Ariza, Lucía| Argentina

Fellow at IAS-STS: 2015/16

Lucía Ariza es a Visiting Researcher at the Gino Germani Research Institute, University of Buenos Aires, Argentina. She graduated in Sociology from the same university, received an MA from the National University of San Martín (Argentina), and a PhD from Goldsmiths, University of London. Widely inscribed in Science and Technology Studies, her research explores the ongoing engagement with ideas and practices that relate to and (re)-establish the authority of ‘nature’ in the context of reproductive and genetic technologies. She has conducted research both in private fertility clinics and in public hospitals, where fertility services are being incipiently implemented in Argentina. In these studies, she has been engaged in a methodological reflection regarding the ontological aspects of medical care, and considered the ways in which practitioners and expert/administrative devices (like informed consent forms, diagrams, photographs and biostatistical measures) interact in clinical agencements. Drawn by an interest in the immanent normativity of medical practice, her current project examines how ethics is embedded in everyday routine laboratory work, particularly in the delivery of Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis during IVF treatment. More recently, she is also developing a practice-based approach to artistic representations of molecular life, and to how such depictions inform scientists’ understandings of biological material and their interactions with it.

Project at IAS-STS: Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis in Argentina: Analysis of an Emergent Biotechnology

As part of a wider study exploring Pre-Implantation Genetic Diagnosis (PGD) in Argentina, the project seeks to understand how this technology is implemented to prevent specific sex results (the birth of intersex people or of persons affected by a disease inherited only by one sex). PGD is a technique used to test the genetic constitution of an embryo created in vitro. It consists in the biopsy of an embryo whereby cells are analysed to identify disease-relevant mutations or chromosome anomalies that can produce a genetic disease. The technique’s main purpose is to prevent the implantation of an embryo carrying a disease.

However, PGD can also be used to obtain specific sex results. Although some of such uses attain a clinical aim (avoiding a disease that expresses in a specific sex), other times the technique is implemented for social reasons: ‘family balancing’ and preventing the birth of an intersex baby. Thus, PGD becomes ‘a technology of sex’ whereby sexual difference is reproduced and reinforced. The project will seek to address such clinical reinstatement in the context of the increasing demand for reproductive treatment in Argentina, the local and global prominence of intersex and trans activism, and the recent passing of legislation promoting the visibility and legal recognition of gender identity.

Selected Publications

Ariza, L. (2015). Keeping up appearances in the fertility clinic. Making kinship visible through race in donor conception, Tecnoscienza. Italian Journal of Science and Technology Studies, 6(1), pp-5-31. [English].

Ariza, L. (2014) “Photographs, medical registers and the material production of kinship: on phenotypic coordination in assisted reproduction”, in Cepeda, A. and Rustuyburu, C. (eds.) From sexual hormones to Viagra: science, medicine and sexuality in Argentina and Brazil. Mar del Plata: Eudem, pp.173-206 [Spanish].

Ariza, L. (2012) “Population-level management of kinship and normativity: the production of biological variability in assisted reproduction’s gamete exchange”, in Jones, D., Figari, C. and Barrón López, S. (eds.) The production of sexuality: policies and sexual regulations in Argentina. Buenos Aires: Biblos. P p. 127-146 [Spanish].

Ariza, L. (2012). “Phenotypic coordination in assisted reproduction treatment: kinship, inscription and human-non human interaction”, in Ibáñez Martín, R. and Pérez Sedeño, E. (Eds.), Bodies and differences. Madrid: Plaza y Valdés [Spanish].

Ariza, L. (2010) ‘Procreation as a natural or technological event: decision-making repertoires regarding the use of reproductive technology among infertile couples in Buenos Aires’ Eä Journal of Medical Humanities & Social Studies of Science and Technology, Vol. 2, N° 1, pp. 1-47 [Spanish].