduction to Personhood and agency: The experience of self and other in African cultures, ed. Jackson, Michael and Karp, Ivan. Washington: Smithsonian Institution Press.Google Scholar
Kroeger‐Mappes, Joy. 1994. The ethic of care vis‐a‐vis the ethic of rights. Hypatia 9 (3): 108–31.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Layne, Linda. 1990. Motherhood lost: Cultural dimensions of miscarriage and stillbirth in America. Women and Health 16 (3): 75–104.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Layne, Linda. 1992. Of fetuses and angels: Fragmentation and integration in narratives of pregnancy loss. In Knowledge and society, ed. Hess, David and Layne, Linda. Greenwich, CT: JAI Press.Google Scholar
Mackenzie, Catriona. 1992. Abortion and embodiment. Australian Journal of Philosophy 70 (2): 136–55.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Maybury‐Lewis, David. 1967. Akwe‐Shavante society. Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar
Meigs, Anna. 1984. Food, sex and pollution: A New Guinea religion. New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, Lynn M. 1989. When does life begin? A cross‐cultural perspective. In Abortion and fetal “personhood,” ed. Doerr, Edd and Prescott, James. Long Beach, CA: Centerline Press.Google Scholar
Morgan, Lynn M. 1989. Ambiguities lost: Fashioning the fetus into a child in Ecuador and the United States. In The cultural politics of childhood, ed. Sargent, Carolyn and Scheper‐Hughes, Nancy. Berkeley: University of California Press, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Morton, Christine. 1994. Envisioning fetal selves: The interactional achievement of personhood in utero. Paper presented at the American Anthropological Association meetings, Atlanta, Georgia .Google Scholar
Noddings, Nel. 1989. Women and evil. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Noonan, John. 1979. A private choice: Abortion in America in the seventies. New York: Free Press.Google Scholar
Oaks, Laury. Irishness, Eurocitizens, and reproductive rights. In Reproducing reproduction, ed. Franklin, Sarah and Ragoné, Helena. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Petchesky, Rosalind Pollack. 1985. Abortion and woman's choice: The state, sexuality, and reproductive freedom. Boston: Northeastern University Press.Google Scholar
Petchesky, Rosalind Pollack. 1987. Foetal images: The power of visual culture in the politics of reproduction. In Reproductive technologies: Gender, motherhood, and medicine, ed. Stanworth, Michelle. Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press.Google Scholar
Pollitt, Katha. 1992. Why do we romanticize the fetus? Glamour, October, 260–61, 297–98.Google Scholar
Poovey, Mary. 1992. The abortion question and the death of man. In Feminists theorize the political, ed. Butler, Judith and Scott, Joan W.New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Porter, Elisabeth. 1994. Abortion ethics: Rights and responsibilities. Hypatia 9 (3): 66–87.CrossRefGoogle ScholarPubMed
Purdy, Linda M. 1990. Are pregnant women fetal containers? Bioethics 4 (4): 273–91.Google ScholarPubMed
Rapp, Rayna. 1987. Moral pioneers: Women, men and fetuses on a frontier of reproductive technology. Women and Health 13 (1–2): 101–16.Google ScholarPubMed
Rapp, Rayna. 1988. Chromosomes and communication: The discourse of genetic counseling. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 2 (2): 121–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rapp, Rayna. 1990. Constructing amniocentesis: Maternal and medical discourses. In Uncertain terms: Negotiating gender in American culture, ed. Ginsburg, Faye and Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Rapp, Rayna. 1993. Accounting for amniocentesis. In Knowledge, power and practice: The anthropology of medicine and everyday life, ed. Lindenbaum, Shirley and Lock, Margaret. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Raymond, Janice G. 1987. Fetalists and feminists: They are not the same. In Made to order: The myth of reproductive and genetic progress, ed. Spallone, Patricia and Steinberg, Deborah Lynn. Oxford: Pergamon Press.Google Scholar
Raymond, Janice G. 1993. Women as wombs: Reproductive technologies and the battle over women's freedom. San Francisco: Harper.Google Scholar
Roth, Rachel. 1993. At women's expense: The costs of fetal rights. Women and Politics 13 (3/4): 117–35.Google Scholar
Rothman, Barbara Katz. 1986. The tentative pregnancy: Prenatal diagnosis and the future of motherhood. NY: Viking.Google Scholar
Sandelowski, Margarete. 1993. With child in mind: Studies of the personal encounter with infertility. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sawicki, Jana. 1991. Disciplining Foucault: Feminism, power, and the body. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Scheper‐Hughes, Nancy. 1992. Death without weeping: The violence of everyday life in Brazil. Berkeley: University of California Press.Google Scholar
Scheper‐Hughes, Nancy and Lock, Margaret. 1987. The mindful body: A prolegomenon to future work in medical anthropology. Medical Anthropology Quarterly 1 (1): 6–41.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Seeger, Anthony. 1981. Nature and society in central Brazil: The Suya Indians of Mato Grosso. Cambridge: Harvard University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sherwin, Susan. 1992. No longer patient: Feminist ethics and health care. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.Google Scholar
Shrage, Laurie. 1994. Moral dilemmas of feminism: Prostitution, adultery, and abortion. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Shweder, Richard A. and Bourne, Edmund J. 1984. Does the concept of the person vary cross‐culturally? In Culture theory: Essays on mind, self, and emotion, ed. Shweder, Richard A. and LeVine, Robert A.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Smith, Janet Farrell. 1983. Rights‐conflict, pregnancy, and abortion. In Beyond domination: New perspectives on women and philosophy, ed. Gould, Carol C.Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.Google Scholar
Solinger, Rickie. 1992. Wake up little Susie: Single pregnancy and race before “Roe v. Wade.” New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Spiro, Melford E. 1993. Is the Western conception of the self “peculiar” within the context of the world cultures? Ethos 21 (2): 107–53.10.1525/eth.1993.21.2.02a00010CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Strathern, Marilyn. 1992a. After nature: English kinship in the late twentieth century. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Strathern, Marilyn. 1992b. Reproducing the future: Anthropology, kinship, and the new reproductive technologies. New York: Routledge.Google Scholar
Sumner, L. W. 1981. Abortion and moral theory. Princeton: Princeton University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Janelle Sue. 1992. The public fetus and the family car: From abortion politics to a Volvo advertisement. Public Culture 4 (2): 67–80.10.1215/08992363-4-2-67CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Taylor, Janelle Sue. Image of contradiction: Obstetrical ultrasound in American culture. In Reproducing reproduction, ed. Franklin, Sarah and Ragoné, Helena. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, forthcoming.Google Scholar
Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. 1990. Monster stories: Women charged with perinatal endangerment. In Uncertain terms: Negotiating gender in American culture, ed. Ginsburg, Faye and Tsing, Anna Lowenhaupt. Boston: Beacon Press.Google Scholar
Turner, Terence S. 1994. Bodies and anti‐bodies: flesh and fetish in contemporary social theory. In Embodiment and experience: The existential ground of culture and self, ed. Csordas, Thomas J.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Warren, Mary Anne. 1989. The moral significance of birth. Hypatia 4 (3): 46–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Whitbeck, Caroline. 1984. A different reality: feminist ontology. In Beyond domination: New perspectives on women and philosophy, ed. Gould, Carol C.Totowa, NJ: Rowman and Allanheld.Google Scholar