Gloves, embryos, and DDT: thinking with surfaces on toxicity in South Africa

By Tessa Moll

This article is part of the series: Decentering Metabolism: Peripheral and Southern Diffractions

In the early 1980s, researchers at Tygerberg Hospital in Cape Town, South Africa were confounded by the persistent failure of their experimental mice embryos. The researchers had hoped to develop the first successful in vitro fertilization (IVF) programme in Africa. Yet, attempt after attempt, the mice embryos died. One researcher recounted to me later that he reviewed other protocols and …

Features

February 7, 2018

Blue binders of white donors: sorting race out in South African IVF

By Tessa Moll

This article is part of the series: The First Thousand Days of Life

Miracle babies. The microscopic enchantments of embryos. The image of a woman holding that much-desired infant. In vitro fertilization, or IVF, is replete with awe-inducing imagery, often bordering on the near religious. Kylie, an embryologist I interviewed in Cape Town described the images of IVF as part of the inspiring stories that drew her into the field: “I watched a …

Somatosphere

Science, Medicine, and Anthropology

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Author Archives: Tessa Moll

Gloves, embryos, and DDT: thinking with surfaces on toxicity in South Africa

Blue binders of white donors: sorting race out in South African IVF