Eva Sänger
Eva Sänger works as a sociologist at the Faculty of Human Sciences at the University of Cologne. Her research focuses on the co-production of society, technology and gender. Her interests include feminist technoscience studies, poststructuralist theories, theories of practice, gender and medicalization; bio-politics; changing forms of parenthood in late-modern societies with regard to reproductive technologies, questions of embodiment and pregnancy. She is also interested in developing new methodological approaches with regard to ethnographic research.
Adress:
Prof. Dr. Eva Sänger
Chair for Organization, Technology and Gender
Department of Educational and Social Science
Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Cologne
Building 214, Room 1.11
PO Box 60, Main Building Faculty of Human Sciences
Gronewaldstr. 2a, 50931 Köln
esaenger@uni-koeln.de
+49 (0)221 470-3399
Adress:
Prof. Dr. Eva Sänger
Chair for Organization, Technology and Gender
Department of Educational and Social Science
Faculty of Human Sciences, University of Cologne
Building 214, Room 1.11
PO Box 60, Main Building Faculty of Human Sciences
Gronewaldstr. 2a, 50931 Köln
esaenger@uni-koeln.de
+49 (0)221 470-3399
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Papers by Eva Sänger
The duty to be up to date. Addressing (expectant) parents through pregnancy and parenting apps.
Software apps have become a central part of everyday life. Against the backdrop of the di-gital transformation of the social, this article asks which self-relations and genera tional relations are constructed and addressed through parenting and pregnancy apps, what normative effects these apps have and what topics they disregard. The article is based on a qualitative analysis of 55 content descriptions of pregnancy and parenting apps available in app stores. We show that, in addition to heteronormative and gender-normative in-terpellations, pregnant women and parents are addressed both in a heteronormative and gender-normative way and as forward-look-ing subjects who, in terms of an anticipatory risk logic, are in particular confronted with a regime that requires them to be up to date and alert and imposes on them a “duty to know”. The pressure to act that is generated in this way is simultaneously intertwined with the promise that these tasks can be ceded to the app.
Technologies of developmental childhood and interpellation of pregnant persons as mothers during prenatal medical care
Standards of ‘normal’ development play a crucial role in the biometric assessment of fetal growth during obstetrical ultrasound exams in medical maternity care and steer medical interventions in pregnancy. Likewise in everyday world obstetrical ultrasound exams qualify as family events and as an opportunity to see a ,baby‘. Empirically based on participant observation the article shows how pregnant peo-ple are interpellated as mothers in relation to the visualization and normalization of fetal bodies during routine ultrasound exams. The article highlights in which way the interpellation as a mother-to-be of a child with an impaired body is excluded. Finally, the article discusses, if medical maternity care can be characterized as an institution of developmental childhood.
Fortpflanzungsregime tangieren und verändern Vorstellungen über Mutterschaft,
Vaterschaft und Elternschaft. Zugleich sind sie eingebettet in strukturelle
Formen sozialer Ungleichheit und beteiligt an transnationalen Wertschöpfungsketten,
die mit der Kommodifizierung von Körpern und Körpersubstanzen einhergehen.
Der Beitrag stellt Charakteristika der technowissenschaftlichen Entfaltung der
Biowissenschaften und Humangenetik vor und kartiert das Terrain der interdisziplinären
feministischen Forschungslandschaft zu Reproduktionstechnologien seit den
1980er-Jahren.
scanning facilitates anticipatory modes of pregnancy management, and investigates the entanglement of different notions of time and temporality in the highly risk-oriented modes of prenatal care in Germany. Arguing that the paradoxical temporality of prevention—acting now in the name of the future—is intensified by ultrasound screening, I show how the attribution of risk regarding foetal growth in prenatal check-ups is based on the fragmentation of procreative time and ask how time standards come into play, how pregnancy is located in calendrical time, and how notions of foetal time and the everyday life times of
pregnant women clash during negotiations between obstetricians and pregnant women about the determination of the due date. By analysing temporality as a
practical accomplishment via technological devices such as ultrasound, the paper contributes to debates in feminist STS studies on the role of time in reproduction technologies and the management of pregnancy and birth in contemporary societies.
The duty to be up to date. Addressing (expectant) parents through pregnancy and parenting apps.
Software apps have become a central part of everyday life. Against the backdrop of the di-gital transformation of the social, this article asks which self-relations and genera tional relations are constructed and addressed through parenting and pregnancy apps, what normative effects these apps have and what topics they disregard. The article is based on a qualitative analysis of 55 content descriptions of pregnancy and parenting apps available in app stores. We show that, in addition to heteronormative and gender-normative in-terpellations, pregnant women and parents are addressed both in a heteronormative and gender-normative way and as forward-look-ing subjects who, in terms of an anticipatory risk logic, are in particular confronted with a regime that requires them to be up to date and alert and imposes on them a “duty to know”. The pressure to act that is generated in this way is simultaneously intertwined with the promise that these tasks can be ceded to the app.
Technologies of developmental childhood and interpellation of pregnant persons as mothers during prenatal medical care
Standards of ‘normal’ development play a crucial role in the biometric assessment of fetal growth during obstetrical ultrasound exams in medical maternity care and steer medical interventions in pregnancy. Likewise in everyday world obstetrical ultrasound exams qualify as family events and as an opportunity to see a ,baby‘. Empirically based on participant observation the article shows how pregnant peo-ple are interpellated as mothers in relation to the visualization and normalization of fetal bodies during routine ultrasound exams. The article highlights in which way the interpellation as a mother-to-be of a child with an impaired body is excluded. Finally, the article discusses, if medical maternity care can be characterized as an institution of developmental childhood.
Fortpflanzungsregime tangieren und verändern Vorstellungen über Mutterschaft,
Vaterschaft und Elternschaft. Zugleich sind sie eingebettet in strukturelle
Formen sozialer Ungleichheit und beteiligt an transnationalen Wertschöpfungsketten,
die mit der Kommodifizierung von Körpern und Körpersubstanzen einhergehen.
Der Beitrag stellt Charakteristika der technowissenschaftlichen Entfaltung der
Biowissenschaften und Humangenetik vor und kartiert das Terrain der interdisziplinären
feministischen Forschungslandschaft zu Reproduktionstechnologien seit den
1980er-Jahren.
scanning facilitates anticipatory modes of pregnancy management, and investigates the entanglement of different notions of time and temporality in the highly risk-oriented modes of prenatal care in Germany. Arguing that the paradoxical temporality of prevention—acting now in the name of the future—is intensified by ultrasound screening, I show how the attribution of risk regarding foetal growth in prenatal check-ups is based on the fragmentation of procreative time and ask how time standards come into play, how pregnancy is located in calendrical time, and how notions of foetal time and the everyday life times of
pregnant women clash during negotiations between obstetricians and pregnant women about the determination of the due date. By analysing temporality as a
practical accomplishment via technological devices such as ultrasound, the paper contributes to debates in feminist STS studies on the role of time in reproduction technologies and the management of pregnancy and birth in contemporary societies.