God's Laboratory - by Elizabeth F S Roberts Hardcover

About the Book

"Bold and gripping, "God's Laboratory" is ethnography at its best. The book's unforgettable characters and their desperate travails to reproduce via global medicine are the very fabric of a highly-original and much-needed social theory for our twenty-first century technological societies." - Joao Biehl, author of "Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment"
""God's Laboratory" is the perfect anthropological antidote to the fetishization of reproductive materials as 'life itself.' Roberts shows in meticulous detail and in luminous prose how Catholic scientists and technicians in Ecuador invite God into private IVF labs to 'bless the work' of producing embryos. Kinship, care, and cultivation -- not embryonic life -- define reproduction in this uncertain world." - Nancy Scheper-Hughes, author of "Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil"
"Written with clarity, compassion, and self-reflection, "God's Laboratory" is a beautiful book which puts the ethnographic method to excellent use. Roberts's painstaking fieldwork unearthed the many layers through which the aspirations for fertility and use of infertility technologies instantiate not only gender and kinship in Ecuador, but ethnicity, race and region in the national project of modernity. The book is a stunning instance of the benefits which accrue when the study of reproduction is used as an optic for understanding social life." - Rayna Rapp, author of "Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America"
""God's Laboratory" is a strong, intriguing and careful look at the daily connections between faith and science that underpin the process of human assisted reproduction in urban Ecuador." -Marisol de la Cadena, author of "Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1910-1991"

Book Synopsis

Assisted reproduction, with its test tubes, injections, and gamete donors, raises concerns about the nature of life and kinship. Yet these concerns do not take the same shape around the world. In this innovative ethnography of in vitro fertilization in Ecuador, Elizabeth F.S. Roberts explores how reproduction by way of biotechnological assistance is not only accepted but embraced despite widespread poverty and condemnation from the Catholic Church. Roberts' intimate portrait of IVF practitioners and their patients reveals how technological intervention is folded into an Andean understanding of reproduction as always assisted, whether through kin or God. She argues that the Ecuadorian incarnation of reproductive technology is less about a national desire for modernity than it is a product of colonial racial history, Catholic practice, and kinship configurations. God's Laboratory offers a grounded introduction to critical debates in medical anthropology and science studies, as well as a nuanced ethnography of the interplay between science, religion, race and history in the formation of Andean families.

From the Back Cover

"Bold and gripping, God's Laboratory is ethnography at its best. The book's unforgettable characters and their desperate travails to reproduce via global medicine are the very fabric of a highly-original and much-needed social theory for our twenty-first century technological societies."--João Biehl, author of Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment

"God's Laboratory is the perfect anthropological antidote to the fetishization of reproductive materials as 'life itself.' Roberts shows in meticulous detail and in luminous prose how Catholic scientists and technicians in Ecuador invite God into private IVF labs to 'bless the work' of producing embryos. Kinship, care, and cultivation--not embryonic life--define reproduction in this uncertain world." - Nancy Scheper-Hughes, author of Death Without Weeping: The Violence of Everyday Life in Brazil

"Written with clarity, compassion, and self-reflection, God's Laboratory is a beautiful book which puts the ethnographic method to excellent use. Roberts's painstaking fieldwork unearthed the many layers through which the aspirations for fertility and use of infertility technologies instantiate not only gender and kinship in Ecuador, but ethnicity, race and region in the national project of modernity. The book is a stunning instance of the benefits which accrue when the study of reproduction is used as an optic for understanding social life."--Rayna Rapp, author of Testing Women, Testing the Fetus: The Social Impact of Amniocentesis in America

"God's Laboratory is a strong, intriguing and careful look at the daily connections between faith and science that underpin the process of human assisted reproduction in urban Ecuador."--Marisol de la Cadena, author of Indigenous Mestizos: The Politics of Race and Culture in Cuzco, Peru, 1910-1991

Review Quotes

"God's Laboratory makes a significant contribution to social science literatures on medicine, reproduction, and the body; it is a must-read for anyone interested in how new reproductive technologies are received and interpreted in developing countries."-- "Latin American Perspectives"

"An important contribution to the anthropology of reproduction and Latin American studies, among other fields."-- "Somatosphere"

"Based on field research Elizabeth F. S. Roberts conducted between 2000 and 2007, God's Laboratory is a gloriously rich ethnographic account of the experience of infertility and Ecuador's assisted reproductive technology industry. . . . A masterful work of scrupulous research offering deep and original analyses illustrated with beautiful ethnographic material. Its depth and subtlety make it among the most exciting new research in the anthropology of reproduction . . . Roberts's monograph will be of great interest to scholars, graduate students, and advanced undergraduates in classes on social and medical anthropology, sociology, gender studies, Latin American studies, international development studies, population studies, and public health."-- "American Ethnologist"

"Roberts contextualizes reproductive assistance in rich ethnographic detail to uncover its diversity of forms including medical, familial, and spiritual. . . . [The book] offers an original analysis of the complicated relationship between technology and religion while encouraging more discussion, including cross-cultural comparisons, on practices of care related to assisted reproduction. An invaluable contribution to medical anthropology, Latin American studies and gender and women's studies, God's Laboratory provides an insightful analysis of the nature of person-making and the role of technology and faith to family formation."-- "Hemispheric Institute"

"Roberts's rich ethnography makes a worthy addition to the anthropology of reproduction."-- "American Anthropologist"

"Roberts's stunning ethnography . . . is the perfect anthropological antidote to the North American evangelical right's fetishization of reproductive material as 'life itself' and to the Vatican's condemnation of IVF as the unnatural production of artificial life and killable embryos."-- "Current Anthropology"

"This is surely, really, a book of our times. It offers a skillful ethnography, a quite original cultural analysis, a contribution to science studies as well as medical anthropology, an engaging history of divergent religiosities, and a resource for anyone interested in diverse philosophies of personhood."--Marilyn Strathern, "Comparative Studies in Society and History"

About the Author

Elizabeth Roberts is Associate Professor of Anthropology at University of Michigan, investigating scientific and public health knowledge production and its embodied effects in Latin America and the United States.