In 1984 the first South American in-vitro fertilization (IVF) baby was born in Columbia. Since then clinics that offer assisted reproductive techniques like IVF and gamete donation have begun operations in most Latin American countries. This dissertation research study investigates the social impact of IVF and gamete donation in urban Ecuador. It asks what happens when reproductive biotechnologies travel from their initial sites of development in Europe and the United States to nations often considered marginal to scientific practice and research. The investigators will examine how religious practices, issues of political economy, and kinship narratives affect the way that IVF and gamete donation have been understood and put to use in Ecuador. The author's preliminary research in three infertility clinics in Ecuador shows that local Catholic practice plays a critical role in IVF laboratories in Quito where images of the Virgin Mary are used to bless eggs and sperm to aid in fertilization. In addition to documenting how local practice reshapes IVF in Ecuador, this study will examine how assisted reproduction affects Ecuadorian society. For example, how does the technoscientific production of children alter local understandings of overpopulation and the Ecuadorian ictraditionalli family? This study will focus on four Ecuadorian IVF and gamete donation clinics. Using the ethnographic tools of participant observation, semi-structured interviewing and discourse analysis, the authors will investigate how IVF and gamete donation are understood and practiced by clinical personnel and patients undergoing infertility treatment. To elucidate both the production and consumption of public narratives concerning assisted reproduction interviews will also be conducted with religious leaders, lawmakers, reporters and lay citizens about their perception of IVF and gamete donation. Although IVF and gamete donor clinics now operate worldwide, the vast majority of the social science literature concerning assisted reproduction has focused on North America and Europe. The data generated from the author's study of assisted reproduction in Ecuador, concerning issues of political economy, religious and kinship practices, will be used comparatively in a point by point reexamination of the Euro-American literature. This rigorous comparative approach to the study of bioscientific practice brings the cultural dimensions of science and technology to the forefront, elevating this study beyond a specific focus on reproductive technologies or Latin America. Ultimately this knowledge will allow for a more complex understanding of how the biosciences everywhere, both in nations considered "developed" and "developing", are constituted and affected by the local social realities surrounding their practice.
