Bearing a Barren Body

Over the last three decades, the use of Assisted Reproductive Technologies (ART) – like In Vitro Fertilization (IVF), Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI), or Intrauterine Insemination (IUI) – has increased enormously. This project analyzes women’s experiences in infertility treatment by starting from the idea that their experiences do not take shape in a vacuum. It explores how sociocultural discourses about woman- and motherhood, the nuclear family, infertility, un/natural fertilization, and technologically engineered bodies shape the ways women experience themselves, their lives, and bodies in the process and aftermath of infertility treatment.