Журнальный клуб Интелрос » Laboratorium » №2, 2012
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Willemijn de Jong and Olga Tkach, eds. Making Bodies, Persons, and Families: Normalising Reproductive Technologies in Russia, Switzerland, and Germany. Berlin: LIT Verlag, 2009.
As aptly pointed out by Sarah Franklin in the foreword (9), the book under review is the fi rst anthology of its kind exploring what used to be called new reproductive technologies—now usually referred to as assisted reproductive technologies, or ARTs—in Russia and Switzerland, with refl ections on the situation in Germany. Written by social anthropologists, sociologists, and journalists with an anthropological background from all three countries, this unique collection is the result of a threeyear Swiss-funded research project between the St. Petersburg–based Centre for Independent Social Research and the social anthropology department of the University of Zurich. This joint effort conducted by exclusively female authors is perhaps most remarkable for its geographical foci. Anthropological research on reproductive technologies has a tradition that goes back to the 1980s, but this prolifi c, primarily Anglo-American body of research has only marginally touched upon Switzerland, not to speak of Russia. The reviewed collection draws upon a limited body of literature written in German, as well as an even less well-known and certainly scarcer set of Russian-language sources. Indeed, one of the greatest assets of this collection is the mere fact that it puts these two countries on the map of ART-related social science research