Curating Conception

South Africa's private fertility clinics promise hope: expert care, measurable success rates, and the possibility of long-desired children. While seemingly insulated from the legacies of apartheid and the stark inequalities of the present, these clinics operate within a society still shaped by racial stratification and uneven access to care. But what happens once patients step through the clinic doors? Based on fieldwork conducted over a decade, Curating Conception offers the first book-length study of IVF in sub-Saharan Africa. Tessa Moll turns to the polished, private clinics of Cape Town and Johannesburg to show how racial hierarchies are quietly sustained through everyday decisions—about donor selection, embryo grading, success statistics, and patient eligibility—that shape ideas of legitimate parenthood and belonging in the post-apartheid era. Introducing the concept of curating, Moll shows how medical authority, patient desire, and enduring social orders work together to shape which reproductive futures are seen as natural and desirable. In doing so, Curating Conception demonstrates how racial imaginaries—and the normalization of whiteness as the default family form—are woven into the intimate and technological processes of IVF. Blending vivid storytelling with careful analysis, it invites readers to rethink fertility care not simply as a technology of hope, but as a powerful site where history, inequality, and aspiration converge.