Nameless Relations

Monica Konrad is a Bye-Fellow of Girton College and Director of the PLACEB-O Research Orbital at the Department of Social Anthropology, University of Cambridge.

“This work makes a significant contribution to the field of reproductive technology studies given its in-depth ethnographic research …a work of ethnographic and analytical excellence.”  ·  Reviews in Anthropology“This book is thorough..a comprehensive account of the complicated and at time ambivalent voices of women involved in donating and receiving ova. It will be useful for advanced undergraduate and graduate-level classes.”  ·  Medical Anthropology Quarterly“…an important contribution for anthropologists and those in [many] other disciplines…Konrad has managed to critically explicate the complex and intimate relationship that binds anonymous donor with anonymous recipient.”  ·  American Anthropologist“The comparative use of Melanesian ethnography and anthropological theorizing creates a challenging analytical undertaking in this [thought-provoking] study. This comparison draws on a well of different sources, starting with Malinowski and Mauss and ending up with Strathern.”  ·  Anthropological Quarterly“Konrad has produced an exceptionally interesting and totallyoriginal book ... a major contribution to social theory.”  ·  Marilyn Strathern, Cambridge University

• List of FiguresPrefacePART I: THE SECRETS IN THE GIFTChapter 1. What is Concealed Inside an Anonymously Donated Gamete?IncoexistenceInside OutART, Exteriorisation and Forms of FacelessnessFuture Feminisms‘Cosmic Egg’ RevisitedOva Donors and RecipientsFinding Method in the Oblique Implicit Links and Multiple AudiencesChapter 2. Anonymity and the Way of JuxtapositionAnonymity/tabooAnonymity/opennessAnonymity/reciprocityAnonymity/partibilityAnonymity/transiliencePART II: IN THE NAME OF THE UN-NAMEDChapter 3. Donors ICome Superovulate!Free Gift Emerging‘Not a Hardship at All’Testimonies of AssistanceIntimately ImpersonalAnd Free Gift RecedingBecoming SpecialPrestige and ‘Fame’‘It’s Something I Must Do!’Summary LinkChapter 4. Donors IICategories of De-identification and Degrees of AnonymisationStrong, Indeterminate and Weak AnonymityKnowledge Outcomes and the Form of the Return GiftNeither Inalienable nor ForgettableRemote Parenting?Negotiated Maternity and the Ambiguous ProgenetrixChapter 5. Donors IIIDonating Agency, Extension and Intersubjective SpacetimeReproducibility and Relations of Non-relationsOdelle: Genes by ProxyPolicy Link - Penny: Relations as Ripple Effects Policy Link - Rita: Donating AdoptionPolicy Link - Meena: Receiving PardonSummary LinkDispossession, Effraction and NontraceabilityWhat Goes Round Comes roundWhat Goes around Comes around (Again)Chapter 6. Recipients IGift Elasticity and the Infertility IndustryEgg-sharing, Egg-giving and Egg DonationAnonymity, Kinship Distance and ‘Poison’ in the Gift‘Like with Like’ and the Equivalence of MatchingDegrees of Information and Informational GapsThe Idea of ‘Donor-release’Mismatching‘You See What You Want to See’Blood Food LinesSummary LinkChapter 7. Recipients IIAccountability and Blood ManipulationsRevealing-while-keeping the Secret (Ella’s Effacement)Whatever Happened to You?Money Manipulations and Ova PathwaysTaming Contingency (I): Ova Pathways and Directing FlowTaming Contingency (II): Ranking between RecipientsHow Ova and Embryo Pathways Make Half-siblingsPolicy LinkSummary LinkChapter 8. Recipients IIIHyper-kinship within a Remaindered WorldEliciting HyperembryoRe-donation, Refusal and ‘Disowning Decisions’Sacrificial Keeping-while-giving and Donation to ResearchObviating a Compounded LifeLiquidating the Third PartyRe-donation as Continuous GiftingSummary LinkPART III: APPLICATIONSChapter 9. Unconcealing Extensional TransilienceHyper-embryo into Infinite Partibility and the Sourcing of Embryonic Stem CellsPolicy LinkTransilient Kinship and Embryo Donor-conceived ChildrenSummary LinkChapter 10. Unconcealing Regenerative TransilienceSpotlight on the Final FrontierEnvisioning the Problem of Ovarian Tissue and the Life-giving DeathReconstituted Persons and the Extensional ImaginaryHow it is Imagined Breath Circulates between PersonsHow it is Imagined the Unborn Sibling Blood-donor Child Will Make New LifeDiscussionChapter 11. Conclusion: Relations of Non-relationsAppendix I: Donor Biographical ProfilesAppendix II: Recipient Biographical ProfilesAppendix III: Treatment ProtocolBibliographyIndex