Description
Book SynopsisTrade Review"...Ayo Wahlberg provides a rich and fine-grained ethnographic account of assisted reproduction in China, focusing on how state population politics and sociocultural configurations have shaped the practice of sperm banking. . . .
Good Quality makes a significant contribution to anthropological studies of assisted reproduction, science and technology studies, and studies of China’s reproductive politics. While Wahlberg emphasizes that his focus is on the making of sperm banking, this important book should encourage further studies on various aspects of assisted reproduction in China, such as the experience of infertile couples and the complex decision making leading to the practice of assisted reproduction." * Medical Anthropology Quarterly *
"
Good Quality, a detailed study of state-controlled sperm banking in China, is a wonderful contribution to a literature that understands birth planning in China as encompassing a wide set of practices. . . . This volume should appeal to scholars of reproduction and those who study China’s modernizing processes. Its accessible writing will make it available to both graduate and undergraduate students." * Social Forces *
"
Good Quality offers fresh and engaging data, and a novel analytic approach and set of arguments about a rarely studied subject. The author’s ideas are delivered in clear, lively prose infused with a sly sense of humor and deep empathy for his subjects.
Good Quality represents, in short, some of the best that anthropology can offer to the more mainstream fields of population study. It is highly recommended for research and graduate and undergraduate teaching alike.” * Population and Development Review *
Table of ContentsList of Illustrations ix
Acknowledgments xi
List of Abbreviations xv
Introduction: Sperm Crisis 1
1. The Birth of Assisted Reproductive Technology in China 29
2. Improving Population Quality 58
3. Exposed Biologies 77
4. Mobilizing Sperm Donors 100
5. Making Quality Auditable 131
6. Borrowing Sperm 157
Conclusion: Routinization 188
Coda 192
Notes 195
References 205
