A Portrait of Assisted Reproduction in Mexico offers a multi‐faceted history of the assisted reproduction (AR) system in Mexico since the 1930s until the first decade of the twenty‐first century. In this book, the Mexican AR system, an assemblage of ‘things, places, and humans’ (p. 2) within its ‘material, epistemic, and symbolic infrastructures’ (p. 12), takes the position of the protagonist. Gonzalez‐Santos reassembles this history after more than a decade of ethnographic work in Mexico and through the archival study of various materials, from medical journals to pens.

Gonzalez‐Santos divides the grand historical story into two parts: ‘Origin’, and ‘Reproducing Assisted Reproduction’. In her nuanced narrative ‘Origin’, instead of considering the first Mexican AR birth as the starting point of its history, she shifts the perspective towards the initiation of the AR system through the first medical associations concerned with reproduction, which involved only male scientists. From early on, gender is applied as an analytical tool to shape this ‘repronational portrait’. In doing so, Gonzalez‐Santos traces the perception of ‘marital sterility’ and the focus on female factor infertility (p. 52) which was constructed through the intersection of Catholicism and gender.

Later on in ‘Origin’, Gonzalez‐Santos maps the biopolitics of Mexico by showing how the family planning agenda shaped the discourse of managing reproduction from the mid‐1960s to 2000. It is in this context that contraception and assisted reproduction are considered as two sides of the same coin: ‘the coin of reproductive biology’ (p. 91). According to Gonzalez‐Santos, the epistemic shift from conjugal sterility to reproductive biology has widened the definition of potential biomedical users and has led to infertility being considered as a multi‐factorial problem. The story of ‘Origin’ ends with parallel narratives of the two first AR clinics (in different cities) and both of their narratives of the first AR births in 1988, emphasising the non‐linear trajectory of AR systems. The author highlights the narrative variations to illustrate their ‘contradictory dynamic relational way of being in the world’ (p. 131) as part of the history of the field.

In the second part of the book, ‘Reproducing Assisted Reproduction’, Gonzalez‐Santos follows their trajectories from the 1990s to the first decade of the twenty‐first century by looking at how the ARTs as ‘cultural artefacts’ turn to a familiar assemblage and are ‘routinised’ (p. 135). To show the cross‐border universe of the Mexican AR system, this book demonstrates the Mexican AR’s association with the Latin American network of AR and its cooperation with European and North American counterparts. Taking into account the political context of Mexico as a component of this system, she characterises this period as constructed by the swift neo‐liberalisation of the health system in the country, the transformation of assisted reproduction into an industry, and the commodification of infertility and reproduction. While mentioning this shift, she unfortunately does not critically investigate the reproductive inequalities that stem from this marketisation.

Gonzalez‐Santos paints the AR ‘discursive landscape’ through an assemblage of ‘textual, oral and visual elements’ (p. 195) to show how this normalisation of the system has been re/produced. By analysing various narratives of cultural products, including a children’s book, a telenovela, and advertisements, she shows that the dominant ‘positive and uncritical’ (p. 212) narrative represents AR as a ‘paranatural technology’ which is gendered through the motherly act of ‘giving’ (p. 219). With hindsight, she argues that while the dominant approach towards assisted reproduction is a ‘restorative’ approach that reinforces the making of a heteronormative family, there is an emerging ‘re‐configurative’ approach which subverts the normative family (p. 256).

A Portrait of Assisted Reproduction in Mexico contributes to the history of reproduction within the interdisciplinary field of science and technology studies (STS). Among this monograph’s strengths is its raising of global south scholarly voices. This work is aimed for historians of medicine, social science scholars and students interested in intricate intersections of STS, reproduction, gender and non‐Western settings. Its narrative is aesthetically structured; each chapter ends with ‘details of a national portrait’ in which the author analyses an image – ranging from a postal stamp to a first AR birth photograph – in order to pinpoint the national discourse of reproduction. However, on occasions, the introduction of too many characters and titles of published works and institutions – sometimes with no English translation – felt labyrinthine and interrupted the flow of the story. Gonzalez‐Santos’ attention towards adoption as a solution of involuntary childlessness throughout her book is admirable. She paints a portrait of this fading way to create families which has increasingly lost its position through the marketisation of assisted reproduction and become the last resort in the landscape of reproduction.

墨西哥的辅助生殖肖像提供了1930年代至二十世纪前十年的墨西哥辅助生殖（AR）系统的多方面历史。在这本书中，墨西哥的AR系统在其“物质，认知和象征性基础设施”（第12页）中融合了“事物，场所和人类”（第2页），成为主角。冈萨雷斯·桑托斯（Gonzalez-Santos）在墨西哥进行了十多年的人种志研究之后，并通过对各种材料（从医学期刊到笔）的档案研究，重新整理了这段历史。

冈萨雷斯·桑托斯（Gonzalez-Santos）将宏大的历史故事分为两个部分：“起源”和“复制辅助复制”。在她微妙的叙述“起源”中，她没有将墨西哥的第一次AR出生视为其历史的起点，而是通过与生殖有关的第一个医学协会（仅涉及男性科学家）将观点转向了建立AR系统。从一开始，就将性别作为分析工具来塑造这种“异族肖像”。为此，冈萨雷斯·桑托斯（Gonzalez-Santos）追溯了对“婚姻不育”的认识，并关注通过天主教与性别的交融建构的女性因素不孕症（第52页）。

后来在“起源”中，冈萨雷斯-桑托斯通过展示计划生育议程如何塑造了从1960年代中期到2000年管理生殖的论述，绘制了墨西哥的生物政治图景。在这种情况下，避孕和辅助生殖被视为两个同一枚硬币的两面：“生殖生物学的硬币”（第91页）。根据冈萨雷斯·桑托斯（Gonzalez-Santos）的研究，从夫妻不育向生殖生物学的认识转变，拓宽了潜在生物医学使用者的定义，并导致不孕症被视为多因素问题。“起源”的故事以两个第一家AR诊所（在不同城市中）的平行叙述以及它们在1988年第一例AR出生的叙述为结尾，强调了AR系统的非线性轨迹。

在本书的第二部分“复制辅助复制”中，冈萨雷斯-桑托斯通过研究作为“文化文物”的艺术如何转变为熟悉的组合和艺术，追踪了从1990年代到二十一世纪前十年的发展轨迹。被“常规化”（第135页）。为了展示墨西哥AR系统的跨国界，这本书展示了墨西哥AR与拉丁美洲AR网络的联系以及与欧洲和北美同行的合作。考虑到墨西哥作为该系统的组成部分的政治背景，她将这一时期描述为该国的卫生系统迅速新自由化，辅助生殖向产业的转化以及不孕和不育的商品化所构成的时期。再生产。在提及这一转变时，

冈萨雷斯·桑托斯（Gonzalez-Santos）通过组合“文字，口头和视觉元素”（第195页）来描绘AR的“ disdissive景观”，以显示如何重新制作/再现系统的这种规范化。通过分析各种文化产品叙事，包括儿童读物，一部电视小说和广告，她表明，占主导地位的“积极和非批判性”（第212页）叙事将AR表示为“超自然技术”，通过母性行为将其性别化。 “给予”（第219页）。事后看来，她认为，虽然辅助生殖的主要方法是“恢复性”方法，可加强异规范家庭的形成，但新兴的“重新配置性”方法却颠覆了规范性家庭（第256页）。

墨西哥的辅助生殖肖像在科学与技术研究（STS）的跨学科领域中为生殖史做出了贡献。该专着的优点之一是它提高了全球南方学术界的声音。这项工作针对医学史学家，社会科学学者和对STS，生殖，性别和非西方环境的复杂交集感兴趣的学生。它的叙述是美学上的结构；每章都以“国家肖像的细节”结尾，在其中作者分析了一张图像（从邮票到第一张AR出生照片），以查明民族的复制话语。但是，有时引入过多的字符和已出版的作品和机构的标题（有时没有英语翻译）时会感到迷宫，并中断了故事的进行。冈萨雷斯·桑托斯（Gonzalez-Santos）在其整本书中对收养作为解决非自愿性无子女问题的关注非常令人钦佩。她描绘了这种逐渐消失的方式来创造家庭的画像，这些家庭由于辅助生殖的市场化而逐渐失去其地位，并成为生殖领域的最后手段。