ABSTRACT

In this paper, I examine the idea of fiction in relation to kinship by analyzing the role that memory plays in assisted reproduction in North India. I specifically engage with the desire to seek the intervention of in-vitro fertilization after the loss of a child, mostly sons, through an accident, prematurely. In the process, the paper engages with the kind of narratives that birthing women remember and speak of in seeking the ‘rebirth’ of their dead sons, and what this means for kinship per se. This is especially important in relation to the conflicts and ambivalence that mark intimate relationships; and the ways in which the IVF clinic and clinician seek to reimagine them in facilitating assisted conception. I suggest that the narratives surrounding these rebirths act as effective and powerful messages for normalizing IVF, and also to hide other forms of relatedness that come to mark conflicting, ambivalent and yet, deeply intimate relationships.

摘要

在本文中，我通过分析记忆在北印度辅助生殖中的作用来考察与亲属关系有关的虚构观念。我特别怀有这样的愿望，即在因意外而失去孩子（主要是儿子）后过早寻求体外受精的干预。在此过程中，论文涉及了分娩妇女在寻求死子的“重生”时所记得并谈到的那种叙事，以及这对亲戚关系本身的意义。对于标记亲密关系的冲突和矛盾，这尤其重要。以及试管婴儿诊所和临床医生试图重塑他们以辅助受孕的方式。我建议围绕这些重生的叙述是使IVF正常化的有效且有力的信息，