In this episode of AnthroTalking we interview Ayo Wahlberg who is associate professor at the University of Copenhagen. The interview focuses mainly on his current project on Assisted Reproductive Technologies and the routinization of sperm banking in China, but we also touch upon his previous work on traditional or alternative medicine in Vietnam and the United Kingdom. We talk about his projects in relation to theory and method, and discuss anthropological inquiry and the different forms it might take. Given his cartographic interest in trying to map out the “conditions of possibility” for the different phenomena that interest him, the interview became a good opportunity to learn more about issues such as genealogy, histories of the present, power, governmentality, and assemblages.
Ayo Wahlberg was recently awarded an ERC Starting Grant (2015-2020) for a project entitled “The Vitality of Disease – Quality of Life in the Making”. Together with a team of three postdocs, Ayo will examine the ways in which patients and careers are increasingly taught, trained or advised on how best to live with their diseases.
Published on:
September 1, 2015
Created by:
Chakad Ojani
Keywords:
Assisted Reproductive Technologies, conditions of possibility, Ayo Wahlberg, medical anthropology, herbal medicine, China, sperm banking
Further information:
References:
- Wahlberg, Ayo 2006. Modernisation and its side effects: an inquiry into the revival and renaissance of herbal medicine in Vietnam and Britain. PhD thesis, The London School of Economics and Political Science (LSE).
- Monnais, Laurence, C. Michele Thompson and Ayo Wahlberg (eds) 2012. Southern Medicine for Southern People: Vietnamese Medicine in the Making. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing.
- Gammeltoft, Tine M., and Ayo Wahlberg 2014. Selective Reproductive Technologies, Annual Review of Anthropology, 43:201-16.
Cite as:
Ojani, Chakad. “Ayo Wahlberg on ARTs and the routinization of sperm banking in China” AnthroTalking: Podcasts at Stockholm University’s Department of Social Anthropology, online September 1, 2015, http://www.socant.su.se/english/about-us/anthrotalking/ayo-wahlberg-on-arts-and-the-routinization-of-sperm-banking-in-china-1.245972