Fiks, E (2023) Imaginaries of a Laparoscope: Power, Convenience, and Sterilization in Rural India. Anthropology and Medicine. ISSN 1364-8470

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Abstract

Laparoscopic tubal ligation is the most prevalent method of contraception amongst India's rural and urban poor. Drawing on 18 months of ethnographic fieldwork in rural Rajasthan in 2012-2013, this paper investigates how rural women's perceptions of a biomedical instrument-the laparoscope-influence their perceptions of sterilization, a procedure often entrenched in coercive, target- and incentive-driven population control programme. By investigating how a laparoscope is entangled in global exchanges, national policies, institutional arrangements, and local moral worlds, this paper demonstrates that while wider biomedical discourses perpetuate the narrative of safety and convenience, people's everyday lives inform their understandings of technology that is widely known but rarely seen.

Item Type: Article
Additional Information: This is the accepted author manuscript (AAM). The final published version (version of record) is available online via Taylor & Francis at https://doi.org/10.1080/13648470.2022.2152634 Please refer to any applicable terms of use of the publisher.
Uncontrolled Keywords: India, imaginaries, laparoscope, sterilization, reproductive technology
Subjects: R Medicine > R Medicine (General)
R Medicine > R Medicine (General) > R735 Medical education. Medical schools. Research
R Medicine > RA Public aspects of medicine
Divisions: Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences > School of Medicine
Depositing User: Symplectic
Date Deposited: 18 Nov 2022 08:39
Last Modified: 16 Mar 2023 09:23
URI: https://eprints.keele.ac.uk/id/eprint/11688

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